Bush's anti-terror bill appears not to include crypto restrictions
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46953,00.html Bush Bill Rewrites Spy Laws By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com) 2:00 a.m. Sep. 19, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration will ask for more power to eavesdrop on phone calls, the Internet and voicemail messages, according to an outline of a bill obtained by Wired News. In response to last week's catastrophic terrorist attacks, President Bush plans to ask Congress to approve far-reaching legislation that rewrites U.S. laws dealing with electronic surveillance, immigration and support for terrorists. "We will call upon the Congress of the United States to enact these important anti-terrorism measures this week," Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday. "We need these tools to fight the terrorism threat which exists in the United States, and we must meet that growing threat." According to the two-page outline -- which lacks key details and could change before it's sent to Capitol Hill -- police would be able to conduct more wiretaps and use the Carnivore surveillance system in more situations without court orders. That section of the bill appears to mirror an amendment the Senate approved last Thursday evening. No restrictions on encryption products, a prospect feared by some civil libertarians, appear in the outline. The bill hands prosecutors a courtroom edge, saying that accused terrorists should stay in jail by default, that detention of suspected terrorists is "mandatory," and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will have more authority to kick immigrants suspected of being terrorists out of the United States. [...]
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Declan McCullagh