🚀 go-pugleaf

denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>The word "crisis" is probably too strong.  But let me elaborate on the 
>effect of COURT-AUTHORIZED taps.  [Statistics and benefits of taps
>omitted.]

>[. . .]  The average cost of a wiretap in 1991 was $45K.  Most
>of this goes to labor.  Those of you who think that law enforcers
>are likely to start tapping everyone with or without a warrant need
>to do a reality check on cost and government budgets.  Assuming there
>are about 100 million lines, the total cost to listen in on them
>all would be $4.5 trillion!

The cost you cite sounds high by a couple of orders of magnitude, but
I'm not an expert on this.  Yet if it is correct, isn't this a big
incentive for the Government to short-circuit the official process?

>If law enforcement loses the ability to conduct court-authorized 
>taps, they will have to use other means if even possible, such as
>breaking and entering.  This is not necessarily better in terms of
>protecting liberties and privacy.

I'll say!  But unsanctioned tapping is very unlikely to come to light.
If the police break into your house, and you find they didn't have a
warrant, you're going to file a lawsuit, there will be front page
coverage, and you'll win a huge judgement against them.  So you can
be pretty sure they'll follow official procedures before breaking in
on you.  But if they tap you illegally, you're unlikely ever to know.

>I believe I said this before, but let me remind everyone that the
>government has not proposed that keys be registered.  [. . .]

A bad idea is a bad idea, regardless of its origin.  Creating a
registration requirement simply defines another new crime into
existence.  Giving the Government the keys to our ciphers and
having them promise not to use them is like Congress telling itself,
"Now, you'd better not go exceed these deficit targets, or else!"

-- George Mitchell (george@tessi.com)