After reading two different headlines from two different newspapers, you begin to understand why sales of Bruce Schneier's book, Applied Cryptography are spiraling up, why RSA Data Security president Jim Bizdos is going to be a rich man, and why encryption will be in the eye of technological and social storms in the coming decade.
For starters, consider the May 12, 1994 Associated Press article headlined, "Agents Tap More Lines Than Ever." In the first year of Clinton's administration, so the story goes, court-approved phone taps and electronic bugs by federal agents were up 50 percent over the previous high. This was followed by an August 9th headline proclaiming, "Bill Would Make Wiretapping, Tracing Messages Easier." While I'd be the last to suggest that the title intentionally referred to the Prez, Clinton has nonetheless supported the Digital Telephony bill that would force telephone and cable-television companies to grease the skids for government agents who want access to your private data. Adding insult to digital injury, the government plans on forking over $500 million of your tax dollars to phone and cable companies to pay for developing and installing the necessary software, not to mention ponying up an unspecified amount of money for unknown future costs.
Almost lost in this summer's crime-bill and health-care shuffle, House bill HR 4922 (sponsored by Rep. Don Edwards, D-Calif.) and the Senate version S 2375 (backed by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt.) underwent one compromise after another as they quietly slid from subcommittee to the floor. In the end, we're left with legislation that does, in fact, make it easier for government agents to tap digital communications and gain access to billing records and audit data, assuming they first obtained court-sanctioned search warrants. As if that isn't enough, telcom carriers would have to guarantee they can quickly isolate targets, identify origins and destinations, and transmit this information to the government--all without the target catching on. As proposed, the law would apply to the surveillance of public communications networks, including yet-to-come, two-way, cable-based communications systems that will carry both voice and data.
As bad as this sounds, the Leahy/Edwards compromise is still good news to the civil libertarians who've been tracking it, especially considering the previously proposed alternatives. In one incarnation, the bill went so far as to give the attorney general thumbs-down power over technological advances that could hinder the government's ability to tap communications. The bill also imposed stiff penalties on common carriers that didn't comply with wiretap regulations.
Widespread opposition by the communication industry, civil libertarians, computer professionals, legislators, and even former administration officials like Roy Neel (who now heads the United States Telephone Association) forced the government to back down. According to Neel, who spoke at last spring's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference, the Digital Telephony act would undermine consumer confidence in the privacy of the nation's communications networks, turn your local phone company into "an agent of law enforcement" and "put a damper on technological development."
This isn't to say that there aren't big-time criminals who pose a real threat to our personal safety. In particular, the government claims it needs help in coping with technically sophisticated, cash-rich drug dealers who can afford to stay a step or two ahead of government agents. According to the Administrative Office for U.S. Courts, about 75 percent of the court-approved wiretaps and bugs in 1993 were for narcotics-related investigations. In congressional testimony, FBI Director Louis Freeh has stated that new communications technologies are making it harder to tap phones, arguing that it would be a "disaster" if Congress doesn't give law enforcement an express lane on the information highway.
But the fact remains that the government is involved in more electronic eavesdropping than ever before and, with its carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with communication carriers, is looking for ways to increase its electronic-surveillance capabilities. Privacy watchdogs like the Electronic Frontier Foundation were mollified by the Leahy/Edward compromises, particularly those requiring court-approved search warrants. "This is a key part of the package that makes it, if not palatable, at least in the ballpark of acceptability for us," said Jerry Berman, EFF policy director. However, Representative Edwards, recalling his days as an FBI agent under J. Edgar Hoover, notes that although "it was illegal for us to tap telephones, I seem to remember we did it anyway."
If the Administration and FBI had thought this through, they'd realize that what they need is not more crime statistics, but better spin doctors. Think about it. If the $500 million package for developing and installing software back doors into the communication system were pitched as a jobs package for out-of-work programmers, it would go through Congress like a kid down a water slide. Oh, well. Knowing how Congress works, some legislator would probably tack on a rider to the effect that all work had to be done in PL/1. In the meantime, encryption experts like Bizdos and Schneier will go on being the big winners as developers and users look for better ways of keeping their private digital data truly private.
editor-in-chief
Copyright © 1994, Dr. Dobb's Journal