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From: knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen)
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio,net.video,net.crypt,net.mail,net.legal
Subject: Re: Some comments on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act
Message-ID: <1090@ihwpt.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Sep-86 13:00:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihwpt.1090
Posted: Tue Sep  9 13:00:23 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Sep-86 06:46:28 EDT
References: <1031@frog.UUCP> <15591@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1240@mhuxo.UUCP>
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n>     There is more to restriction on reception proposals than merely seeking to
>  protect commercial interests.  If the responsibility for ensuring secure
>  communications were lodged solely with the system operator, it would be quite
>  reasonable for the operators to pursue the use of digital encryption.  This is
>  likely to lead to the introduction of some very nice encoding/decoding boxes
>  to the general public.  According the the government, the general public
>  includes terrorists, subversives, common criminals (as opposed to uncommon
>  criminals), and hackers (!).  The law enforcement and intelligence agencies
>  would not like these unsavory characters to gain ready access to a means of
>  communication that could not easily be tapped.  Some of the encryption schemes
>  can not even be broken by the National Security Agency.
> 
>     In an effort to avoid handing any more advantages to criminals (e.g.,
>  communications secure from monitoring by law enforcement people), the
>  government has evidently decided to restrict selected public freedoms.  We
>  must decide which of the various conflicting rights take precedence in the
>  arena of communications.  It is not an easy decision to make.
> 
>                                     Patrick Wyant
>
This makes sense.  However, it is contrary to a decision recently
made by the Federal govt, incouding the NSA.  Federal contracts
have been let to three companies to build digitally encrypted telephones
for use over the regular switched public phone network.
Initially intended for Federal agents and companies with govt contracts,
these phone sets are expected to ultimately be sold to any US
citizen willing to pay (about $2000) for them.

The intent is to stop the Russians from monitoring our phone calls,
as alluded to earlier.  The NSA has stated that it realizes that
the Mafia et al will surely take advantage of these phones to
thwart the FBI et al, but that this **is a price we are willing
to pay** to stop the hemmorhage of foreign and industrial
espionage currently occuring on our telephone system.

(On the other hand, there is the case of the college prof
who was told by the NSA not to divulge his great new encryption
technique, because the NSA didn't know how to break it.)

Do you get the idea the Feds' left and right hands don't know
what each other is doing??  Why am I surprised?? :-(
-- 
Mike J Knudsen /  \   ...ihnp4!ihwpt!knudsen
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