Cops, Spies Fail to Slow Crypto Bill

by Rebecca Vesely

6:12pm 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.