U.S. Gov. wiretap plan.

Aug 22 17:38 UTC 1999

[Source: ZDNET]
The draft legislation, for which the DOJ hopes to find a sponsor in Congress,
is dubbed the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act. The law would make it easier
for law enforcement officials to obtain from judges a now-rarely-used
authorization to break into a suspect's home and plant a hidden listening
device. 

But in this case, the computer equivalent of the "listening device" is the
authorization for investigators to disable data-scrambling encryption programs
on PCs. (In order to actually copy data from the computer, police would still
need a separate warrant from a judge.) 

"(The proposal) strikes at the heart of the Bill of Rights," said David Sobel,
general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Noting that judges in all federal and state courts combined only issued 50
warrants for so-called "surreptitious physical entries" last year, Sobel said
extending such authorization to cases involving computer files "would make
police break-ins far more common than they are now."

'Booby-trap your computer'
The proposal would "basically allow investigators to booby-trap your computer
ahead of time" by disabling encryption, he said.

The proposal was most likely spurred by the frustration investigators have
experienced when finding encrypted data on computers used by suspected drug
dealers and other criminals, he added. 

DOJ officials did not respond to requests for interviews Friday. But in a
letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Acting Asst. Attorney General Jon
Jennings said the new law would aid investigators when information needs to
be deciphered "in a timely manner."

"While under existing law, law enforcement is provided with different means
to collect evidence of illegal activity, these means are rendered wholly
insufficient when encryption is used," wrote Jennings in the letter.

"In the context of law enforcement operations, stopping a terrorist attack
or seeking to recover a kidnapped child, time is of the essence and may mean
the difference between success and catastrophic failure.

"While existing means of obtaining evidence would remain applicable in a
fully-encrypted world, the failure to provide law enforcement with the
necessary ability to obtain the plain-text version of the evidence makes
existing authorities useless," he wrote.

EPIC: Congress will go 'ballistic'
Noting that the proposal would need to find a sponsor in Congress and then
be passed into law before it could take effect, EPIC's Sobel said it could
encounter resistance by lawmakers.

"I think people in Congress are going to go ballistic over this, particularly
since it's coming right on the heels of the FIDNET" controversy, he said.
FIDNET -- the controversial proposal to monitor government and some private
networks for hacking activity -- came to light earlier this summer and remains
in limbo. 

Barry Steinhardt, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that
the Federal Bureau of Investigation has often misused its powers in the past,
and could do so again under the DOJ proposal. 

"There's every reason to believe they're not just going to look at the Mob
using the powers sought under the proposal," Steinhardt said. "They'll use
this power to interfere with protected speech." 

Also condemning the plan were the Computer and Communications Industry
Association, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Americans for
Computer Privacy. 

Clinton admin: Big brother?
The plan is "an unprecedented attempt by the Clinton administration to impose
'big brother' monitoring powers over American citizens," ACP officials said
in a statement. "The fact is that current laws provide law enforcement broad
powers to obtain information."

"This is another attempt by law enforcement to do an end-run (around
encryption)," said Ed Black, president of the CCIA. "It offers a real
temptation for investigators to overreach and overextend" the current limits
on searches and seizures, he said.

"Anybody's vulnerable," Black added. "(This) resembles something the KGB would
propose."
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