DirFBI: Danger of Encryption
The New York Times, July 12, 1998: Danger of Encryption To the Editor: Re "Privacy in the Digital Age" (editorial, July 6): No law enforcement agency is "trying hard to prevent the growing use of encryption." But encryption represents a serious public safety concern. We are open to any solution that recognizes that it is the ability to collect electronic evidence that has allowed us to prevent airliners from being bombed and to put major drug dealers behind bars. Key escrow is one possible solution. There are others, and certainly a statutory scheme can be devised that will all but eliminate any risk of abuse by law enforcement. But if we do not allow for court-ordered access, for the first time in the history of this country a court order for seizure of evidence will be an absolute nullity. We want to work with industry on a real solution, recognizing that those who acquire encryption over the Internet or from abroad naively make assumptions about the security it affords. We are not fighting encryption, but we know what will happen if technology cannot be made to work for law enforcement as it works for criminals and terrorists. Louis J. FREEH Dir., Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington, July 10,1998
On Sun, 12 Jul 1998, John Young wrote:
The New York Times, July 12, 1998:
[...]
This is an interesting claim. Surely it's only been in this century that law enforcement has ever had the kind of systematic access to communication that presently does. I'd say Louis Freeh is lacking in the history department if he really believes that Americans have never possessed as much privacy as strong crypto offers. I'd also say he's missed a few history classes if he thinks that the world will blow up without him listening in. -Xcott
Actually, his statement was interesting and a masterpiece. While it is true that the access to communications is recent, the court orders for evidence have been around. What he "failed to mention" was that they have access currently which is unheard of in the past and that it is only that slice of life that would have "absolute nullity". Gee, don't they teach Propoganda 101 anymore? PHM Xcott Craver wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <35AA4A36.1EB56250@acm.org>, on 07/13/98 at 10:56 AM, "Paul H. Merrill" <paulmerrill@acm.org> said:
Gee, don't they teach Propoganda 101 anymore?
Sure they do, it's part of the on the job training for all government employees. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgp.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: Dos: Venerable. Windows: Vulnerable. OS/2: Viable. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a-sha1 Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNaonpY9Co1n+aLhhAQEgMAQAy+xSgY6m3cAS4M3ccqqNgGYA4uuSBNE6 Ik4SzG+GW2I0whBcqcS4hICPCgTKIMqDFvZ6dL2MLnV2HeFnpgwhVyAETa/Sd7rj CwEDiUqw38rUzUmahjFR1VWBqe90SjWBklLSMlcwIoigreV5QusutU4izadnmD0e jKO+VzFu15U= =P8VS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (4)
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John Young
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Paul H. Merrill
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William H. Geiger III
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Xcott Craver