Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Sam Nunn: Our new best friend?
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 00:24:58 +0900
Some notes from today's Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information: Chaired by Sen. Kyl In attendance: Sen. Feinstein First Panel: Jamie Gorelick & Sam Nunn, Co-Chairs, President's Advisory Committee on Critical Infrastructure Protection This was a hearing on the general subject of steps that the federal government should take to protect 'critical' domestic infrastructures from both foreign and domestic threats. I'd note that even though the hearing was meant to discuss threats to a wide range of critical infrastructures (transport, financial services, telecom, water, etc. the only issue really dealt with was the Internet and other telecom infrastructures.) Without going into the whole issue (which is important) or the whole hearing, here are a couple of points particularly relevant the civil liberties & national security in general, and encryption policy in particular. Sen. Sam Nunn ------------- **On encryption: Reolve the issue: It is vital that the current stalemate over encryption policy be resolved soon because 1) strong encryption is critical to the security of domestic infrastructures, and 2) failure to resolve the deadlock between government and the industry has lead to such a high level of mistrust by industry that it is difficult to make any progress on any other infrastructure protection issues since those issue require a high degree of cooperation. Barriers to resolving the issue: 1) there's a large amount of unrealistic thinking about the crypto/law enforcement problem. Leading his list of "unrealistic" assumptions are: -it's unrealistic to assume that government can control technology -key recovery can't work except by global agreement -law enforcement needs lots of help with new technologies, with or without key recovery -nostalgia for the good-old days of easy wiretapping is mistaken and unrealistic 2) the Clinton Administration is unable to reach a resolution to this statemate because it has set up an internal policy process whereby 5 cabinet agencies have virtual veto power. Nunn recommends that the NSC needs to spend more time on this directly and just get the issue settled. **On constitutional barriers to Pentagon involvement in domestic infrastructure criminal investigations: Contrary to the view that John Deutch has taken, Nunn sounded that alarm several times that there are real constitutional limits on the degree to which the Pentagon can or should get involved in domestic law enforcement matters such as investigation of attacks on domestic infrastructure. He suggested instead that large number of DoD employees should be detailed to FBI or Justice to provide technical assistance in emergency situations or difficult investigations. I've left our a lot of interesting points, including Sen. Feinstein's lament about how hard it is to deal with 'libertarian' computer industry types, but you'll have to see the press reports for that. ====================================================================== Daniel J. Weitzner, Deputy Director djw () cdt org Center for Democracy and Technology +1 202.637.9800 (v) 1634 'Eye' St., NW Suite 1100 +1 202.637.0968 (f) Washington, DC 20006 USA http://www.cdt.org/ **************************************************************************** Professor David Farber The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems University of Pennsylvania 200 S. 33 rd Street Office routed to Cellular -- + 1 215 898 9508 voice only Philadelphia PA 19104-6389 Jfax : +12122534135 or +14084902720 Home: POB 424 250 Good Hope Road (for Fedex) Home:+ 1 610 274 8292 voice; Fax +1 610 274 8293 Landenberg PA 19350-0424 Primary occupation -- Tele-techno-yenta Home Page: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber My PGP Key fingerprint: 85A1 7EA0 E20E 81B6 CF05 CA1B 0825 AB1E 8D61 16C8 Publisher and Editor of the IP List Member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society Governor of the ICCC Fellow of the Glocom Institute of Japan and the Cyberspace Law Institute Member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Democracy and Technology Senior Advisor of the ASIA NETWORK RESEARCH (ANR) - Malayasia "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784 "Photons have neither morals nor visas" -- Dave Farber 1994 "A revolution is not a dinner party." -- Mao Tse Tung "Farber is the Paul Revere of Cyberspace" -- Wired Magazine Sept 1996
Current thread:
- IP: Sam Nunn: Our new best friend? Dave Farber (Mar 17)