---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:52:39 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: SF Chronicle on Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "Feinstein Offline" **** Feinstein Offline Her law-and-order stance irks tech industry Jon Swartz, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, February 19, 1998 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/02/19... Despite Silicon Valley's growing economic and political clout, a chorus of high-tech executives have complained that U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein is unresponsive and, at times, hostile to their interests -- especially when it comes to the Internet. ``She is in the forefront of senators voting against the Internet,'' said Jerry Berman, executive director of the liberal Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. ``On a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of being on the side of Internet freedom, she gets a 1.'' Feinstein voted in favor of bills banning the distribution of bomb-making instructions, pornography and personal information over the Internet. She wants to impose fines and jail terms for people who gamble online. She supports strict export controls on encrypted software. And she has joined the move to ban laptop computers on the Senate floor. ``Isn't it ironic that the senator from California and the former mayor of San Francisco appears to be running against the Internet?'' said Stanton McCandlish, program director at The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil libertarian organization in San Francisco. David Sobel, legal counsel at the nonpartisan Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said Feinstein is ``perceived to be less supportive of the Internet and the computer industry than one would expect.'' Feinstein -- a rumored vice presidential candidate in 2000 -- dismisses the criticism as ``nonsense'' and says her record is ``replete'' with technology-friendly legisla tion in securities litigation reform, R&D tax credits and education. In September 1996, Feinstein was one of the few Democrats to override President Clinton's veto of the securities-litigation reform legislation that the high-tech industry desperately wanted. She also pushed hard for the permanent extension of R&D tax credits in both the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and the 1996 Small Business Job Protection Act. Both bills were passed into law. But Feinstein's strong law enforcement stance works ``to the detriment'' of the Internet, Sobel said. ``She accepts, without question, law enforcement's claims about the dangers of the Internet.'' In Feinstein's view, ``This whole cyberspace is moving so fast that one has to be sure that kids are protected,'' she said. ``I'm concerned when kids blow themselves up by building bombs (they learned to make) over the Internet, when Social Security card numbers are made available online and when pedophiles punch up children's names. There is a philosophy that anything goes. ``I recognize the primacy of the First Amendment,'' she added. ``But privacy goes two ways. I think prudent laws to protect children may well be necessary. There should be a balance.'' Feinstein's most controversial stand is on encryption, the technology that allows digital information to be scrambled and sent securely over the Internet. Strong encryption is used within the United States to protect the transmission of credit-card numbers, trade secrets and other confidential information. But national security laws stretching back to the Cold War prohibit the export of software with strong encryption. Law enforcement officials want to be able to crack the code in case it's used by terrorists, drug traffickers, economic saboteurs or others plotting against the United States. High-tech companies say they want to be able to export software with strong encryption because they're losing billions of dollars in potential sales to foreign competitors who aren't subject to the same restrictions. A bill called the Security and Freedom Through Encryption (SAFE) Act, co-sponsored by Representative Anna Eshoo, D-Atherton, would relax export controls. But a rival bill co-written by Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Bob Kerry, D- Neb., titled the Secure Public Network Act would go the other way and impose controls on use of encrypted software domestically. Feinstein favors the latter bill but doesn't think it goes far enough. She thinks anyone who uses encrypted software should make a key to unlock their code available to law enforcement authorities. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on encrypted software last fall, Feinstein said that nothing short of mandatory domestic control of encrypted software would be acceptable. She added that no high-tech CEO had contacted her about the issue. Feinstein's comments caused a furor. A January 15 letter from 26 high-tech executives sent exclusively to Feinstein stated: ``We were disappointed by your comments. . .implying that California companies are ambivalent regarding your position on encryption policy. ``California companies and industries nationwide are united in opposition to domestic and export controls,'' the letter stated. It closed with the names of chief executives from Netscape Communications, America Online, Pacific Bell, 3Com, Sun Microsystems, Autodesk, Adobe Systems, RSA Data Security and others. ``I was nothing short of shocked,'' said RSA Data Security CEO Jim Bidzos. ``For someone to take such an extreme position on such an important issue without touching base with her constituency is unbelievable.'' Explaining her position in an interview, Feinstein said, ``When a particular situation involves public safety, there should be some means for recovery of encrypted information by law enforcement that falls within the strict confines of due process of law. ``If industry can come up with a way to provide the same law enforcement access without a mandatory key-recovery system, I would support it,'' she said. [...]