22 March 1998

    Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 12:50:59 -0500
    From: Stewart Baker <sbaker@steptoe.com>
    To: ukcrypto <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
    Subject: Re[2]: FBI Changes Tack?

    The FBI has not changed its goals.  It has changed tactics after concluding that
    it is unlikely to get the kind of legislation it wants this year from this
    Congress.  So it has agreed that it will not seek legislation -- that it could
    not get this year anyway -- and will instead engage in a dialogue with industry
    for the next two months.  What I find significant about Bob Litt's testimony is
    that the Justice Department seems to be setting the stage for supporting Louis
    Freeh's call for domestic controls on encryption.  That won't happen unless the
    dialogue fails (still the most likely outcome), but in the long run it could
    widen the rift within the Administration over domestic controls.  Apart from the
    FBI's conclusion that its legislative proposal is in trouble, none of this is
    particularly good news for industry.

    Stewart

    ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

    Subject: Re: FBI Changes Tack?
    Author:  <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk > at INTERNET
    Date:    3/20/98 10:05 PM

    Chris Sundt <c.sundt@x400.icl.co.uk> writes:
    > [a big blob of uuencoded and-then-some encoded mail]

    here is what he said when you unpick that:

            -Adam

    ======================================================================
    Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 00:00:17 +0000
    Original-Encoded-Information-Types: Undefined
    Content-Identifier: 12208
    From: "C Sundt" <c.sundt@x400.icl.co.uk>
    To: UKcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
    Importance: normal
    Subject: FBI Changes Tack?
    Mime-Version: 1.0

    The following Reuters piece was passed to me by a journalist who
    called me to ask if it could have any impact on the UK position - I
    said that was a tough one t o answer as I didn't know what the UK
    position was! However, it does appear to s how the FBI changing tack.

    Chris Sundt

    All opinions are my own and do not represent in any way those of the
    company I work for.

    Tuesday March 17, 9:16 pm Eastern Time

    FBI changes tactics in U.S. encryption debate

    By Aaron Pressman

    WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - The FBI on Tuesday backed away from
    controversial legislation requiring data scrambling products sold in the
    United States to allow law enforcers secretly to crack any coded message.
    But instead of new laws, the bureau hopes voluntary concessions by
    manufacturers of encryption technology will give it the same capabilities,
    officials said.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Clinton administration have
    long been at odds with high-tech companies, civil libertarians and Internet
    users over regulation of encryption, an increasingly critical means of
    securing electronic commerce and communications over the Internet.

    Encryption products use mathematical formulas to scramble information, such
    as a credit card number or e-mail message sent over the Internet, and
    render itunreadable without a password or software ``key.''

    The FBI fears the proliferation of strong encryption will give criminals a
    powerful tool to thwart its investigations, according to Barry Smith,
    supervisory special agent in the FBI's Congressional affairs office.

    Although FBI director Louis Freeh last year favored new laws to guarantee
    access to coded messages, Smith said the bureau is now backing Vice
    President Al Gore's renewed dialogue with industry to find a mutually
    acceptable approach.

    ``Law enforcement is concerned that we have the technical capability under
    strict legal procedures to gain access to the plain text of criminally
    related communications or electronically stored data,'' Smith said in a
    telephone interview.

    ``If industry provides us those technical solutions to address our public
    safety needs in the area encrypted communications and encrypted stored
    data, that's fine,'' he added. ``Then there's really no need for a
    legislative solution.''

    But Smith added that if Congress considers legislation moving in the other
    direction, the FBI might renew its lobbying campaign.

    A bill authored by Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte would
    dramatically ease strict export limits on encryption while forbidding
    certain types of mandatory law enforcement access. The bill was approved in vari
    ous versions by five House committees last year and and could be voted
    on by the full House in a few months.

    ``If legislative action continues to move forward that threatens public
    safety and national security, obviously everyone will have to reassess
    where we are,'' Smith said.

    Industry officials said the renewed dialogue was unlikely to resolve the
    historic split over encryption in the high-tech industry between software
    and hardware companies.

    Hardware companies including IBM Corp (IBM - news) and Hewlett-Packard (HWP
    - news) have worked closely with the administration while software firms
    like Microsoft (MSFT - news) and Netscape Communications (NSCP - news) have
    opposed the administration.

    ``IBM has advocated a dialogue for some time between government and
    industry,'' IBM public policy director Aaron Cross said. Commercial
    solutions might be available to meet the needs both of customers and law
    enforcement, Cross said.

    Cross also urged the administration to ``take the idea of any form of
    domestic control off the table once and for all.''

    Software firms and privacy advocates worried that the latest negotiations
    would do little to address their concerns.

    ``There is nothing new here and the stalemate isn't going to be broken with
    so many players left out,'' one software lobbyist who declined to be
    identified said.

    Earlier on Tuesday, principal associate deputy attorney general Robert Litt
    told a Senate subcommittee the administration was not seeking legislation
    to regulate domestic use of encryption.

    ``We are not looking for any mandatory controls domestically at this
    time,'' Litt told members of the Judiciary Committee's Constitution,
    Federalism and Property Rights Subcommittee.

    But Litt staked out the FBI's position that such legislation would be
    permitted by the U.S. Constitution.

    Two top legal scholars, Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford University and
    Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago, opposed Litt's
    interpretation.

    They told lawmakers legislation backed by the FBI would likely violate the
    First Amendment's free speech clause, the Fourth Amendment's search and
    seizure provisions and the Fifth Amendment's limit on self-incrimination.

    See more of Robert Litt's testimony at:

       http://jya.com/doj031798.htm

    And another news report:

       http://jya.com/doj031898.htm