"Suddenly popular telephony bill"

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 21:22:14 -0400
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From: mech () eff org (Stanton McCandlish)
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Subject: "Suddenly popular telephony bill"
Date: 16 Aug 1994 19:54:15 -0500
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Joe Francis asks for an explanation of "the sudden popularity of the FBI
wiretap bill in the House and Senate...why this bill suddenly became
viable."


My impressions of the process indicate that this isn't really very sudden
at all.  If you've followed the details of the bill's path, it was
presented as an intial draft, to scorn and derision, over 2 years ago.  It
was ignored, because the FBI had basically presented a terribly written
wish list.  Since that time, they've redrafted it more times than anyone
can count, and not only made it sound more like a bill and less like a
fantasy novel, but also brought what it demands down to something many
Congresspersons considered reasonable.  When the new director, Louis
Freeh, arrived on the scene, he made it his mission to canvas all of
Congress to support this bill, and won over a good many Senators and
Representatives, and finally found the sponsor he was looking for in
Biden, ca. March 1994.  Biden was almost certain to introduce a version of
the bill that retained all of the FBI's language.  At that point, Leahy
and Edwards, becoming aware that few members of either house were
unwilling to pass this bill, went to great lengths to get Biden to back
off and let them work the bill over (needless to say this was conditional
on the fact that they actually do so.  Had they produced nothing, Biden
would have gone ahead with his pro-FBI version.)  EFF was asked to provide
some background information on traffic analysis, headers, networking
protocols, and misc. legal and privacy issues, and to help shed as much of
the onerous FBI language as possible, while inserting new privacy protections.


At any rate, the popularity of the bill isn't "sudden", though it may look
that way from some perspectives.  It's actually been building up from 1992
onward, and hit enough of a peak earlier this year that it was this > <
close to being introduced in it full inglory by Biden.  And as for viability,
I believe that the bill has been viable since early 1993, but was lacking
a sponsor (I guess no one was yet willing to take the heat.)  Freeh change
all that with his relentless campaigning.


No one likes the fact that some version of the bill is almost guaranteed
to pass (except of course the FBI and law-n-order types everywhere).
However, it needs to be kept in mind that if Biden hadn't agreed to stand back
and let Leahy and Edwards give the bill a major shakedown, by now the
100%-FBI version would probably already be law.  Even the current version
is a bitter pill, but it does contains significant privacy protections
that have been long needed, and the FBI's wish list has be cut down
drastically.





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<P>http://www.eff.org/~mech/a.html";>   Online Activist