X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:34:09 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Jim Bovard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: FBI & Email trapdoors
Matt:
FYI - here's the source material on the FBI's machinations seeking a
trapdoor for email surveillance.
Declan's FBI sources apparently have a different view of how all this came
down.
I was aware that controversy over Echelon has been simmering off and on -
but the story broke in a big way starting last August. I shall change a
word or two in the text for the book.
Jim
Barr Slams Electronic "Trapdoor" Surveillance Plan
Computers/Internet News
Source: Newsbytes News Network
Published: 10/25/99 Author: David McGuire
Posted on 10/25/1999 17:09:59 PDT by Gumption
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1999 OCT 25 (NB)
-- Conservative firebrand Rep. Bob Barr, R- Ga., weighed in on the
e-privacy debate today, urging the international Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) to resist
overtures by law enforcers to create a "surveillance-friendly"
architecture for Internet
telephony. Citing the controversial Communications Assistance to Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA) some
law enforcers have urged that "trapdoors" be built into Internet
communications programs.
"If you encourage such steps, several things will happen," Barr wrote
in a letter to IETF leader
Fred Baker. "First, network and software creators will begin building
flaws into products in
order to create back doors for law enforcement. In the process, the
security that serves as a
prerequisite and incentive for electronic commerce and communication
will be threatened."
"Secondly, an initial demand for limited access to Internet telephone
calls will soon expand
into an ever-increasing demand for access to all voice
communications, followed by a demand
for access to e-mail and data traffic," Barr wrote. The IETF is a
not-for-profit,
non-governmental standards-setting body that develops many of the
operational protocols that allow the Internet to function.
Today's letter represents the second time this month that the largely
nonpolitical IETF has
come under scrutiny from privacy advocates. Earlier this month, some
privacy advocates warned that the newest Internet
Protocol (IP) addressing system, IPv6, could jeopardize the privacy
of Internet users.
IPv6 was developed by the IETF in response to concerns that the
previous IP, IPv4, was running out of room to
accommodate all of the individuals and networks that needed IP
numbers. In developing IPv6,
engineers opted to include a computer-specific identification number
in each IP address,
creating concern among electronic privacy proponents that the new IP
system will erode the anonymity of Internet users.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .
Copyright 1999 Information Access Company,
a Thomson Corporation Company;
IAC (SM) Newsletter Database (TM)
Copyright 1999 Newsbytes News Network
Newsbytes PM
November 5, 1999
SECTION: Pg. NA
IAC-ACC-NO: 57432281
LENGTH: 522 words
HEADLINE: ****ACLU Asks Internet Task Force To Drop Wiretap Plan 11/05/99.
BYLINE: MacMillan, Robert
AUTHOR-ABSTRACT:
THIS IS THE FULL TEXT: COPYRIGHT 1999 Newsbytes News Network
Newsbytes PM November 5, 1999
BODY:
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1999 NOV 5 (NB). The American Civil Liberties
Union(ACLU) today sent a letter to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF),
asking the group to drop its plans for the IPv6, a proposed Internet addressing
scheme which opponents say is "wiretap-ready."
The newest IP addressing system, IPv6, was developed by the IETF in
responseto concerns that the previous IP, IPv4, was running out of
room to accommodate
all of the individuals and networks that needed IP numbers. The system
includesunique, identifiable data on all IP addresses, according to
some security
experts.
The IETF is a not-for-profit international standards setting body that
develops many of the operational protocols that the Internet needs to
function.
In the letter to IETF Secretariat Fred Baker, ACLU Associate Director
Barry Steinhardt said that the IETF should reject FBI overtures to
apply IPv6 to the
Internet in order to comply with the Communications Assistance to Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA) - a government-industry program to allow legal
wiretapping for law enforcement purposes.
Newsbytes PM November 5, 1999
"Beyond question of law, it would be a serious mistake to alter the very
architecture of the Internet to make it wiretap or surveillance ready,"
Steinhardt wrote. "What law enforcement is asking you to do is the
equivalent of requiring the home building industry to place a
'secret' door in all new homes
to which only it would have the key. That is a frightening extension of the
proposition that an industry is required to cooperate with law enforcement
when it has obtained a proper judicial order."
In arguing for the original CALEA statute in 1994, Steinhardt said, the
FBI"claimed that it sought no new powers, but only to preserve their existing
communications surveillance capabilities."
Steinhardt also pointed out that CALEA's telecommunications wiretapping
lawdoes not apply to the Internet. CALEA's language "explicitly
provides that the
general compliance requirements do not apply to... information services or
equipment, facilities or services that support the transport or switching of
communications for private networks or for the sole purpose of interconnecting
telecommunications carriers."
"This close similarity between the CALEA's description of 'information
services' and the functions of the Internet is not just a coincidence,"
Steinhardt wrote. "It is a clear indication that CALEA exempts the Internet
Newsbytes PM November 5, 1999
and its constituents from having to comply with statute's stringent
wiretapping requirements."
The often-liberal ACLU even cited arch-conservative Rep. Bob Barr's,
R-Ga.,statement that he knows of no current legislation that would
cause CALEA to be
applied to the Internet.
Steinhardt also pointed out that the FBI has "violated its promises to
Congress and the telephone industry that it would not seek expanded
surveillance powers, but only sought to preserve its existing capabilities."
Senior Editor Bob Woods contributed to this article.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .
(19991105 /WIRES ONLINE, LEGAL, TELECOM, BUSINESS/PRIVACYONLINE/PHOTO
Copyright 1999 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
<=1> View Related Topics
November 10, 1999, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. E03
LENGTH: 764 words
HEADLINE: A Wiretap-Friendly Net?; Group Weighs Aid to Law Enforcement
BYLINE: John Schwartz, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
The programmers and engineers who design and maintain the Internet are
heading for a showdown with the FBI over whether the global computer network
should be made wiretap-friendly.
The issue comes up tonight in meeting of the Internet Engineering Task
Force(IETF) in Washington. The group has been debating just how far
it should go to
The Washington Post, November 10, 1999
help law enforcement officials conduct wiretaps--especially now that some
telephone traffic is moving onto the Internet.
Internet leaders have urged the task force to avoid taking action that
might make it easier to eavesdrop on the Internet. An open letter signed by
officials of such high-tech companies as Sun Microsystems Inc. and
PSINet Inc., as
well as by privacy advocates, cryptography experts and legal
scholars, urged the group
not to build wiretapping capabilities into the network: "We believe that
such a development would harm network security, result in more
illegal activities,
diminish users' privacy, stifle innovation, and impose significant costs on
developers of communications," they wrote.
"It is not a good decision for the future of the Internet," said Austin
Hill,founder of Internet privacy company Zero-Knowledge Systems and
author of the
anti-wiretap letter.
Also weighing in was Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), who wrote a letter to
the task force's chairman, Fred Baker, calling on the group to turn away any
effort to allow wiretapping "for the sake of protecting freedom, commerce, and
privacy on the Internet."
The Washington Post, November 10, 1999
Standing up to the FBI does not mean that the groups are "anti-law
enforcement," Barr said yesterday. "I don't think the FBI should be able to
dictate their technology simply because the FBI wants to make it easier to tap
into the Net," he said.
A working group within the task force kicked off the debate last summer
with an e-mail discussion of what features might be necessary to make
the Internet
comply with wiretap laws. Baker said the impetus for the discussion came not
from the FBI but from the companies that make equipment used in telephone
networks; those companies fretted that their products would have to comply
with federal wiretap laws for telecommunications companies to buy them.
The debate has raged since then, with participants espousing views
across the political spectrum. Some take a view that governments are inherently
corrupt and wiretapping is evil; others have suggested that
compliance with government
demands for legal wiretap capabilities is inevitable, and that smooth
functioning of the Internet will be best served by designing those
capabilities in now instead of having them imposed by force at a later date.
The task force's job is "to minimize harm to the Net as people impose their
requirements or work out their destinies on it," said Stewart Baker, a former
general counsel for the National Security Agency whose clients now include
The Washington Post, November 10, 1999
communications and Internet companies grappling with wiretap issues. "I think
nothing will come of it, and I think that's probably the right result at this
stage."
In fact, the group is likely to vote tonight against building in the extra
wiretapping capabilities, said one member of the task force, Scott O.
Bradner of Harvard University. "The consensus on the mailing list has
certainly been
against the IETF participating in any special features," he said.
That action will almost certainly set the group on a collision course with
law enforcement. The federal law that requires makers of high-tech telephone
networks to design in wiretap capabilities--a law known as CALEA--specifically
excluded the Internet. It was "one of the central compromises of CALEA," said
James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, who helped
negotiate the law.
But FBI spokesman Barry Smith said that exception was written into the laws
after Internet service providers promised to provide such capability, and said
that pre-CALEA wiretap provisions of Title 18 of the U.S. Code require the
companies to comply with legal wiretap requests.
The Washington Post, November 10, 1999
Smith said those setting the standards should understand that federal
wiretap laws do in fact require them to design in wiretap
capabilities. "We have every
confidence that the technical-standards-setting bodies will fulfill that
statutory requirement," Smith said.
Baker said that the United States is not the only government that wants the
Internet to be wiretap-friendly. "There's similar legislation driving this in
other countries--and a lot more invasive than CALEA . . . whatever we do
has to stand on a global stage," he said.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
At 06:37 PM 4/28/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Jim may be a great guy (and I've enjoyed reading his articles in the
>>past), but it does not excuse misstatements in the piece Matt
>>circulated.
>>
>>At 02:56 4/28/2000 -0400, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
>>>In October 1999, members of the international Internet Engineering
>>>Task Force revealed that the FBI was pressuring them to create a
>>>"surveillance-friendly" architecture for Internet communications.
>>>The Bureau wanted the Task Force to
>>
>>This is baldly incorrect. The FBI did not pressure them; the IETF's
>>move was a pre-emptive one.
>>
>>After the IETF said they would consider it, the FBI told me in an
>>interview that they supported the move. Bovard has his timing
>>backwards.
>
>I wouldn't necessarily discount the FBI making public media
>statements while privately working for a "surveillance-friendly"
>architecture. Perhaps Jim can illuminate his point?
>
>>>Last fall news broke about the existence of Echelon, a spy
>>>satellite system run by the National Security Agency along with the
>>>United Kingdom, Australia,
>>
>>Last fall? What about our Wired coverage from fall 1998?
>>
>>http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=echelon
>
>I too pointed out to Jim that the Echelon story really broke much
>earlier. I pointed out that my private mailing list (Freematt's
>Alerts) first mentioned Echelon in 1996.
>
>At 12:35 PM -0500 12/14/96, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
>>X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 12:35:00 -0500
>>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Gaylor)
>>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Gaylor)
>>Subject: Echelon: The Global Surveillance System
>>
>>EXPOSING THE GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM by Nicky Hager
>>
>>------ The article as it apears in hard copy in the magazine also includes
>>the following sidebars: --"NSA'S BUSINESS PLAN: GLOBAL ACCESS" by Duncan
>>Campbell --GREENPEACE WARRIOR: WHY NO WARNING? and --NZ's PM Kept in the
>>Dark by Nicky Hager
>
>
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