Re: The Telcos oppose Oxley

At 13:23 -0700 9/24/97, Lizard wrote:
>At 09:47 PM 9/24/97 +0200, Peter Herngaard wrote:
>>They support the penalty enhancement for use of encryption
>>in futherance of a felony.
>
>I don't find this particularly offensive, on the grounds that if you're
>convicted of any given crime, the government can more-or-less drum up so
>many related charges they can put you away for 500 years ANYWAY, so what
>difference does it make?

Lizard's position is sadly incoherent. If he believes in civil liberties --
and I know he does -- then he should think twice. Just because the federal
government has broad powers doesn't mean we should give them more.

Under Lizard's reasoning, he should find a law outlawing "breathing air (or
speaking Spanish) in the commission of a crime" acceptable. Or at least not
"particularly offensive."

-Declan

At 6:15 PM -0700 9/24/97, Lizard wrote:

>Though, on second thought, there is a serious issue with it -- if, as
>we hope, encryption becomes widespread, than anyone doing anything
>will be using it;including 'in the commission of a crime'. This could
>make petty misdemeanors into 20 year federal crimes, and THAT is
>something to worry about. Hm.

I think you're beginning to see what we have been saying for many months....

I think it was Bill Stewart who recently described all the various minor
crimes which will likely soon involve crypto, things like calling for a
hooker on a phone that has crypto in it, using a Metricom Ricochet wireless
system to send banned words to a foreigner, and so on. All kinds of minor
crimes suddenly have 10- and 20-year sentences attached.

(Do I think it likely that someone ordering the hooker du jour with his
cellphone will face such sentences? Probably not. They're small fry. But
political persons, like Jim Bell, like others, will very likely see these
10- and 20-year sentences--which will go into the "sentencing guidelines"
(rules) and hence be almost unavoidable--and this will help them to come to
really and truly _love_ Big Brother!)

The good news today is that if Salomon keeps to his word, the Security and
Fascism Through Escrow Act is dead, dead, dead.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 06:15 PM 9/24/97 -0700, Lizard wrote:
>Though, on second thought, there is a serious issue with it -- if, as 
>we hope, encryption becomes widespread, than anyone doing anything 
>will be using it;including 'in the commission of a crime'. This could 
>make petty misdemeanors into 20 year federal crimes, and THAT is 
>something to worry about. Hm.

While this provision (that criminalized the use of crypto in a crime) of
the original SAFE bill was a "bad thing" I personally thought that much of
the rest of the bill was ok and had some demented hope that this bad spot
could be fixed next year.  No one needs to say "I told you so."  Things
obviously have gone downhill.

The state of Georgia has a similar provision.  There is a law that makes it
a crime to use a "telecommunications facility".  As I recall, it is a
felony and applies to drug charges.  The Georgia courts routinely give
people an extra five years for selling drugs through a phone call and for
what I suspect was the original intent of the law, a beeper.

In Georgia the presence of a beeper is synonymous with drug sales.  At
least with law enforcement agencies.  Probationers and parolees are not
allowed to "report" to their supervising agent if they are wearing a
beeper.  For police, the presence of a beeper on a person is reason to
suspect drugs.

I'm sure that we have the possibility of crypto becoming the same thing.


  -- Robert Costner                  Phone: (770) 512-8746
     Electronic Frontiers Georgia    mailto:pooh@efga.org  
     http://www.efga.org/            run PGP 5.0 for my public key

At 08:27 PM 09/24/1997 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>At 7:31 PM -0700 9/24/97, Robert A. Costner wrote:
>>In Georgia the presence of a beeper is synonymous with drug sales.  At
>>least with law enforcement agencies.  Probationers and parolees are not
>
>In Silicon Valley, the presence of a beeper is synomynous with one being a
>technician or someone similar.  To keep the furnaces running, or whatever.

Beepers are also universal with sales people, partly because
cell phones don't have enough battery life; the new PCS phones that
combine the two capabilities may change this.
Computer dealer; drug dealer; - the latter knews what he's selling...

These days, beepers are being marketed for school kids,
partly so the parents can reach them but also so friends can.
Works fine in yuppie-spawn schools, yet inner-city schools consider
beepers to be evil and ban them.


>It appears we live on different planets. Further evidence that not only
>should we allow Georgia secede, we should kick them out.
>
>All the more reason for the Bill of Rights to be scrupulously adhered to.

				Thanks!
					Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

> Beepers are also universal with sales people, partly because
> cell phones don't have enough battery life; the new PCS phones that
> combine the two capabilities may change this.
> Computer dealer; drug dealer; - the latter knews what he's selling...

Beepers are also nice for people who like to be reachable but don't
care for "Location Escrow".  Many of us carry cell phones, but don't
keep them powered up.

Eric

Eric Blossom wrote :

> 
> Beepers are also nice for people who like to be reachable but don't
> care for "Location Escrow".  Many of us carry cell phones, but don't
> keep them powered up.
> 

	Be careful, very careful,  The latest technology in beepers is
uses a two way paging protocol called REFLEX, and the beeper does indeed
log into a "cell"  from which a crude postion determination can be made.
The cells are larger than cellphone cells, and there is no government
mandate to implement triangulation technology to locate beepers within
the cell more precisely "for enhanced 911 service" (yet), but it is very
possible to send a two way pager a "ping" and get it to transmit
allowing dfing of the pager location.   

	This type of pager is advertised as having guaranteed message
delivery "never miss your messages", as well as message reply capability.
Eventually they will become quite common, as existing pager channels are
clogged with traffic broadcast over a wide area even though the target
pager is only near one transmitter and not all of them - they allow
much more efficient use of the rf spectrum as well as guaranteed delivery
of messages.

> Eric
> 


-- 
	Dave Emery N1PRE,  die@die.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. 
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2  5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18