http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/ Crypto Switch? By Brock N. Meeks Washington, DC, 26 June 1996 Advocates for the use of encryption free of government mandates packed a Senate hearing room to overflowing today in support of a pro-encryption bill. But as no detractors were asked to testify at the hearing, this was all preaching to the crypto choir. What even the preachers and choir are unaware of, however, is that a senior White House official is quietly trying to turn the administration away from its lock-step allegiance to the FBI and National Security Agency rhetoric of "strong crypto bad; key escrow good." This official told Dispatch: "I'm hoping to develop a [consensus movement] inside the administration that will stand up to some of the [law enforcement and intelligence agency] interests" on encryption. "We haven't found the right encryption policy yet," the official noted. Here, for the first time, there's real hope that the administration can be swayed from its wholesale support for the key-escrow encryption scheme. "The government moves on its own," the White House source said. There are "shifting sands on things ... policies change," and there's the "potential that the administration's position will change over time." So what we have, of course, is the classic Washington public-private squeeze play: Push an issue in public, and push even harder in private. Today, the Senate's newest wired member and the chairman of the Senate Science Subcommittee hearing, Conrad Burns (R-Montana), welcomed testimony from crypto experts in support of his previously introduced pro-encryption bill, the Commerce Online in the Digital Era Act of 1996, dubbed "Pro-CODE." Burns called the hearing a historic event in that it was the first time a Senate hearing had been wired to the Net. Several senators knocked the White House for supporting encryption policies that essentially hogtie US businesses, locking them out of a lucrative international market. Others made reference to potential dangers of empowering government agencies, such as the FBI, with the ready ability to snoop on the private speech of citizens. Senator John Ashcroft (R-Missouri) noted how the "events of the this last week or two" - namely, the political flap resulting from the White House inspection of FBI background files - "brings into sharp focus" the need to assure Americans that their private speech won't be compromised. "I want to be sure we don't forfeit what it means to be an American citizen," Ashcroft said. Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, put a finer point on the issue: "We don't want the Internet to become the ultimate FBI background file on everyone." Although the panelists admitted that law enforcement has a legitimate concern about criminals being able to use encryption techniques to subvert investigations, they also noted that such concerns had to be balanced with constitutional rights. Marc Rotenberg, executive director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, responding to a question about whether "secret speech" should be given the same protection as public speech, said that there's no doubt that encrypted speech should be awarded the same protection as public speech. However, Rotenburg cautioned, "the courts have to be educated first," as they were during the recent case in which the Communications Decency Act was deemed unconstitutional. And so went the show. No fireworks; then again, none were expected. And while the hearing finally allowed the pro-crypto camp a chance to spout off to Congress, it was really only a steppingstone to future efforts. The reason? Even the hard-core crypto advocates privately admit that this legislation doesn't have a prayer of passing, given a cramped legislative calendar and election-year rhetoric. ###