-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May wrote:

Will a "must encrypt to government key" provision pass constitutional muster? I don't think so.

So long as the First and Fourth (and the Fifth may apply, too) Amendments remain in force, compelling a person to speak in certain ways and monitoring what he says privately without a proper court order is unconstitutional.

At least the convoluted stuff in Clipper about "LEAF" fields, splitting of keys between agencies, proper court orders, etc., had the "fig LEAF" of protecting some basic constitutional rights. A straight "encrypt to the government's key" is too crude to withstand any court scrutiny.

In practice it could be implemented as "any government key" where there are, perhaps, a few thousand to choose from. Each key is administered by a small group of "trusted" bureaucrats. No one person need control the secret key. There are key splitting systems so that the key is active only when N number of people insert their cards into a secure box, for instance. And, of course, we will be told that the "trusted" bureaucrats will only collude to decode messages when a warrant has been issued. This would be enough to eliminate most of the concerns regarding warrantless searches for any court which was more sympathetic to GAK than the Constitution. As for free speech issues, if certain thoughts and images are illegal, such as those deemed to be "pornographic", it shouldn't be much harder to claim that a bunch of bits of the wrong form is actually a technology issue and unrelated to free speech. The same goes for source code. There are all sorts of rules about what kind of "technical data" may be exported which are certainly far away from the original Constitutional vision. Hopefully, the courts will protect the Constitution if the other two branches are unwilling to do so. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNFEnGpaWtjSmRH/5AQFWXgf+Km1k8RW4qmipiMxu1yjDYRq5TOkdyk6H o9PJWaRKCMmBzMRSq7efdBpGxHIW7OClwr77mOKPhXGqNz+OTfhkF7RiVnMUTEVG 4lzRZyh1YgEtxGh+vNz1JgUHhUVMb6Ol/Qj8/FtiG4+/1IALPhzlQxASNtDqGFMf L1kPkHGgKbi0NrDKULRtzO5+tsiuF41BKrE483pcPUjDltUjHlZmMjPwFGy3sGjS mzQlQUCR6OJ7zOm3s7pXxdOu+q8CWD0OQeF+VdnlhPg+YFra1ZE7ORCYDAP6vk54 C68c7r5ZWoFS8RTKSWdm69LmXYL3GLXose4l2xfOHY0EPnsvyYXtCw== =6f4R -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----