-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Quick Summary of the Digital Telephony Hearings 18-3-94 I have a full recording of the first three sets of witnesses, but I wont type the whole transcript in because it should be available publicly as part of legislative history files in a few weeks. The below is a quick summary of the FBI case for the Wiretap Bill, I have omitted most of the testimony of the other witnesses. If there is enough interest I will work up a more full analysis. The Hearing: I was surprised by a few things. 1> The attendance. Most of the large telco corps. were represented and some thought the hearing important enough to hire messenger people to wait in line for them. In addition, there was a large law enforcement presence. The FBI was in full force, not surprisingly, as were the Prince George's County Police and members of the Attorney General's Office. All this was expected, what really surprised me was recognizing several members of non-domestic intelligence agencies. Typically the legislative process is observed by the intelligence communities at arms length. Such was not the case here. 2> The lack of any concerted support for the bill from the Chair. Despite efforts by Rep. Canady and Sen. Cohen (sp?) there was no real organized support for the draft bill except from the FBI. (Director Freeh) I was pleased to find the privacy issue raised several times, and usually there was deference to civil liberties rather than law enforcement. One of my favorite comments from Sen. Don Edwards (Former Prosecutor and FBI agent): "[Before 1968 when I was an agent] wiretapping was illegal. I seem to remember doing it anyway however." The FBI position was exposed as flexible with Freeh admitting that he did not want access to the kind of transactional data that EFF and civil libertarians have been complaining about. Of course he offered no real solution either, and it came out in later testimony that ferreting out this data was a distinct technical problem in and of itself. Freeh's position was basically this: New technology is preventing wiretapping. Wiretapping is only used when it can be shown nothing else will work. The FBI is not seeking an expansion of powers, but only trying to maintain the balance they "currently have." Wiretapping is typically used in the most important "life and death" cases. Without wiretapping crimes will take victims that otherwise would have been protected. Communications technology is essentially repealing the wiretap authority de facto. His statistics were interesting too. 993 Wiretaps in 1992, over 9000 pen register connections. 252 by the FBI, 340 Federal, 2/3 State and local authorities. 22,000 "dangerous felons" arrested in the last ten years. There was much concern from the chair as to why the current law was not enough. Freeh replied that the telco companies themselves had been the ones to forecast a gap in access for the FBI, and that the telco lawyers were advising the telcos that they did not have to comply with old legislation if access under the new systems was not possible. Freeh went on to say that the new law cannot compel that which is technologically impossible, and if the telco's don't install the equipment, then it is simply impossible. Freeh claims there were 91 cases he knew of in 1993 where the new equipment had interfered with the government's ability to wiretap. The chair was concerned that the legislation was basically halting development until the government could catch up. Freeh replied that without the legislation the telco's would not comply with law enforcement needs. "2000 companies will not sit down at a table at the same time and agree unilaterally to do exactly the same thing...." The chair asked if the FBI was asking for an industry standard, and will the legislature be stepping in and "impeding technological advances that would be there without our stepping in." Some hesitation from Freeh, then: "Yes." Will call forwarding and such calling features that might interfere with the enforcement of this bill be kept off the market because of this legislation? Freeh: "No, absolutely not. That is not the intent of the legislation, and I don't believe that is the effect." And encryption? "That's another problem... This legislation doesn't ask them to decrypt, it just tells them to give us the bits as they have it. If they're encrypted that's my problem." Chair: "That will be another hearing." [Laughter] Sen. Leahey: "I feel very fortunate to have all these things land in my subcommittee, otherwise I probably would have had nothing to do on weekends and evenings." [Laughter] [...] Freeh: "That's why we are here, the technology is running at such a pace that we could be out of the wiretap business in a short period of time." Are the companies going to pay for the 24 hour personal for each and every telephone company. Freeh: Yes, but your only talking about 900 wiretaps a year. The chair expresses concern that a small and budding telco with five employees might be unduly burdened by the payroll of 3 more employees round the clock. [...] On the $10,000 a day fine, "I think that's flexible." Freeh insisted this was only a benchmark and that the authority to impose at least those sanctions existed already. "But we don't use it because the phone companies have been so cooperative." On the cost of the Digital Telephony equipment. Freeh: "We estimate 300-500 million dollars. That could be off by 200 million, it could be off by 500 million." [Laughter] [...] "What I do know is that the World Trade Center [bombing] cost upwards of 5 billion dollars." The chair cites the Time survey with the 66% prefer privacy to wiretapping statistic. Sen. Leahey expressed concern over the fact that sanctions do not take into account good faith. Instead the FBI dictates terms, and if the carrier is unable to comply, despite whatever efforts, the sanctions are leveled. The chair questions that if common carriers did not include small cable companies getting into the local telephone business, wasn't there an economic regulation at work? Freeh responded by noting the last bill was rejected because it was too broad, and this one is intended to be more narrow. Leahey dismissed the witness and commented that the technological advances in the United States were one of the major reasons the Unites States had remained a world leader. - -uni- (Dark) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLYoQdRibHbaiMfO5AQEC6wP/aAEgE3ewQwi2cVknAcSLeDwJl+96Hnbf zEEIfufbcv0T7E367dYUHe+PdavO5Jms9xcx6Hw7dge7LDCz7yxUzPCqwvEznILy BogcbY+bs17Z8UDkTLuR63IqXlP3moZEVrbad7cybXLqpjNzmWBlrDcHkvvEAi7f Dw20ZtlZGcY= =1C9z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----