House IRC passes SAFE bill (Wired coverage)

   Cops, Spies Fail to Slow Crypto Bill
   
   by Rebecca Vesely 
   6:05pm  22.Jul.97.PDT In a stunning attempt at arm-twisting, heads of
   national-security agencies showed up with front-row tickets to a
   committee mark-up on an encryption bill Tuesday afternoon. But they
   were foiled when the House International Relations Committee approved
   the market-friendly bill by voice vote.
   
   "We believe the bill in question would remove all structure to law
   enforcement - it would be chaos," James Taylor, executive director of
   the National Security Agency, told the committee.
   
   Taylor was joined by top officials from the FBI, Drug Enforcement
   Agency, Commerce Department, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
   Firearms. They came armed with letters from Secretary of Defense
   William Cohen and Attorney General Janet Reno and from national
   sheriffs, attorneys general, and police chiefs groups. Their message:
   Passing the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act would have bad
   consequences.
   
   Several members of the committee laughed in their faces.
   
   "This is a violation of national security?" asked Representative
   Samuel Gejdenson (D-Connecticut), waving a shrinkwrapped copy of
   Novell's Lotus Notes. "What are we doing here?" he yelled. "Encryption
   is available today - you can buy it at any computer store at any small
   town in America. The reality is we don't control it."
   
   Committee chairman and bill opponent Benjamin Gilman of New York took
   the highly unusual step of letting the law-enforcement and
   national-security contingent speak for more than an hour and answer
   questions by committee members. Gilman gave SAFE's sponsor,
   Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), just a few minutes to
   defend the bill; co-sponsor Zoe Lofgren got just 60 seconds to speak.
   As a general rule, proponents or opponents of a bill do not speak at a
   mark-up meeting.
   
   Gilman introduced an amendment to give the president supreme authority
   on crypto exports - a move law enforcement sees as crucial to
   maintaining strict controls and one that industry leaders and privacy
   advocates oppose. The amendment failed 22-13 in a roll-call vote.
   
   "It was a fixed fight, and we won," said Alan Davidson of the Center
   for Democracy and Technology. "It was a bare-fisted brawl,
   Congress-style, but (bill opponents) were still unable to sway the
   committee, which shows there is a growing understanding of what this
   debate is all about."
   
   The bill, which has 192 co-sponsors and needs only 26 more to gain a
   House majority, would relax the government's stringent control of
   crypto exports. More worrisome to law enforcers and the
   national-security community, though, is that the bill would prohibit
   the development of a government-mandated key recovery system within
   the United States.
   
   "We don't give a damn about export policy," FBI assistant director
   James Kallstrom said. "We care about protecting people domestically,
   and we can't do that without wiretapping capabilities."
   
   Without a domestic key recovery infrastructure, the FBI says it would
   be unable to access network communications as it can now through
   telephone wiretapping. Domestic key recovery opponents say such a
   system would create an intrusive, costly, inefficient system that
   would expose personal communications and business operations to
   hackers and crackers.
   
   The bill is by no means in the clear, even with the long roster of
   co-sponsors. It must survive two more committee votes, and the
   administration is likely to keep trying to derail it. Still, no bill
   meeting White House demands has been introduced in the House. A Senate
   bill by Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska)
   would essentially mandate domestic key recovery and maintain current
   export controls.
   
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