5 September 1998
Thanks to JC

       Ziff-Davis News Network
       Tauzin: FBI won't get crypto key and more on high-tech and Capitol
       Hill
       By Michael Fitzgerald,
       ZDNN
       September 3, 1998 5:55 PM PT

       Updated at 6:58 PM PT

       SAN FRANCISCO -- An influential Congressman says Congress is close to
       resolving the bitter dispute over encryption software, and it looks as
       though it will be decided in favor of the high-tech industry.

       U.S. Rep. Bill Tauzin, R-La., said flatly that "we're not going to
       give the FBI the keys to the encryption system." The remark came as
       part of a wide-ranging interview with ZDNN.

       Encryption software is used to scramble data sent electronically. The
       Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies
       have demanded that current crypto software not be exported without key
       escrow capabilities, which give it the code to unlock encrypted files.
       The high-tech industry has argued that this policy has ceded most of
       the world market to foreign software makers.

       While Tauzin was emphatic that the FBI would not get keys, he noted
       that "at the same time, we have to give the FBI enough capacity to do
       their job, protect us from people that want to bomb us, terrorize us
       and create mayhem in this country."

       He said the issues had not been reconciled, but he was clearly
       optimistic that Congress would pass a crypto bill this session.

       "We're close to resolving it, but it's going to take a little more
       work," he said.

       Tauzin chairs the House Commerce Committee's sub-committee on
       telecommunications, trade and consumer protection. This puts him in
       the middle of the debate on telecom deregulation and, by extension, on
       a number of other high-tech issues.

       Several key high-tech issues

       He expects Congress will move forward on several high-tech issues that
       did not make it past the committee stage in the last session of
       Congress. Besides encryption, he cited privacy and Internet taxation
       as core high-tech issues on Capitol Hill.

       "All those issues are critical not only to the industry that is
       developing e-commerce, it's also critical to consumers, and we're
       going to have to settle some of those," he said.

       He's also confident that Congress will decide to pass a law putting a
       three-year moratorium on Internet taxation.

       "The Internet ... is exploding right now. We've got to have some
       realistic understating about who can tax a transaction on the
       internet. And our bill to declare a moratorium and to give some time
       to settle the issue is a very good one," he said.

       The issue of privacy is a little dicier.

       "In a world where our medical records are being transmitted ... where
       our financial records are more accessible, how will we be assured in
       that world that we're not going to be abused?"

       High-tech industry needs to self-regulate

       Tauzin thinks the high-tech industry can effectively handle the
       privacy issues the Internet has raised, but said it has to move more
       rapidly, or Congress will be forced to take action.

       "I don't want to have the government do it, and the sooner the
       industry does its own job, and does it ... to the satisfaction of
       consumers, the less pressure there is for government to come in and
       try to regulate," Tauzin said. "I can assure you if we have to do it,
       we're going to gum it up real good. I much prefer the industry do it
       right."

       At the same time, Tauzin said Congress will probably need to take
       several cracks at the legislation before it gets it right.

       "My guess is we'll be involved in these issues for several years to
       come, until we've got them really tied down well," Tauzin said. "As
       fast as technology moves, we're going to find out we were pretty
       stupid in some area or another."

       "Technology always makes a fool of us," he said. He encouraged the
       high-tech industry to reach out and educate Congress people about
       technology.

       "Instead of cursing the darkness, light a few candles," Tauzin said.
       "The fact is, when you enter Congress you find out you're supposed to
       be an expert on every subject in the world, and you're not. If there
       aren't people who know a lot more than you who are willing to help you
       through it and teach you, then you're in a fog."

       Other topics

       On the year 2000: "My advice to people is to underpay their taxes. I'm
       real concerned about (the IRS's) capacity to send refund checks."

       On whether the Telecom Act of '96 has failed and needs to be changed:
       "It can work and it will work. We made one bad mistake in 1996 ... we
       left the 1930s agency (FCC) in charge of deregulation. So we have to
       take this 1930s FCC and we've got to redo it. I want to give them a
       mission to work themselves out of a job."

       On the Internet infrastructure and regulation: "We're at a very
       interesting point right now in the history of communications. The
       unregulated side of communications -- computers, software and all the
       marvelous technologies that are Internet-related -- are all now
       merging rapidly with the regulated structures - telephones and
       televisions and cable systems and what have you.

       Either the FCC is going to . . . extend into this unregulated world
       all the old regulations and subsidy requirements -- all the old
       cholesterol that's clogging up the system. Or it will be wise enough
       to let the new unregulated services show the way. My guess is they're
       going to choose the former."

       On technology and the gap between the haves and have-nots: "Computer
       technology is a bridge, the likes of which we've never yet been able
       to build. Long-distance learning . . . is a way to bridge that
       insitutionally handicap that's been a generational problem for my
       state. If you see that potential . . . to put the best teacdher in the
       state in front of every child for some period of the day . . . how can
       you not see it as the way to make sure that every American is a have
       instead of a have not."

       Why homes don't have to have PCs to get access to the Net:

       "Keep doing what we're doing, converge computers and televisions. They
       all have televisions, and sooner or later someobdy's going to give 'em
       a little simple device like a Nintendo that they can work with the
       television and do their homework."