Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attacks
Aimee Farr
aimee.farr at pobox.com
Thu Sep 13 14:17:15 PDT 2001
Amateur radio was the first casualty after Pearl Harbor. Some criticize the
action now, of course.
~Aimee
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cypherpunks at lne.com [mailto:owner-cypherpunks at lne.com]On
> Behalf Of Declan McCullagh
> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 3:59 PM
> To: cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attacks
>
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46816,00.html
>
> Congress Mulls Stiff Crypto Laws
> By Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
> 1:45 p.m. Sep. 13, 2001 PDT
>
> WASHINGTON -- The encryption wars have begun.
>
> For nearly a decade, privacy mavens have been worrying that a
> terrorist attack could prompt Congress to ban
> communications-scrambling products that frustrate both police wiretaps
> and U.S. intelligence agencies.
>
> Tuesday's catastrophe, which shed more blood on American soil than any
> event since the Civil War, appears to have started that process.
>
> Some politicians and defense hawks are warning that extremists such as
> Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials say is a crypto-aficionado and the
> top suspect in Tuesday's attacks, enjoy unfettered access to
> privacy-protecting software and hardware that render their
> communications unintelligible to eavesdroppers.
>
> In a floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire)
> called for a global prohibition on encryption products without
> backdoors for government surveillance.
>
> "This is something that we need international cooperation on and we
> need to have movement on in order to get the information that allows
> us to anticipate and prevent what occurred in New York and in
> Washington," Gregg said, according to a copy of his remarks that an
> aide provided.
>
> President Clinton appointed an ambassador-rank official, David Aaron,
> to try this approach, but eventually the administration abandoned the
> project.
>
> Gregg said encryption makers "have as much at risk as we have at risk
> as a nation, and they should understand that as a matter of
> citizenship, they have an obligation" to include decryption methods
> for government agents. Gregg, who previously headed the appropriations
> committee overseeing the Justice Department, said that such access
> would only take place with "court oversight."
>
> [...]
>
> Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, a hawkish think tank
> that has won accolades from all recent Republican presidents, says
> that this week's terrorist attacks demonstrate the government must be
> able to penetrate communications it intercepts.
>
> "I'm certainly of the view that we need to let the U.S. government
> have access to encrypted material under appropriate circumstances and
> regulations," says Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under
> President Reagan.
>
> [...]
>
>
>
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