Geoff@sri-csl.arpa (the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow) (02/17/86)
CommunicationsWeek -- Monday, February 10, 1986 -- Page 9. By Karen Lynch WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is expected to drop its opposition to legislation protecting the privacy of new communications technologies against unauthorized interception, congressional sources said last week. Congressional and industry representatives have been meeting with Justice Department officials to counter what they had characterized as the departments misunderstanding of some parts of the bill. The meetings have also been used to redraft portions of the legislation to alleviate some of the departments concerns, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said last week. Leahy is sponsoring an electronic communications privacy bill in the Senate, and Rep. Robert W. Kastenmeier, D-Wis., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice, has an identical bill pending in the House. Both bills would protect cellular radio, electronic mail, private networks and other transmission systems and services not now covered by the federal wiretap law. The bills would prohibits the FBI from accessing such communications without court orders, and the measures would assign penalties to private citizens unlawfully interception transmissions. Last November, James Knapp, deputy assistant attorney general of Justice's Criminal Division, charged that the legislations could "unnecessarily complicate procedures" without enhancing individuals' rights of privacy. Now, however, "Justice is beginning to approach it more and more with a non-idealogical bent," Leahy said. "I think they'll sign off." Attorney General Edmund Meese has given the go-ahead for the Justice Department to support the legislation if some modifications are made, said David W. Beier III, counsel to the subcommittee Kastenmeier chairs. The industry has shown willingness to make some of those changes, said Philip Walker, general counsel, regulatory affairs, for GTE Telenet Communications Inc. One of the department's concerns has been the high level of protection the bill gives data from government access before and after transmission, he said. Kastenmeier's subcommittee will host the department at a hearing at the end of the month, and the subcommittee will vote to send the bill to the House floor. "It would be an absolute shame if we couldn't put it through this year," Leahy said, calling his bill "one of the least controversial" in Congress. Leahy warned, however, that the bill would have to be moved by this summer. Otherwise, debate over taxes and the budget, along with this year's national elections, could bump the communications privacy measures to next year. Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks counsel John Podesta said it is unclear whether the communications privacy bill would move separately or along with a computer crime bill also pending in Congress. GTE's Walker said the customers are expressing increasing concern about the security of their electronic mail transmissions. Still, lack of security has not proven a deterrent to the business, he said during a press briefing his company held on the privacy bills.
gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (02/21/86)
I got a copy of the bill (HR3378, S1667) by calling Sen. Leahy's office.
One thing that this bill does is legalizes the use of "tracking devices"
by law enforcement people, after getting a court order. It puts various
restrictions on their use, but basically says that if the cops want to
put a bug on your car, person, clothes, or whatever, they are likely to
be able to find a legal way to do it. Furthermore, they can plant
the device *before* obtaining a court order, as long as they take it
away "when the information sought is obtained, or when the application
for the [court] order is denied". They have 48 hours to file the
application for the court order, i.e. they can track you for 2 days without
breaking the law and without getting a court's permission. If they
find out what they need to know, they can remove the bug and no harm done.
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
It treats this kind of bug as almost equivalent to a "pen register",
which is something the phone co. puts on your line to record who you
are calling.
The bill also defines "pen register" to include "a device which records
and/or decodes electronic or other impulses which identify the numbers
dialed *or otherwise transmitted* on the telephone line..." This
definition includes any data transmitted on the line, and could be
construed to include digitized voice ("numbers").
It makes it legal for the cops to break and enter your house, car, or
wherever in order to install a bug or wiretap. It nicely provides that
the government may not force someone who operates a communications
system to break and enter to plant government bugs. I'm sure the
Communications Workers of America are happy to hear it.
It loosens a number of restrictions on actual wiretaps too, including
allowing officials below the level of Assistant Attorney General to approve
them, expanding the list of suspected crimes that you can wiretap for,
and allowing 48 hours instead of "ASAP" for making the recordings
available to the judge.
I find all of this utterly repugnant and don't see how it has any place
in a "Privacy of private communications" bill.
This bill is being pushed "because somehow we forgot to protect
non-voice information going over phone lines". But check Covert Action
Information Bulletin #11, December 1980, pg 37: "Our Department of
Defense and Department of Justice have been extremely careful in
orchestrating the legal definition of 'interception' to *exclude* the
acquisition of information of a non-oral nature." (emphasis theirs)
The NSA has been using this loophole for years. I'm sure they aren't
closing it off unless the bill opens another hole at least as big.
I don't know if Congress thought it was legalizing wiretapping of
datacomm when they passed it last time. What are they writing into law
that they don't understand this time? I'm sure that some of the new
wordings and definitions in today's bill will have similar effects.
See net.ham-radio for some of the problems.
--
John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu jgilmore@lll-crg.arpa