[free-sklyarov] Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attacks (fwd)

[Jay Sulzberger]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:59:26 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
To: cryptography at wasabisystems.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
    subcommittee 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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