Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: [an 25970] at [anon.penet.fi] (Canadian Remailer)
Subject: FBI CALLS FOR ENCRYPTION BAN!
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 18:06:36 UTC
	id AA19720; Sun, 23 Oct 94 11:48:55 -0700
	id AA26954; Sun, 23 Oct 94 20:06:37 +0200

[Did anyone hear me say, "I TOLD YOU SO!" about this?  Seems Clinton's
appointees really _are_ required to read and enjoy Orwell after all.]
================
Written by Brock Meeks, and distributed through his CyberWire Dispatch.
This article is available by:
        http://cyberwerks.com:70/0h/cyberwire/cwd/cwd.94.10.20.html
Other articles by Brock can be found at:
        http://cyberwerks.com:70/0h/cyberwire/cwd/
================
 Washington, DC -- If private encryption schemes interfere with
 the FBI's ability to wiretap, they could be outlawed, according
 to recent comments made by the agency's Director Louis Freeh.
  
 Freeh told attendees here at the recent conference on Global
 Cryptography that if the Administration's Escrowed Encryption
 System, otherwise known as the Clipper Chip, failed to gain
 acceptance, giving way to private encryption technologies, he would
 have no choice but to press Congress to pass legislation that
 provided law enforcement access to *all* encrypted
 communications.
  
 If, after having pushed Digital Telephony through Congress (which
 hadn't yet happened when Freeh spoke at this conference), all the
 Bureau ended up with during wiretaps were the scratchy hiss of
 digital one's and zeros being hurled back and forth, Freeh made it
 clear that he would seek a congressional mandate to solve the
 problem.
  
 In other words:  Roll your own coded communications;  go to jail.
  
 Freeh's comments, made during a question and answer session at the
 conference, are the first public statements made by an
 Administration official hinting at a future governmental policy
 that could result in the banning of non-governmental, unbreakable
 encryption methods.
  
 Freeh's remarks were first reported on the WELL by MacWorld writer
 and author Steven Levy.  The FBI confirmed those
 statements to Dispatch.
  
 The Administration, however, continues to state that it has no
 plans to outlaw or place any restrictions on private encryption
 methods.
  
 A White House official said there are "absolutely no plans" on the
 table to regulate domestic encryption "at the present time." He
 wouldn't comment, however, as to whether the Administration would
 back an FBI attempt for such legislation.  "Freeh doesn't seem to
 need a lot of White House support," to get things done, the
 official said.
  
 FBI sources said any moves to approach Congress about regulating
 private encryption are "so far out there" time wise, that the
 subject "doesn't merit much ink," as one FBI source put it. "We've
 got to make sure the telcos rig up their current networks according
 to the new [digital wiretap] law before we go worrying about
 private encryption stuff," he said.
  
 An FBI spokesman confirmed Freeh's position that the Bureau would
 aggressively seek to maintain what the spokesman called "law and
 order objectives."  If that meant getting laws passed so that the
 Bureau's "authorized wiretap activities" couldn't be thwarted by
 "criminal elements using non-governmental" encryption schemes,
 "then that's what he [Freeh] would do," the spokesman said.
  
 When the Administration went public with its Clipper Chip policy,
 it stressed that the program would be mandatory.  Many civil
 liberties groups wondered out loud how long it would be before
 private encryption was banned altogether.  The White House, anxious
 for the public to buy into its one-trick pony the Clipper Chip,
 said that wouldn't happen.
  
 But the Administration hedged its bet.
  
 Buried in the background briefing papers of the original Clipper
 announcement, is a statement that the White House doesn't
 consider the public's right to use private encryption methods are
 protected anywhere in the Constitution.G
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