Re: Senate panel nixes ProCODE II, approves McCain-Kerrey bill

----Original Message Follows----

In the end, it was child pornography that derailed
encryption legislation in the U.S. Senate and dealt a
bitter defeat to crypto supporters. Spurred by the
chairman's denunciations of cyberporn, a majority of
the Senate Commerce Committee rejected ProCODE II this
morning -- and instead approved a bill introduced
earlier this week that creates new Federal crimes for
some uses of crypto and an all-but-mandatory key
escrow infrastructure.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), committee chair and chief
sponsor of the measure, led the attack, saying
Congress must "stop child pornography on the Internet
and Internet gambling. These legitimate law
enforcement concerns cannot and should not be
overlooked or taken lightly."

He warned that allowing encryption to be exported
would permit child pornographers to use it. "If it's
being used for child pornography? Are we going to say
that's just fine? That's it's just business? I don't
think so."

Then Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.) chimed in,
saying she doesn't want "children to have access to
pornography or other bad types of information."

Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) tried to disagree. "It's like
photography. We're not going to [ban] photography if
someone takes dirty pictures." (At this point, one of
the more deaf committee members asked, "Pornography?
Are we going to ban pornography?")

Between the child-porn attack team of senators McCain,
Hollings, Kerry, and Frist, ProCODE sponsor Sen. Sen.
Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) didn't stand a chance. Hunched
over the microphone, Burns was outmaneuvered,
outprepared, and outgunned on almost every point.

Nevertheless, he introduced ProCODE II -- a so-called
compromise measure -- and was defeated 8-12. The
changes from ProCODE I gave the NSA, FBI, and CIA
oversight over crypto exports and permitted only the
export of up to 56-bit crypto products without key
escrow. Products of any strength with key escrow could
be exported freely.

That's hardly a pro-privacy, pro-encryption bill, says
the ACLU's Don Haines. "The ProCODE vote shows the
political bankruptcy of the pro-business agenda. Even
in the Commerce Committee, commerce arguments didn't
work," he says.

The committee also approved amendments proposed by
Kerry that would give jurisdiction over crypto exports
to a nine-member "Encryption Export Advisory Board."
The panel would "evaluate whether [a] market exists
abroad" and make non-binding recommendations to the
president.

Frist also introduced amendments to the McCain-Kerrey
bill that were accepted:

* Requiring that not any Federally-funded
  communications network, but only ones established "for
  transaction of government business" would use key
  escrow -- thereby jumpstarting the domestic market.

* "Requirements for a subpoenas [sic] should be no
  less stringent for obtaining keys, then [sic] for any
  other subpoenaed materials."

* Key recovery can mean recovering only a portion of
 the key "such as all but 40 bits of the key."

* NIST after consulting with DoJ and DoD will "publish
  a reference implementation plan for key recovery
  systems;" the law will not take effect until the
  president tells Congress such a study is complete.

After the vote, advocacy groups tried to put a good
face on the devastating loss -- and an expensive
defeat it was. After 15 months of lobbying, countless
hearings, backroom dealmaking, and political capital
spent, ProCODE is gutted and dead. "There's another
day. We have confidence in the system," said BSA's
Robert Holleyman. CDT's Jerry Berman said, "What is
encouraging is that unlike the CDA other committees
are getting involved."

Of course, the involvement of other committees is only
likely to add more key escrow provisions and
limitations on crypto-exports. ProCODE's replacement
-- the McCain-Kerrey bill -- now goes to the Senate
Judiciary committee, and its chairman has already been
talking about mandating key escrow in some
circumstances...

-Declan

====================================================================

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but doesn't this mean that it is now illegal to 
use anything over 56 bits in the US, and doesn't this give the US 
Government the unofficial green light to start cracking down on those of 
us that use encryption? All they gotta say is that they suspected that 
we were dealing in child pornography, based on the fact that they 
monitored encrypted messages leaving from our addresses? It's not that 
far of a leap in possibilities after everything else they've done. This 
is starting to get scary ladies and gentleman. I use 2048 bit 
encryption, does that make me a porn lover because I use that heavy of 
encryption,and encryption period?  I feel some very bad days coming down 
the pike. I just hope that we can do something to stem the tide.



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At 11:15 PM 6/19/97 PDT, David Downey wrote:
>Maybe I'm just paranoid, but doesn't this mean that it is now illegal to 
>use anything over 56 bits in the US, and doesn't this give the US 
>Government the unofficial green light to start cracking down on those of 
>us that use encryption? 

No.  It means that a couple of Senators don't like free speech and privacy,
and there have been Senators who disliked those before.
If the whole Senate passes the bill, and the House, and the President
signs it, then there'd be a law we'd have to fight in court,
depending on what it said by the time it was done.
But that's a long way off (probably.)  Of course, if the bill does
get through the House and Senate, Clinton's sure to sign it;
he's _not_ a liberal, just a big-spending Democrat, and seems to
consistently support anti-privacy decisions, and if there's enough
wind blowing in the direction to get the Congress to agree on it,
he'll be following it.

Meanwhile, the US Gov't can already start blaming crypto users for being
Commie-supporting money-laundering assassin-funding child pornographers,
if it thinks it's got a case.  Don't need any new laws for that,
though there aren't any solid court decisions on whether they can
force someone to reveal their passwords, and they risk being harassed about
false arrest and such if they maliciously accuse someone.



#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#   (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)

> Maybe I'm just paranoid, but doesn't this mean that it is now illegal
> to
> use anything over 56 bits in the US, and doesn't this give the US
> Government the unofficial green light to start cracking down on those
> of
> us that use encryption? All they gotta say is that they suspected that
>
> we were dealing in child pornography, based on the fact that they
> monitored encrypted messages leaving from our addresses? It's not that
>
> far of a leap in possibilities after everything else they've done.
> This
> is starting to get scary ladies and gentleman. I use 2048 bit
> encryption, does that make me a porn lover because I use that heavy of
>
> encryption,and encryption period?  I feel some very bad days coming
> down
> the pike. I just hope that we can do something to stem the tide.

I am getting sick of the crap in congress.  May's right, whenever they
want to get what they want, they just blurt out that their opposition
may support kiddie porn.  The only somewhat good measure coming up is
SAFE, but that will most likely be struck down by lawmakers.  After all,
it helps encryption, and that might aid kiddie porn!  Seriously, if the
citizens ever have a civil war, and we win, then Clinton, the senators
opposed to Pro-CODE, and other anti-crypto types should be on trial for
abuse of power, violation of citizens' rights, and high crimes against
the constitution.  I hope it would be public :-)

The government in theory works for US.  So the question is "What the
HELL happened to that?!"