Subject: RE: Email Privacy eating software

From: Eric Brunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 18:10:55 -0400

[from [email-masked], (www.benton.org/News/)
 Communications-related Headlines for 7/19/2000
]

BRITISH AUTHORITIES MAY GET WIDE POWER TO DECODE E-MAIL
Issue: Privacy/International
Britain may adopt a law making it the only Western democracy where the
government could require anyone using the Internet to turn over the keys to
decoding e-mails messages and other data. "The powers in the bill are
necessary and proportionate to the threat posed by 21st century criminals,
no more, no less," Charles Clarke, the Home Office official in charge of the
bill, said last week. The legislation would allow the British government to
tap into and monitor electronic communication for a host of reasons,
including to protect national security, to "safeguard the country's
well-being," and to prevent and detect serious crime. That last,
far-reaching category might include, for instance, "a large number of
persons in pursuit of a common purpose." The measure would not require
traditional warrants signed by judges. "This is Big Brother government
realizing that unless they get their act together, technology is going to
make them impotent by allowing individuals to bypass the regulations, and
the spies, of the state," said Ian Angell, professor of information systems
at the London School of Economics and a consultant on the recent report.
"I'm a supporter of the police, and I believe they should be given powers,
but there has to be due process, and this bill doesn't provide that," Mr.
Angell said. "They'll be allowed to go on fishing expeditions."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A3), AUTHOR: Sarah Lyall]

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From: Dennis Glatting <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:58:22 -0700

> BRITISH AUTHORITIES MAY GET WIDE POWER TO DECODE E-MAIL

Perhaps at the Pittsburgh plenary we should discuss whether we want to
move the London meeting elsewhere, least all of our lap tops be
"scanned" and cryto keys surrendered.

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From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 10:20:53 -0400

> "scanned" and cryto keys surrendered.

Or maybe we should discuss it here, so as not to exclude people who can't
make it to Pittsburgh (particularly Europeans, who would be more likely
to go to London than to Pittsburgh).

Much as I like London, I would be in favor of moving the meeting if the
RIP bill passes.  Email is bad enough; but suppose some British police
authority notices encrypted SSH and IPSec traffic coming from the IETF
network, and demands the keys? They'd be able to use those keys to
connect to our (nominally) secure networks.

It might also be useful for the British organizations lobbying against
RIP if they could point to an IETF boycott as evidence that RIP was
harming British companies.  (Or it might not, of course; Parliament might
decide they didn't like being threatened.)

--
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