SAFE Bill amended by House Committee (CNET)

   SAFE crypto bill cracked again
   By Alex Lash and Dan Goodin
   September 12, 1997, 8:40 a.m. PT
   
   For the second time in a week, a House committee has made significant
   changes to the Security and Freedom through Encryption (SAFE) Act to
   mandate that domestic encryption products give law enforcement
   agencies access to users' messages.
   
   The changes by the Intelligence Committee, which were passed as a
   "substitute" to SAFE, turn the legislation on its head. The amendment
   follows similar changes two days ago in the House National Security
   Committee.
   
   Initially drafted as a way to loosen U.S. export controls on
   encryption, legislators have instead "marked up" the bill, or amended
   it at the committee level, to reflect the wishes of the Federal Bureau
   of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies that want
   "wiretap" access to all encrypted email and other digital files.
   
   Both the Intelligence and the National Security committees tend to
   favor export controls, because they view encryption as a threat to
   information-gathering activities by U.S. military and law enforcement
   officials.
   
   The Intelligence Committee cited those concerns today when announcing
   the substitute legislation. "Terrorist groups...drug cartels...and
   those who proliferate in deadly chemical and biological weapons are
   all formidable opponents of peace and security in the global society,"
   said committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida) in a statement. "These
   bad actors must know that the U.S. law enforcement and national
   security agencies, working under proper oversight, will have the tools
   to frustrate illegal and deadly activity and bring international
   criminals to justice."
   
   Opponents of government attempts to regulate encryption, including a
   leading panel of cryptographers, have argued that built-in access to
   encrypted files would in fact threaten national and individual
   security and be prohibitively expensive to implement.
   
   The amended legislation calls for all imported or U.S.-made encryption
   products that are manufactured or distributed after January 31, 2000,
   to provide "immediate access" to the decrypted text if the law
   officials present a court order. "Law enforcement will specifically be
   required to obtain a separate court order to have the data, including
   communications, decrypted."
   
   A markup of the same bill in the House Commerce Committee was
   postponed today for two weeks. It will be the fifth such committee
   vote on the bill since its introduction.
   
   The Intelligence and National Security amendments this week are by no
   means a defeat of the bill. Instead, they would have to be reconciled
   with versions of the bill already approved by the House Judiciary and
   International Relations committees. That reconciliation most likely
   would have to happen on the House floor. The rapidly fragmenting bill
   still has several layers of procedure to wend through before it
   reaches a potential floor vote, but people on both sides of the
   encryption debate openly question if the bill--in any form--will make
   it that far this year.
   
   The legislation has 252 cosponsors, more than half of the House
   membership.
   
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