IP: Re:just a thought on a cloudy day for the coming year

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

Date: Sat, 16 Sep 95 18:30:23 EDT
To: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber)
From: crocker () cybercash com (Stephen D. Crocker)


At 8:24 PM 9/16/95, David Farber wrote:
> I wonder whether one of the best customers for PEM mail systems and PGP
> security will not be the very politicians that are attempting to outlaw
> good cryptography.


This is not merely idle speculation.  A couple of years ago I gave a PEM
presentation to people from the House who were considering what protection
to implement for electronic mail.  NSA was pushing the Defense Message
System (DMS), and the House folks kept muttering something about the
Constitutional separation of the legislative and executive branches of the
U.S. government.


It's entirely possible that the spectre of the executive branch being able
to listen to encrypted conversations and read encrypted mail of anyone in
the Congress may well prove unsettling to some representatives or senators.
Of course, the Administration will certainly assert that they are bound by
strong legal and administrative controls and will not violate the
Constitutional limits.


Congress lives with this exposure now, since the law enforcement or
intelligence folks can intercept the communications now if they choose to.
Thus it's hard to predict whether the prospect of having escrow technology
turned against them is enough to move Congress to resist the
Administration's pressure in this direction.  So far, Congress has been
pretty thoroughly captured by the undocumented by apparently persuasive
arguments behind the scenes from the intelligence and law enforcement
folks.


--------------------
Steve Crocker                                     Main: +1 703 620 4200
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