Watch your language, Shabbir.
When the Leahy bill was proposed, BTW was one of the organizations that came out in favor of it. Despite later substantial criticism and direct contacts, Mr. Safdar never defended his original position on this bill against these objections. I just saw something which may explain a bit about VTW's positions: VTW BillWatch #41 VTW BillWatch: A weekly newsletter tracking US Federal legislation affecting civil liberties. BillWatch is published at the end of every week as long as Congress is in session. (Congress is in session) BillWatch is produced and published by the Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org) (We're not the EFF :-) Issue #41, Date: Wed Apr 3 12:41:46 EST 1996 Do not remove this banner. See distribution instructions at the end. ___________________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction from the Editor (Steven Cherry) A tragic story about a wiretap (Shabbir J. Safdar) [stuff deleted] A TRAGIC STORY ABOUT A WIRETAP by Shabbir J. Safdar, VTW Board (New York, NY) This week most of VTW's staff attended the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Cambridge Massachusetts. I go to the conference every year to recharge my batteries, put names to faces, and enjoy the synergy that can only come with face-to-face dialogue. [stuff deleted] One, while wiretaps have probably been effective in other cases, they were not effective in this one. While we can grant law enforcement the benefit of the doubt in other cases, the existence of this one shows that a wiretap is not the "silver bullet" of law enforcement that we have been led to believe. Another observation that can be made is that this parallels the key escrow debate very closely. No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap. However what is being debated is the extent to which individuals and law enforcement can go to accomplish their duties. The Clinton Administration is striving for a world where everyone is forced to speak in a form of encryption that is easily decoded by law enforcement. The public and industry is striving for a world where they continue to have private conversations. [end of quote] Look, very carefully, at the last paragraph quoted above. Mr. Safdar says, "No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap." Huh? "FBI's right"???? Maybe this is a bit too basic for comprehension, but governments have no "rights" by any definition I've ever heard. "Rights" are the possessions of individuals, and occasionally individuals authorize governments to do things. But that does not mean that those governments possess a "right," especially not one on such a flimsy and transitory principles as wiretaps. Government certainly does not possess a "right" that supercedes the wishes of the public, or the Constitution. Safdar's note appears to pre-date my commentary where I pointed out that before 1968, wiretaps in America were illegal, but were done anyway simply because the cops wanted to. That doesn't sound like a "right," now, does it? If it were a "right" then it couldn't be given by law, or taken away by law. But nobody I've ever met claims that the cops aren't at least legally obligated to follow the law, whether or not they actually do. I don't like sloppy rhetoric. Even worse, claiming that "no reasonable person" would object to a non-existent "right" is truly outrageous. I know _plenty_ of people who would claim that the government, and by extension the FBI, possesses no "right" to do wiretaps (this position would be echoed by essentially every libertarian). I know many people who think that the government shouldn't be able to do wiretaps at all. VTW's header above claims "We're not the EFF," but it's hard to tell this from Mr. Safdar's propaganda. Now I understand why he didn't defend his position on the Leahy bill against criticism. VTW is sounding more and more like "EFF" all the time. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
On Tue, 9 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote:
Look, very carefully, at the last paragraph quoted above. Mr. Safdar says, "No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap."
That's right. Because no reasonable person thinks they can convince Congress or the Supremes otherwise. It isn't impossible, but energies are best spent elsewhere, like getting the Burns bill passed. Now none of us think wiretaps are a right and I presume Shabbir isn't much of a fan either or he wouldn't take the trouble of supporting something that makes wiretapping pointless (crypto). But we and he are not Washington and there lies all the difference. Do remember, Jim, that just 'cause most of this list is libertarian doesn't mean that the rest of the world is. I'm thankful that they can occasionally agree with us horsepeople, despite the hysteria. Be polite. Flames > /dev/null
s1113645@tesla.cc.uottawa.ca wrote:
Look, very carefully, at the last paragraph quoted above. Mr. Safdar says, "No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap."
That's right. Because no reasonable person thinks they can convince Congress or the Supremes otherwise. It isn't impossible, but energies are best spent elsewhere, like getting the Burns bill passed.
The choice of words was exceedlingly poor if that's what he really meant. Though I agree that it's unlikely any LEA will give up capabilities it's grown to imagine is has a "right" to have, I haven't stopped objecting. ______c_____________________________________________________________________ Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX * pain is inevitable m5@tivoli.com * m101@io.com * <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101> * suffering is optional
I promise myself to go back to lurking mode after this. On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, Mike McNally wrote:
The choice of words was exceedlingly poor if that's what he really meant. Though I agree that it's unlikely any LEA will give up capabilities it's grown to imagine is has a "right" to have, I haven't stopped objecting.
None of us have stopped objecting, except that now we have methods of preventing it on our own. One must remember that while the basic uses of crypto are not only reasonable and even essential in some cases, the full application leads to some very objectionable extremes (regulatory arbitrage, full anon digicash, easier drug sales, gutting of income taxes...). Now being one of those people who enthusiastically supports those extremes, I have to ask myself, how will we get there with the least interference? Now for one thing I wouldn't go around repeating the indignant "unconstitutional US government" threads on oh let's say talk.politics.libertarian (or .crypto) to the faces of legislators and the media. One doesn't get the ITAR repealled by telling congress that child porn and mafia conversations will become impossible to police and that the first amendment lets us shout "fire" in a theatre (though I think it does). I would leave all the carping and "four horsemen"ing to Louis Freeh. That makes him sound unreasonable. "Sounding" reasonable may be the best way for our crowd to keep legal the tools that will help us do "unreasonable" (though not from our perspective) things. So as long as Shabbir & co insert statements supportive of crypto deregulation, I really don't care what the rest of their speeches say, the rest is only packaging. (Though one must determine what's the packaging and what's the content.) (And if I were in his shoes, I probably wouldn't be saying anything different. I may be an anarchist, but I call myself a free-marketeer. Same thing but not the same-sounding thing, get it? Politics is unfortunately very backwards. As long as the civil lib'ers tow enough of our party line and get the job done, I'm happy with 'em.) I leave the judgement call up to you, Mike.
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