IP: Re: the Net needs to be public safety friendly, now

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:24:51 -0400
> To: "Joseph C. Pistritto" <jcp () jcphome com>, farber () cis upenn edu
> From: "A. Brinton Cooper" <abc () ieee org>
>
> Certainly the openness of American society provides many opportunistic 
> resources which terrorists can use to attack our citizens and our 
> institutions.  These include the Internet, the public switched telephone 
> network, and the public transportation system.  Many proposals will be 
> forthcoming this week to deny or make difficult access to such 
> resources.  In every case, limited success will be achieved but perhaps at 
> a great loss to the American people.
>
>         For example, airport security is less even than is promised, but 
> there is little evidence that anything short of an item-by-item search of 
> every carry-on item and a close, personal search of every passenger would 
> have turned up the apparent weapons used in at least some of the 
> hijackings.  Box cutters have a very small metallic blade secured by a 
> small screw (4-40 or 6-32, perhaps).  Often, the body is non-metallic.  I 
> have two that are plastic.  It is widely known that there is a lower 
> bound on the size of an object that a magnetometer can detect.  So, 
> better terminal procedures and equipment may not have prevented the tragedy.
>
>         Similarly, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to be gained by 
> prohibiting the unrestrained, public use of encryption.  It is argued 
> that the authorities would be able to detect communications that support 
> planned terrorist activity.  Yet, it is widely reported that the U.S. was 
> completely blindsided and had no advance warning of the attack.  Were 
> there any traffic, especially with an overseas connection, the NSA should 
> have gotten wind of something.  Yet, even though Osama uses a non-secure 
> phone via INMARSAT, nothing about Sep 11 was heard in advance.
>
>         Encrypted messages can be sent from pay phones, from stolen (then 
> quickly discarded) cell phones, and from Internet connections in public 
> libraries via portals such as Yahoo.  Prohibiting the use of public 
> encryption on the Internet will do little to slow the movement of 
> terrorist traffic.
>
>         As heinous as were the multiple attacks on our people and 
> institutions, they also represented an attack on something more 
> fundamental:  our life under Constitutional government in the United 
> States of America.  Our soldiers (and civil servants) take an oath to 
> uphold and preserve the Constitution of the United States of America -- 
> not the country but its Constitution.  Is not the President charged to 
> "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution?  Many have argued that 
> the right to privacy is absolute, if implied, under the Constitution.  If 
> fundamental changes are made to our Constitutionally conferred rights, 
> what will we be protecting?
>
>         Finally (for now), let us remember that, until September 11, 
> 2001, the most serious threat posed by eavesdropping on the Internet (and 
> elsewhere) was that done by Government.  It was so and could be so 
> again.  Restrictions once implemented "...at least for a time..." will be 
> difficult to repeal.  If the dictum, "...the pen is mightier than the 
> sword..."
> means anything, it means that the right to secure, private communications 
> (which are so necessary to protect all our other rights) is at least as 
> fundamental a right as the personal possession of firearms for protection 
> of family and self.
>
> _Brint



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