Date: Sun, 01 Mar 1998 14:12:53 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Bob Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Canadian Cyber Censorship
Canadian gov't seeks public input on new crypto policy.
"...such a requirement would give them unprecedented powers
of censorship." Andrew Oram [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 05:38:59 -0800 (PST)
From: MichaelP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: cr> Canadian gov't seeks public input on new crypto policy (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 01:00:20 -0800 (PST)
From: Cyber Rights <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
(Introduction from moderator: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/crypto
contains the new cryptography policy recommended by the Canadian
government. The author also points interested readers to
http://www.newsguy.com/~mayday/--Andy)
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Canadian gov't seeks public input on new crypto policy
Newsgroups: can.legal,can.infohighway,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,
talk.politics.crypto,alt.privacy
Date: 25 Feb 1998 10:45:42 GMT
Here's the text of one reply that has been made to the guidelines
(from a U.S. citizen):
To: Helen McDonald
Task Force on Electronic Commerce
Industry Canada
February 1998
As a citizen of the U.S., I am writing in response to the Industry
Canada discussion paper on cryptography because I feel that the U.S.
government is attempting to coerce Canada into accepting oppressive
measures which lack the support of the American people. Citing
"international commitments", your report states that "The policy
challenge is to find solutions that will limit criminal misuse without
interfering with legitimate business, institutional or individual
interests". Less diplomatically, the policy challenge is for Canadian
legislators to do what they are told by the NSA and GCHQ, while arousing
as little public protest as possible. My goal is to persuade you that
the people of the U.S. should be your allies for the freedom of speech,
rather than your tormentors, and that together, we must hold a line
against spies who are greedy to intercept and control our communications
for the basest motives.
The "criminal misuse" cited by law enforcement consists of a series of
bogeymen who will not be deterred by surveillance of communications.
Pedophiles will not be prevented from preying upon children simply
through the knowledge that it is unsafe to send digital pictures over
the Internet; terrorists have little need for communications on-line,
and could readily prearrange signals or use obfuscating terms. If
anything, surveillance will embolden the criminals, by convincing
pedophiles that they need to make their own pictures instead of
downloading them; and by convincing terrorists that no peaceful
alternative to violence can escape the censors' prosecutions. What is
certain is that any infringement upon encryption, even that which
currently exists, will provide opportunities for real criminals to wreak
havoc on and off line.
What we can predict with great certainty is that the "ECHELON" grouping
of surveillance agencies from mostly English-speaking countries will
continue to use any surveillance tool available to them for their own
political ends; and that criminals from those agencies will continue to
sell information to the highest bidder or use it for their own business
purposes. If a system prevails where any corporation is at risk of
having all of its confidential dealings given to a competitor, it will
become impossible for any company to compete without some informal
association with an espionage agency. The situation in the U.S.,
Canada, England, and Australia will be no better than it is in Indonesia
today! Nor will the position of political organizations be any better,
especially considering how frequently charges of spies meddling in the
affairs of "allied" countries have already become.
As bad as "mandatory key escrow" is, it is as nothing beside the policy
that will certainly follow after: MANDATORY mandatory key escrow.
Citing the risks of hackers and (unaffiliated) snoops, we can expect the
U.S. and Chinese governments to initiate a call for such a requirement
as soon as they have consolidated the key escrow infrastructure, because
such a requirement would give them unprecedented powers of censorship.
If the technical specifications of the network demand that every packet
be encrypted with a government-issued key, a person who does not have
such a key will not be allowed to use the on-line networks at all! This
would cut him off from friends, political allies, media, and more, as
on-line communications become ever more essential, and would serve as a
severe method of punishment; but worse, the possibility would also exist
for intermediate degrees of stigmatization. Persons from somewhat more
repressive countries would be denied classes of content otherwise
available on the Internet under the "PICSRules" ratings structure.
Children would be walled off, not only from the usual bugaboos, but any
material which would break their indoctrination. Convicts would be
granted only very limited forms of communication, thus preventing them
from telling horror stories from the gulags that will surely accompany
such a regime. The unique power of the Internet to serve as a method of
multilateral communication between groups of creative and honest people
would be broken. And once political censorship became the international
norm, the "terrorists" cited as the excuse for the initial policy would
become not our enemies, but our last hope for the salvation of mankind.
I ask the people of Canada, and the Industry Canada task force, to hold
a strong line for the right of uncensored communication now, while it is
still permissible to do so. When foreign governments pressure you to
change your policy, I ask you to reprint the entire detail of their
threats and inducements to Internet and off-line forums accessible by
the people of the countries which those governments claim to represent.
We have already seen the shameful precedent of British Labour, which has
betrayed its election promise and adopted its opponents' anti-encryption
policies exactly as dictated by undemocratic forces. I hope that your
call for discussion here will be more honest than that.
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
Posted by Andrew Oram - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS
A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/
ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/
Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use.
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
Bob Olsen Toronto [EMAIL PROTECTED] (:-)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
