[CTRL] Furor rising over PC wiretap plan

[Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard]

 -Caveat Lector-

Saturday August 21 12:20 PM EDT


Furor rising over PC wiretap plan
Maria Seminerio, ZDNet

A U.S. Department of Justice proposal to make it easier for police to break
into homes and access computers is drawing a furious reaction from civil
libertarians and high-tech industry trade groups.
The draft legislation, for which the DOJ hopes to find a sponsor in
Congress, is dubbed the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act. The law would
make it easier for law enforcement officials to obtain from judges a
now-rarely-used authorization to break into a suspect's home and plant a
hidden listening device.

But in this case, the computer equivalent of the "listening device" is the
authorization for investigators to disable data-scrambling encryption
programs on PCs. (In order to actually copy data from the computer, police
would still need a separate warrant from a judge.)

"(The proposal) strikes at the heart of the Bill of Rights," said David
Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Noting that judges in all federal and state courts combined only issued 50
warrants for so-called "surreptitious physical entries" last year, Sobel
said extending such authorization to cases involving computer files "would
make police break-ins far more common than they are now."

'Booby-trap your computer'
The proposal would "basically allow investigators to booby-trap your
computer ahead of time" by disabling encryption, he said.

The proposal was most likely spurred by the frustration investigators have
experienced when finding encrypted data on computers used by suspected drug
dealers and other criminals, he added.

DOJ officials did not respond to requests for interviews Friday. But in a
letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Acting Asst. Attorney General Jon
Jennings said the new law would aid investigators when information needs to
be deciphered "in a timely manner."

"While under existing law, law enforcement is provided with different means
to collect evidence of illegal activity, these means are rendered wholly
insufficient when encryption is used," wrote Jennings in the letter.

"In the context of law enforcement operations, stopping a terrorist attack
or seeking to recover a kidnapped child, time is of the essence and may mean
the difference between success and catastrophic failure.

"While existing means of obtaining evidence would remain applicable in a
fully-encrypted world, the failure to provide law enforcement with the
necessary ability to obtain the plain-text version of the evidence makes
existing authorities useless," he wrote.

EPIC: Congress will go 'ballistic'
Noting that the proposal would need to find a sponsor in Congress and then
be passed into law before it could take effect, EPIC's Sobel said it could
encounter resistance by lawmakers.

"I think people in Congress are going to go ballistic over this,
particularly since it's coming right on the heels of the FIDNET"
controversy, he said. FIDNET -- the controversial proposal to monitor
government and some private networks for hacking activity -- came to light
earlier this summer and remains in limbo.

Barry Steinhardt, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that
the Federal Bureau of Investigation has often misused its powers in the
past, and could do so again under the DOJ proposal.

"There's every reason to believe they're not just going to look at the Mob
using the powers sought under the proposal," Steinhardt said. "They'll use
this power to interfere with protected speech."

Also condemning the plan were the Computer and Communications Industry
Association, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Americans for
Computer Privacy.

Clinton admin: Big brother?
The plan is "an unprecedented attempt by the Clinton administration to
impose 'big brother' monitoring powers over American citizens," ACP
officials said in a statement. "The fact is that current laws provide law
enforcement broad powers to obtain information."

"This is another attempt by law enforcement to do an end-run (around
encryption)," said Ed Black, president of the CCIA. "It offers a real
temptation for investigators to overreach and overextend" the current limits
on searches and seizures, he said.

"Anybody's vulnerable," Black added. "(This) resembles something the KGB
would propose."

--
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want to see the fairies dance in the moonlight, who can believe that
faith can move mountains, can follow the thread on the pages of this
book. It is a fragile thread; it cannot bear the weight of facts and
dates"
    -Kate Seredy, "The White Stag"
ICQ: 9815080   Operator Taliesin_2 of #SacredNemeton on IRC PaganPaths

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