mostly old news for the readers here, but relevant to the list. this was found at the net editors off of mci's webpage.

The Assault on Private Encryption

by Brock N. Meeks

Washington, DC -- The other shoe has dropped now, several times.

The political backlash and emotional fallout of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City still lingers here. FBI Director Louis Freeh is using that event as a lever to wage a kind of private war against the use of private encryption schemes.

According to Administration sources, several different proposals are now being discussed on how the government might go about implementing a policy of government mandated, government "certified" encryption. The most hardline of these proposals would outlaw your ability to choose an encryption scheme which the government couldn't break, under the authority of a court order.

Freeh has left no doubts that his next target -- after successfully getting Congress to pass the $500 million Digital Telephony Bill, which gives law enforcement agencies an "easy access" method of eavesdropping on telephone conversations-- his is private encryption.

During an appropriations hearing in May, Freeh told a congressional panel: "[W]e're in favor of strong encryption, robust encryption. The country needs it, industry needs it. We just want to make sure we have a trap door and key under some judge's authority where we can get there if somebody is planning a crime."

That means an end any non-government approved encryption technology that doesn't have some means of providing the Feds with it's treasured "back door." Under this scheme, for example, the widely-used Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program would be, essentially, illegal to own or at least, illegal for a U.S. citizen to use inside U.S. borders.

Private encryption schemes allow a person to scramble an electronic message so that, if intercepted by an unintended party, it is rendered unreadable. These scrambling programs are useful to a wide range of people and interests, including researchers that want to keep their proprietary breakthroughs safe from prying eyes to corporations sending trade secrets to a distant office across the Net to ordinary folks sending a steamy love letter to a lover.

But these same encryption programs are being used by "terrorists and international drug traffickers," as well, claims FBI Director Freeh, and that makes private encryption schemes a threat to national security.

Freeh's crusade against encryption is being backed by been joined the Justice Department, with the gleeful back alley goading of the nation's top spook group, the National Security Agency.

To meet the "challenges of terrorism," Freeh said, several things must be done, among them, deal with "encryption capabilities available to criminals and terrorists" because such technology endangers "the future usefulness of court-authorized wiretaps. This problem must be resolved."

While Freeh has used the Oklahoma City bombing as convenient "news hook" to again make a pitch to "resolve" the private encryption "problem," the Director was basically reading from a dog-eared script. Within the last several months he has repeatedly testified publicly before Congress about the "evils" of encryption.

On March 30 the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime he said:

"Even though access is all but assured [by the passage of the Digital Wiretap Act] an even more difficult problem with court-authorized wiretaps looms. Powerful encryption is becoming commonplace. The drug cartels are buying sophisticated communications equipment.... This, as much as any issue, jeopardizes the public safety and national security of this country. Drug cartels, terrorists, and kidnappers will use telephones and other communications media with impunity knowing that their conversations are immune from our most valued investigative technique."

Then during a May 3 appearance before the same Committee, Freeh said: "Encryption capabilities available to criminals and terrorists, both now and in days to come, must be dealt with promptly. We will not have an effective counterterrorism strategy if we do not solve the problem of encryption."

But there's nothing to be alarmed at here, according to Freeh. Just because he's asking the Congress and the White House to strip you of the right to choose how you scramble your messages, using a program that the government doesn't hold all the keys too, doesn't mean that the Director isn't a sensitive guy or that he has suddenly taken a liking to wearing jackboots.

Freeh steadfastly maintains all these new powers he's asking for are simply "tools" and "not new authorities." These new powers are "well within the Constitution," Freeh told Congress.

Freeh hasn't publicly outlined just how he proposes to "resolve" the "encryption problem." However, according to an FBI source, several plans are in the works. The source refused to detail any specific plan, but added: "Let's just say everything is on the table." Does that include outlawing private encryption schemes? "I said 'everything,'" the source said.

The encryption debate has been raging for years. Two years ago the Clinton Administration unveiled a new policy in which it proposed to flood the market with its own home-grown encryption devices -- a product of the National Security Agency -- called the "Clipper Chip."

The Clipper is based on a "key-escrow" system. Two government agencies would hold the keys "in escrow", which are unique to each chip, in a kind of "data vault." Any time the FBI-- or your local sheriff -- wanted to tap your phone conversations, they would have to ask a judge to give the two government agencies to turn over the keys to you Clipper chip. With those keys, the FBI could then unscramble any of your conversations at will.

That policy raised a huge firestorm of controversy and the Clipper sunk from sight, down, but not out. The intent of the White House, acting as a front man for the NSA and other intelligence agencies along with the FBI, was to have Americans adopt Clipper voluntarily