House Commerce Committee postpones crypto vote (Nando Times)

                    Computer encryption debate takes detour

      Copyright © 1997 Nando.net
      Copyright © 1997 Reuter Information Service
      
   WASHINGTON (September 11, 1997 5:39 p.m. EDT) - As the debate over
   computer encryption policy headed for a showdown in Congress,
   lawmakers Thursday decided to slow the process and spend two weeks
   looking for a consensus approach.
   
   Members of the House Commerce Committee, who negotiated the two-week
   delay, postponed a vote on legislation to relax U.S. export controls
   on encryption, computer programs that scramble information and render
   it unreadable without a password or software "key."
   
   Earlier Thursday, the House Select Intelligence Committee amended the
   bill to add sweeping restrictions on domestic use of encryption.
   
   Encryption, which can be included in everything from telephones to
   electronic mail software, is an increasingly critical means of
   securing electronic commerce and global communications on the
   Internet.
   
   But the data scrambling can also be used by criminals to hide their
   communications from law enforcement wiretaps.
   
   The legislative debate pits law enforcement officials seeking tighter
   limits on coding against the high-tech industry, which says such
   limits will hurt sales but not stop criminals from using encryption.
   
   In the House, the debate centers around a bill, authored by Rep. Bob
   Goodlatte (R-Va.), that began as an attempt to loosen strict U.S.
   export controls on encryption while preventing the government from
   imposing domestic restrictions.
   
   On Tuesday, the National Security Committee approved an amendment
   stripping out the original provisions to relax exports and adding new,
   tighter restrictions on exports.
   
   The Intelligence Committee then attached amendments requiring all
   encryption products imported or made in the United States to include a
   feature allowing the government to decode any message covertly. The
   Commerce Committee was planning to consider a similiar amendment.
   
   "We've bought some time to try to work out something that will satisfy
   the needs of the people who have supported this legislation,"
   Goodlatte said after the delay was announced.
   
   Software companies, which strongly favored the original legislation,
   said they would use the delay to lobby members who have been swayed in
   favor of the recent amendments by FBI and intelligence agency
   officials.
   
   "I'm convinced that when the rhetoric is stripped away they'll see
   that the (original bill) is the right solution," said Robert
   Holleyman, Business Software Alliance president.
   
   FBI Director Louis Freeh has said the government access requirement is
   needed to allow authorities to continue to tap conversations of
   criminals as encryption spreads.
   
   But the high-tech industry countered that the technology to allow
   eavesdropping increases the vulnerability and raises the cost of all
   messages sent by law-abiding citizens and businesses, while criminals
   would disable the back doors.
   
   Internet user groups and civil libertarians said such domestic
   restrictions are likely to lead to Orwellian infringements of
   citizens' right to privacy. Some argue the restrictions are
   unconstitutional.
   
   -- By AARON PRESSMAN, Reuters
   
    Copyright © 1997 Nando.net