Date: 11-01-92 (11:55)              Number: 3091 of 3126
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                      * * * W A R N I N G * * *
                       BIG BROTHER IS COMMING

           "FBI eavesdropping plan draws industry fire"
         by Steve Higgins - transcribed from PC Week Magazine

A broad flank of computer industry and public policy groups is
rallying in a renewed attempt to thwart an FBI proposal to limit the
security of electronic communications.

The U.S. Congress adjourned last month without considering a bill
embodying the FBI's so-called "Digital Telephony Proposal," which
seeks to force vendors and end users of communications equipment to
ensure the FBI's ability to tap their communications networks.

"But they will probably do it next year," said David Banisar, a policy
analyst for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) in
Washington.

That likelihood has generated a round of vehement opposition from an
unlikely consortium: industry vendors including IBM and Sun
Microsystems Inc., professional groups such as the Electronic Frontier
Foundation and the CPSR, and watchdog organizations including the
American Civil Liberties Union.

If the proposal becomes law, "it will require that every system from
AppleTalk LANs up have multiple, redundant systems to let the FBI tap
them," Banisar said.

In its proposal, the FBI suggests levying daily fines on vendors and
users of equipment that do not comply.

"We have to have the technical capability, or we are out of the
business of wiretapping," said Keir Boyd, deputy assistant director of
the FBI's technical services division in Washington.  "We are not
willing to back off on the compulsory part."

Those opposed say the FBI's plan would cost U.S. industry money by
requiring that vendors and users retool existing products.  The
opponents also say that the plan would hinder U.S. competitiveness by
preventing American companies from developing advanced communications
equipment and that it would pave the way for groups other than the FBI
to tap private communications.

"We are moving [to] a society where E-mail communications and
videoconferencing are the norm," said Whitfield Diffy, a cryptography
engineer at Sun in Mountain View, California.

Diffy said that if the FBI proposal is passed, privacy will be
virtually non-existent and "democratic government and free life could
be swept away."

All that, members of the opposition say, is not worth the value of the
estimated 600 to 800 wiretaps that the FBI conducts each year.

Next year, the rhetoric is likely to rise as Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.) and Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Texas) formally consider the proposal
for inclusion in a congressional bill.

But, for its part, the CPSR isn't waiting until the next Congress to
take action.  The group recently filed a request under the Freedom of
Information Act for the FBI's reasoning behind the proposal.

Meanwhile, CPSR and other members of the consortium are still talking
to the FBI to head off what they consider an extreme proposal.

"We always offer to be helpful, to see if there are any less Draconian
solutions," said John Podesta, a consultant at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a lobbying group of industry professionals in Washington,
who said meetings with the FBI are "always cooperative."

But, Podesta added, "[the FBI] still always seems to say, 'We won't
back off of this legislation.'  There will be a fight next year."

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