Clinton Clipper Legal Stuff: With regard to the fear that the issuance of your 'Klinton Key' will allow your favorite TLA to decrypt all conversations taped previous to the issuance of the warrant granting the key, there is precedence that disallows it. In US v. Plamondon 407 US 297, the Supreme Ct. held that *prior* judicial approval is a must for any evidence sought to be admitted. Therefore, while the precedence does not prevent them from actually decyphering your previous conversations, there is support that states it can not be used against you. In US v. Donovan (sorry lost the cite), the court held that the actual application must Identify *all* parties to be surveilled. Thus, the CIA cannot simply run a tape on you and expect to use it in court. It is important that everyone understand that none of these cases *prevent* any agency from *doing* the surveillance, and that probable cause is still an easy standard to meet in order to get the warrant. These cases merely tell you what would be admissable against anyone in court (i.e. this does not affect TLA (three letter acronyms) from blackmailing you or scaring the hell out of you. There is an enormous body of law out there on this topic and could use some guidance from the Cypherpunk elders for search topics. What's needed out there. Email me privately. TOTALLY aside from the Clipper topic: Just got the new WIRED. Excellent article. Groovy pix. Which one is Murdering Thug? 8^) mjmiski@macc.wisc.edu CyberLaw, etc. Matt
With regard to the fear that the issuance of your 'Klinton Key' will allow your favorite TLA to decrypt all conversations taped previous to the issuance of the warrant granting the key, there is precedence that disallows it. [citations deleted]
It is true that evidence from an illegal wiretap cannot be used as evidence in court; this is called the Exclusionary Rule. While the ER has been weakened in the last decade, it still basically holds. Unfortunately, that is not where the main threat lies. Exploratory wiretaps, illegally made and whose evidence is not directly admissible, provide information that may lead investigators to other information. This secondary information _is_ admissible. It would be a wonderful if the ER were strengthened so that all evidence which resulted from an illegal search _and all of its subsidiaries_ were conidered tainted. That battle, however, is a much longer one to fight. Even in that situation, though, the defense would have to prove that an unauthorized wiretap took place. Eric
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Matthew J Miszewski