[Obviously I'm not saying that Mitch Kapor, who co-founded EFF, is speaking for EFF. He's no longer on the board and has been pretty silent on civil liberty issues since the mid-1990s. But it is nevertheless disappointing to see an early voice for online liberty appearing -- according to the below report, at least -- to have abandoned principles for expediency. --Declan]
--- National Journal's Technology Daily PM Edition October 16, 2001 HEADLINE: PRIVACY: FBI To Require ISPs To Reconfigure E-mail Systems PHOENIX -- The FBI is in the process of finalizing technical guidelines that would require all Internet service providers (ISPS) to reconfigure their e-mail systems so they could be more easily accessible to law enforcers. The move, to be completed over the next two months, would cause ISPs to act as phone companies do to comply with a 1994 digital-wiretapping law. "They are in the process of developing a very detailed set of standards for how to make packet data" available to the FBI, said Stewart Baker, an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson who was formerly the chief counsel to the National Security Agency (NSA). The proposal is not a part of the anti-terrorism legislation currently before Congress because the agency is expected to argue that the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) already grants it the authority to impose the requirement, Baker said. He added that some ISPs already meet the requirements. Baker, who frequently represents Internet companies being asked to conduct electronic surveillance for the FBI, made the revelation Tuesday in a panel discussion at the Agenda 2002 conference here on how the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are likely to affect the technology industry and civil liberties. He elaborated on the plan in an interview. [...] Mitchell Kapor, chairman of the Open Source Application Foundation and a founder of Lotus Development, also spoke on the panel. Kapor also started the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and has been a vocal advocate of Internet privacy. EFF played a significant role in the CALEA debate, and divisions over whether to support that law led to a split of the organization. [...] "I find myself more in the middle than I used to because my identity in life is not as a civil liberties advocate," Kapor said. "Part is being an American and a world citizen." [...] Kapor and Baker shared more common ground on the acceptability of new electronic surveillance than they had in the past, with both expressing the view that now is a time for calm reconsideration of positions rather than butting horns over the details of how civil liberties would be curtailed by an anti-terrorism bill. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
