Privacy As Roadkill

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

Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 21:00:50 -0800
From: "Brock N. Meeks" <brock () well sf ca us>






Jacking in from a "Private No More" Port:


Washington, DC -- If privacy isn't already the first victim of
roadkill along the information superhighway, then it's about to be.


A law enforcement panel addressing the Administration's Information
Infrastructure Task Force Working Group on Privacy told a public
meeting here last week that it wanted to "front load" the National
Information Infrastructure with trap door technologies that would
allow them to easy access to digital conversations;  eavesdropping
on any conversation or capturing electronic communications
midstream.


But only for "the bad guys."  Us honest, hard working, law abiding
citizens have nothing to fear from these law enforcement agencies
selling out our privacy rights to make their jobs easier.  Nope, we
can rest easy, knowing that child pornographers, drug traffickers
and organized crime families will be sufficiently thwarted by law
enforcement's proposed built-in gadgetry for the national
information infrastructure.


There's just a small problem:  Law enforcement agencies, any law
enforcement agency, has yet to prove it needs all these proposed
digital trap doors.  In fact, according to a U.S. Assistant
Attorney appearing on the panel, "Right now most law enforcement
personnel don't have any idea what the NII is."


Gore Gives Go Ahead
===================


Panel members, representing the Justice Dept., FBI and U.S.
Attorney's office, said that they took Vice President Gore's
promise that the White House would work to ensure that the NII
would "help law enforcement agencies thwart criminals and
terrorists who might use advanced telecommunications to commit
crimes," as tacit approval of their proposals to push for digital
wiretap access and government mandated encryption policies.


Gore buried those remarks deep in a speech he made in Los Angeles
earlier this month when the Administration first fleshed out how it
planned to rewrite the rules for communications in a newer, perhaps
more enlightened age.  Those remarks went unnoticed by the
mainstream press.  But readers here were forewarned.


Fuck Ross Perot's NAFTA-induced "giant sucking sound."  That
"thump" you just heard was Law Enforcement running over the privacy
rights of the American public on its way to the information
superhighway.  The real crime is that the collision barely dented
the damn fender.


This cunning and calculated move by law enforcement to install
interception technologies all along the information superhighway
was blithely referred to as "proactive" law enforcement policy by
Assistant U.S. Attorney, Northern Dist. of California Kent Walker.
Designing these technologies into future networks, which include
all telephone systems, would ensure that law enforcement
organizations "have the same capabilities that we all enjoy right
now," Walker said.


With today's wiretap operations, the Feds must get a court to
approve their request, but only after supplying enough evidence
warrant one.  But Walker seemed to be lobbying for the opposite.
Giving the Feds the ability to listen in first and give
justification later was "no big difference," he said. Besides, "it
would save time and money."


It's Us vs. Them
=================


For Walker privacy issues weighed against law enforcement needs are
black and white, or rather "good guys" vs. "bad guys."   For
example, he said the rapid rise of private (read: non-government
controlled) encryption technologies didn't mean law enforcement
would have to work harder.  On the contrary, "it only means we'll
catch less criminals," he said.


But if law enforcement is merely concerned with the task of "just
putting the bad guys in jail," as James Settle, head of the FBI's
National Computer Crime Squad states, then why are we seeing an
unprecedented move by government intelligence agencies into areas
they have historically shied from?  Because law enforcement
agencies know their window of opportunity for asserting their
influence is right now, right at the time the government is about
to take on a fundamental shift in how it deals privacy issues
within the networks that make up the NII, says David Sobel, general
counsel for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
(CPSR), who also spoke as a panel member.


"Because of law enforcement's concerns (regarding digital
technologies), we're seeing an unprecedented involvement by federal
security agencies in the domestic law enforcement activities,"
Sobel said.


Sobel dropped-kicked this chilling fact from behind the closed
doors of the Clinton Administration into the IITF's lap:  For the
first time in history, the National Security Agency (NSA) "is now
deeply involved in the design of the public telecommunications
network."


Go ahead.  Read it again.


Sobel backs up his claims with hundreds of pages of previously
classified memos and reports obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act.  The involvement of the NSA in the design of our
telephone networks is, Sobel believes, a violation of federal
statutes.


Sobel's also concerned that the public might soon be looking down
the throat of a classified telecommunications standard being
created.  Another move he calls "unprecedented," is that if the
NSA, FBI and other law enforcement organizations have their way,
the design of the national telecommunications network will end up
classified and withheld from the public.


Sobel is dead bang on target with his warnings.


The telecommunications industry and FBI have set up an ad hoc
working group to see if a technical fix for digital wiretapping can
be found to make the Bureau happy.  That way, legislation doesn't
need to be passed that might mandate such FBI access and stick the
Baby Bells with eating the full cost of reengineering their
networks.


This joint group was formed during a March 26, 1992 meeting at
FBI's Quantico, Va., facilities, according previously classified
FBI documents released under Freedom of Information Act. The group
was only formalized late last year, working under the auspices of
the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS).  The
joint industry-FBI group operates under the innocuous sounding name
of the Electronic Communications Service Provider Committee
(ECSPC).


The ECSPC meets monthly with intent of seeking a technological
"solution" to the FBI's request for putting a trap door into
digital switches that would allow them easy access to those
conversations. To date, no industry solution has been found for the
digital wiretap problem, according to Kenneth Raymond, a Nynex
telephone company engineer, who is the industry co-chairman of the
group.


Oh, there's also a small, but nagging problem:  The FBI hasn't
provided a concrete basis that such solutions are needed, Raymond
said.  CPSR's Sobel raised these same points during the panel
discussion.


The telecommunications industry is focused on "trying to evaluate
just what is the nature of the [digital access] problem and how we
can best solve it in some reasonable way that is consistent with
cost and demand," Raymond said.   One solution might be to write
digital wiretap access into future switch specifications, he said.


If and when the industry does find that solution, do you think the
FBI will put out a press release to tell us about it? "I doubt it
very much," said FBI agent Barry Smith with the Bureau's
Congressional Affairs office. "It will be done quietly, with no
media fanfare."


Is it just me or are these headlights getting REALLY close?


The FBI's Settle is also adamant about trap door specifications
being written into any blue prints for the National Information
Infrastructure. But there's a catch.  Settle calls these "security
measures," because they'll give his office a better chance at
"catching bad guys."  He wants all networks "to be required to
install some kind of standard for security."  And who's writing
those standards?  You guessed it:  The NSA with input from the FBI
and other assorted spook agencies.


Settle defends these standards saying that the "best we have going
for us is that the criminal element hasn't yet figured out how to
use this stuff [encryption and networks in general].  When they do,
we'll be in trouble. We want to stay ahead of the curve."


In the meantime, his division has to hustle.  The FBI currently has
only 25 "net literate" personnel, Settle admitted. "Most of these
were recruited 2 years ago," he said.  Most have computer science
degrees and were systems administrators at time, he said.


You think that's funny?  Hell, the Net is a still small community,
relatively speaking.  One of your friends is probably an FBI Net
Snitch, working for Settle.  Don't laugh.


Don't Look Now, Your Privacy Is Showing
=======================================


The law enforcement establishment doesn't think you really know
what you expect when it comes to privacy.


U.S. Attorney Walker says:  "If you ask the public, 'Is privacy
more important than catching criminals?'  They'll tell you, 'No.'"


(Write him with your own thoughts, won't you?)


Because of views like Walker's, the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act (ECPA) "needs to be broader," said Mike Godwin, legal
services counsel, for Electronic Frontier Foundation, speaking as
a panel member.  The ECPA protects transmitted data, but it also
needs to protect stored data, he said.  "A person's expectation of
privacy doesn't end when they store something on a hard disk."


But Walker brushed Godwin aside saying, "It's easy to get caught up
in the rhetoric that privacy is the end all be all."


Do you have an expectation of privacy for things you store on your
hard disk, in your own home?  Walker says that idea is up for
debate:  "Part of this working group is to establish what is a
reasonable expectation of privacy."


That's right.  Toss everything you know or thought you knew about
privacy out the fucking window, as you cruise down the fast lane of
the information superhighway.  Why?  Because for people like
Walker, those guardians of justice, "There has to be a balance
between privacy needs and law enforcement needs to catch
criminals," he says.


Balance, yes.  Total abrogation of my rights?  Fat chance.




Meeks out...