Sovreign Right of Lawful Access

[jim bell]

At 10:11 PM 1/28/97 -0600, Mike McNally wrote:
>Somebody wrote:
>> 
>> This morning at the RSA keynote, David Aaron, the US Crypto 
>> ambassador quoted the "Sovreign Right of Lawful Access" as
>> something that goverments were determined to preserve.
>
>Speaking as a private indiwidual, and not as a drone in the employ
>of IBM (don't get me started on the "but wait, key recovery *isn't*
>the same as key escrow" hoo-ha), that dude scared the piss out of
>me.


I think that terminology is odd. They're getting desperate.  "Soverign Right 
of Lawful Access" doesn't state HOW DIFFICULT that "access" is to be.  
Interpreted broadly, that would outlaw any encryption even if it only 
impeded that access a tiny bit!

Or under an alternative interpretation, the mere fact that it is 
hypothetically possible to decrypt a message means that nothing (other than 
mathematical improbability) stands in the way of doing the decrypt.


Also, it didn't say SECRET ACCESS, although experience tells us that they 
(the thugs) probably assume this.  I've long pointed out that ordinary 
search warrants require informing people who are being searched, even if 
they're not home and assuming the thugs didn't trash the place the way they 
frequently like to.  

I see no reason to believe that the advent of telephone technology in the 
late 1800's should have retroactively re-written the US Constitution to make 
secret searches okay.  Technically, the Bill of Rights prohibits 
"unreasonable searches and siezures," and doesn't specifically mention the 
secrecy issue, but since (am I correct in this, Real Lawyers <tm>?) the 
practice up until that time required people searched to be informed of 
searches, a change in policy that wiretaps could be secret sounds more like 
taking advantage of a technological windfall, not "discovering" that the 
Constitution allowed something that had always before been prohibited.


Jim Bell
jimbell at pacifier.com