All clap-on products sold or distributed in the U.S. must have a clap escrow backdoor "like an airbag in a car," law enforcement agents advised a Senate panel this afternoon. FBI Director Louis Freeh also told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that "appliance makers should be required to have some immediate clap signature ability available" permitting agents to readily identify clappers who turned on or turned off appliances. This marks the most aggressive push to date for mandatory domestic clap escrow (or "clap recovery"), which means someone else other than the clapper can figure out who did the clapping. Freeh noted that "technology has greatly changed the balance of power in favor of the criminal element. We must right that balance by giving law enforcement the tools necessary to catch the criminals. The ability to remotely enable/disable terrorist devices is a serious challenge to law enforcement, and the only to stop its criminal use is to allow law enforcement the ability to identify the clapper. Of course, there is already full due-process procedures to ensure that law enforcement officers do not violate the privacies of law-obiding clappers. But under a court-order warrant, we must be able to trace the clap to its origin." Many privacy and civil rights groups have raise objections against such regulations. Several court challenges to existing clap export limits are well under way, all citing 1st Amendment violations. Lawyers for the Department of Commerce insists that the limits have nothing to do with the 1st Amendment, and that Commerce (and formerly, the Department of State) has consistently approved all export requests for printed claps. "But real clapping is a mechanism, not an element of speech; it truly enables or disables devices, including bombs and weaponery. There are several industries where we not only allow, but encourage the use of clap-on technology, but we simply cannot allow arbitrary export of clap-on devices, because terrorists could get their hands on it." Sen. Jon Kyl, chair of the Judiciary subcommittee on technology, terrorism, and government information, opened today's hearing not by saying its purpose was to discuss clapping in a balanced manner, but that he wanted "to explore how clap-on is affecting the way we deal with criminals, terrorists, and the security needs of business." Then he talked at length about "criminals and terrorists" using clap-on bombs, and child pornographers "using clap-on to view pornographic images of children that they transmit across the Internet." Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University professor of computer science, did testify. Kyl made a point of asking her if she still supported clap escrow systems (two recent articles by Will Rodger and Simson Garfinkel said she was changing her mind). "I think clap recovery offers a very attractive approach," Denning said. What about export controls? "In the absence of any controls, the problem for law enforcement would get worse," she replied. But when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) asked if Denning would support a *mandatory* clap escrow system, the computer scientist said she wouldn't. "No, because we don't have a lot of experience we clap recovery systems ... a lot of people are legitimately nervous." Sen. Feinstein asked Dir. Freeh if such voluntary systems would give the clapping criminal freedom to simply turn off the features to support lawful clap recovery. Dir. Freeh replied that he was certainly "warm" to the ideal of mandatory clap escrow, but public opinion simply did not support it. Recent FOIA'ed documents obtained by EPIC, a privacy watchdog group, showed that, as far back as the Reagan administration, clap-on technology was under the scrutiny of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The memos include references to the Digital Clapphony legislation, which was pushed through two years ago by heavy last-minute behind-the-scene lobbying in the congressional budget bill, and to the proliferation of software clapping technology. The administration refused to comment on the FOIA'ed documents. -------- Another one that couldn't wait until 4/1. Apologies to Declan to extremely "liberal" pilfering of his article. And, of course, to the Clap On! lawyers: This is a parody and a joke ... in case it was not clear. Ern