<nettime> Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attacks

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

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From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Congress considers encryption restrictions in response to attacks
To: politech@politechbot.com
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:03:01 -0400
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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46816,00.html
   
   Congress Mulls Stiff Crypto Laws
   By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
   1:45 p.m. Sep. 13, 2001 PDT
   
   WASHINGTON -- The encryption wars have begun.
   
   For nearly a decade, privacy mavens have been worrying that a
   terrorist attack could prompt Congress to ban
   communications-scrambling products that frustrate both police wiretaps
   and U.S. intelligence agencies.
   
   Tuesday's catastrophe, which shed more blood on American soil than any
   event since the Civil War, appears to have started that process.
   
   Some politicians and defense hawks are warning that extremists such as
   Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials say is a crypto-aficionado and the
   top suspect in Tuesday's attacks, enjoy unfettered access to
   privacy-protecting software and hardware that render their
   communications unintelligible to eavesdroppers.
   
   In a floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire)
   called for a global prohibition on encryption products without
   backdoors for government surveillance.
   
   "This is something that we need international cooperation on and we
   need to have movement on in order to get the information that allows
   us to anticipate and prevent what occurred in New York and in
   Washington," Gregg said, according to a copy of his remarks that an
   aide provided.
   
   President Clinton appointed an ambassador-rank official, David Aaron,
   to try this approach, but eventually the administration abandoned the
   project.
   
   Gregg said encryption makers "have as much at risk as we have at risk
   as a nation, and they should understand that as a matter of
   citizenship, they have an obligation" to include decryption methods
   for government agents. Gregg, who previously headed the appropriations
   committee overseeing the Justice Department, said that such access
   would only take place with "court oversight."
   
   [...]
  
   Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, a hawkish think tank
   that has won accolades from all recent Republican presidents, says
   that this week's terrorist attacks demonstrate the government must be
   able to penetrate communications it intercepts.
   
   "I'm certainly of the view that we need to let the U.S. government
   have access to encrypted material under appropriate circumstances and
   regulations," says Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under
   President Reagan.

   [...]



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