🚀 go-pugleaf

denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>Well, if I ever wondered what it would be like to express an unpopular
>view, I sure know now!
>
>I can't possible respond to everything, but did want to mention that 
>the dialog is good.
>
>I stand corrected on "unauthorized taps."  At the time I wrote it, I
>was thinking more of the current situation than the past.  Practices
>in the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have changed 
>considerably since the days of COINTELPRO and Watergate, but they
>seldom get any credit for their reforms or any of the things they
>do well.  

We have no reason to fear them when they are honest, Ms. Denning. It
is when they are dishonest that we need fear them. It is true that
many "reforms" have been made. For example, the NSA now goes to a
secret tribunal before tapping your calls instead of just violating
the law -- of course, the tribunal doesn't ever fail to grant
permission.

I have no doubt in my mind that abuses continue to this day. I have an
aquaintance involved in protesting the building of a home port for
nuclear weaponed ships in Staten Island, New York. The gentleman in
question appears to have had his phone systematically tapped by Naval
Intelligence. This occured a mere few years ago.

>Two examples of cases where tapping saved lives: 

I'm sure there are hundreds of cases where it has saved lives, Ms.
Denning. This is not the point.

You cannot just look at one side of the equation. Banning automobiles
would save 50,000 lives a year in auto accidents. Would you ban them?
No, because there is another side of the equation that you are
missing, which is the cost.

Our system of government has a trial system based on the premise that
we insist on the proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As a
result, many guilty people go free. Would you change this so that a
few more of the guilty would be put away? No, because there is another
side of the equation, the cost of this action.

Yes, a few criminals will not be caught and a few lives will be lost
because the FBI can't tap every phone at all times. On the other hand,
consider the many tens of millions of people who have died in police
states during this century alone. The risk that our government's power
will go unchecked in a society where all communications can be tapped
at all times is only one possible problem with the society that trades
freedom for safety -- consider also that in the absense of checks
against government power the government can BECOME a police state.

It has been said (I am told by John Gilmore) that it is imperitive in
our technological age that we consider what infrastructural tools
would be needed for an effective police state and assure that the
government never has access to such tools lest a police state arrive.
High on the wish list of all police states is the capacity to tap all
communications. (I would note that a disarmed citizenry is also high
on the priority list for a police state and that the first nation to
ever implement gun control was Nazi Germany for precisely this reason,
but we are debating cryptography, not gun control).

>Someone said we aren't obliged to make law enforcement easier. 
>Our obligation is to follow the laws, however, whatever they are.

What if the law oblidges us to deliver Jews to the hands of
concentration camp operators? What if the law oblidges us to turn our
friends and loved ones into the police for thoughtcrimes? Such laws
have existed in the world in our century, and laws like them exist
today. It is not our obligation to obey an immoral law.

Immoral laws have been passed repeatedly even in democracies. Would
you, Ms. Denning, turn in a friend for marrying someone of a different
race? That was a crime until recently in much of our country, I will
remind you. Would you have assisted the House UnAmerican Activities
Committee in finding and destroying the lives of "communists", simply
because The Law told you that you were obligated to do so?

Beyond this, though, there appears to be the confusion that that which
is legal is equivalent to that which is good. An argument is beginning
in this thread concerning the question of whether your proposal is
constitutional. I believe it is not, but that is beside the point. The
mere fact that it might be constitutional does not make it desirable.

>I don't think anyone is even contemplating saving all communications.
>The volume would be horrendous.

I am not concerned with whether they save ALL communications. I am
concerned with whether they save my communications and those of fellow
dissidents against the current system in our country. I am a political
activist, as I have noted. I am a proponent of the unpopular notion
that people should be left alone to do what they like if they aren't
hurting anyone else. I realize that this was once accepted by most
Americans, but now it is considered radical. It may someday become a
dangerous view to hold, much like the views of those who were accused
of being communists in the 1950s.

J. Edgar Hoover spent much of his carreer producing dossiers on a
large fraction of those people he considered enemies, political or
otherwise. One of his spiritual descendants may decide that I fall
into such a category. The government of East Germany had files on
virtually the whole of the population, you know, and they didn't have
computers to do the hard work for them.

>The Digital Telephony legislation, as well as existing law, only
>calls for real-time access.

More than that, it calls for convenient access. Whereas it currently
requires telephone company assistance to set up a tap, which means
that agents tapping phones at least have to show some phone company
officials their warrant, in the new order of things the FBI would like
to be able to do without those phone company personel. One wonders how
much snooping will occur without anyone knowing, and how much of that
snooping will turn into warrants, the evidence for which is the
euphamistic "confidential informer".

I close with one more thought. In a previous message, you said...

>Do we really want a society where electronic communications cannot
>ever be broken when there is good reason to believe some major threat
>against society is being planned?

This is a question of costs and benefits. If the benefit is that once
every ten years a few hundred people are saved from a terrorist
bombing an airplane versus the potential cost of the whole of the
country being monitored someday by a big brotheresque government that
can use terror and limitless access to information to enslave a
disarmed populace, I will gladly risk being one of the tiny few who
die that I may avoid the risk of being one of the millions who die.

Let us be clear here -- the government is NOT our friend. It is a
terrible instrument we have let lose in order to protect us, but as
with the devil it is a difficult and dangerous creature when it comes
to the pacts one makes with it. We are spoiled by the relative
stability of our government. Do not be fooled. Our government has
lasted a very long time by world standards, mostly because through a
large fraction of our history a dictatorship could not have succeeded
in holding the country. We are rapidly approaching a state where a
dictator COULD hold the country. Let us not be decieved into thinking
that merely because we have yet to suffer the way the people of Chile
or Russia have this century that we are immune to such forces. Our
shield up to this point has been a constitution that made tyranny
impossible. It appears that what is left of that system of protection
is being destroyed.

I fault you, Dr. Denning, not for being one who is conspiring with
those who would enslave us. I believe you are sincere in your belief
that your proposals would make our country a safer place. I do not
fault you either for your disagreement with us on this matter.
Intelligent people can have disagreements on such things. What I fault
you for is this: being a promient member of our community of
cryptographers your word holds considerable weight, likely more than
you realize. As such, you have an obligation to make pronouncements
about weighty matters with considerable care, much as, say, Alan
Greenspan of the Federal Reserve Board must select his words with care
lest he cause the stock market to crash with a careless comment. By
potentially and irresponsibly influencing legislators to take further
steps to erode our liberties, even when they have not yet requested
support for such actions, even while the FBI and other authorities
have yet to suggest that such actions are necessary, you may have
already precipitated action on their part. Considering that this
action has the potential to influence, for good or ill, the lives of
tens of millions of people, I would choose my words with more care
were I a person of your weight in the data security community.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
"They can have my RSA key when they pry it from my cold dead fingers."
Libertarian Party info: Phone 1-800-682-1776, E-Mail 345-5647@mcimail.com