The Spotlight 10/10/94 Privacy Under Attack Push has come to shove. The FBI's nightmare Digital Telephone and Privacy Improvement Act is about to reach the floor of both the Senate and the House. In the House, the bill is HR 4922. It's S. 2375 in the Senate. I've described the pending legislation before in this column. As a proposed bill from the FBI, the Privacy Improvement Act (PIA) was a nauseating fraud with a lot of nasty agendas (and very powerful forces) pushing very hard behind it. The draft bill legalized automatic, computerized telephone surveillance through Americans' telephones and communications networks. But don't worry--the FBI promised to obtain a court order from somewhere before switching the system on in your house. Well, the FBI's proposed PIA has changed. A key congressional staffer directed some alterations to the bill's language before it was introduced to our elected representatives. (And the changes are just as interesting as the new, high-paying job the staffer obtained after he convinced his boss to sponsor the bill.) So take a seat, loosen your collar and get ready for the new, im- proved PIA. Your elected representatives could enact this thing as law in the next two weeks if you don't protest this. PRIVACY IMPROVEMENT' For starters, the PIA has a new name. Now it's called the Wiretap Access Bill (WAB). They had to change the bill so it spends more of your money, too. Now it authorizes the FBI to pay $500 million taxpayer dollars to America's local telephone companies. This expenditure accomplishes two important objectives. First, it establishes the price of your privacy: Nothing. Second, it addresses the Constitutional and business concerns of America's phone companies-- the FBI pays them and they shut up. In exchange for your $500 million, the phone companies will modify their equipment so you have no privacy. Within four years, all telephone company switches and networks must be modified so the FBI can instantly identify who you telephone and who calls you, according to the provisions of the bill. And your $500 million buys even more. (Leave it to the FBI to drive a hard bargain.) Phone companies will also install "special equipment" to allow the FBI to automatically eavesdrop on you whenever they want. The phone companies will, in turn, bill you for the maintenance of this wonderful system. AUTOMATIC KGB Now we come to the bill's boring technical details--the sort of drudgery that legislators routinely delegate to their hapless staffers. This includes, in this case, a key staffer (he must remain nameless) who created the language of the WAB and then suddenly departed for a much better job at a privately funded foundation. Hidden in the bill's "legalese"--and unmentioned in any of the FBI's congressional lobbying for its precious PIA--is something even more sinister: The bill calls for telephone companies to provide instantaneous, contemporaneous, automatically activated eaves- dropping on people in their homes or businesses. That's push-button surveillance from thousands of miles away. It's right there, in the language of the bill. Phone companies that fail to give this power to the FBI are fined $10,000 a day. And our wanna-be secret police didn't pull this language out of thin air. This grim law was literally dictated by the 1990 design specifications of the computerized equipment that will breathe life into this secret, automatic KGB. The true intent of the WAB is revealed in a little-noticed set of "Technical Requirements" documents from Bell South, dated 1990. These documents, summarized in out-of-the mainstream technical magazines, describe a remote controlled, computerized monitoring device. It goes on your neighborhood telephone pole--or, even better, in an out-of-the way underground telephone conduit. It "runs encrypted"--so even the telephone company can't determine who activates it, how it's programmed or what it's doing. This device is called a remote monitor. It's nicknamed the "smart box." It can eavesdrop on an entire residential neighborhood. And be assured, fellow citizens, it's a quality product. Unlike our wobbly B-1 bomber with $700 toilet seats, the smart box documents describe a grueling six-city test of the device-blanket surveillance of major metropolitan areas. The smart box passed with flying colors. Unthinkable Bill Do you like the sound of this? The legislation is completely unthinkable in a free country And yet it is before congress now, apparently on a fast track for a quiet vote before The October recess for the elections. This Teflon coated monstrosity has arrived on the legislative calendar. despite outrage and disbelief by citizens and computer professionals who are stunned by the bill's amazing progress. The consensus among computerists and citizens is: "This can't be happening." But it is happening-despite very serious questions and demonstrable inconsistencies in the testimony FBI Director Louis Freeh gave before Congress on the bill. And why the Establishment media silence? You probably heard about remote monitors and the PIA first in The SPOTLIGHT. I bet you haven't heard about it anywhere else. Why? What kind of Congress will we have with invisible, untraceable, remote controlled surveillance built into our telephone networks? How independent will our judiciary be when the smallest peccadilloes of every judge are stored on computer tapes for fast playback? What sort of free press will we have if the phones are unplugged or "unofficial" sources are fingered and sandbagged before they hang up the telephone? Who will dare to call independent journalists or civil libertarians when all telephone numbers are permanently recorded and computer scanned? What legal confidentiality will we have when our lawyers' phones are automatically tapped and their offices bugged? What business can we transact by phone or fax or modem when politically connected competitors could be listening Dare we fax our patents or proposals? (Ask the folks at Inslaw, Inc.) And what's the price of freedom? It's $500 million to you; nothing to Bill Clinton and the FBI. PERSONAL THANKS On a personal note, I'd like to thank the infinitely patient editors of the SPOTLIGHT and the many thoughtful readers who have inquired after my well-being these past six weeks. I very much regret that family illness and professional demands have kept me from my keyboard in these crucial times for all Americans and all populists. As you see, I'm back and more determined than ever to set these issues before you as plainly as I can. It's a good fight--one that we can and must win. And finally, the bill numbers are H.R. 4922 and S. 2375. Just a note, saw this in the Cincinnati Enquirer 10/9/94 FBI praises new bill The Associated Press WASHINGTON--Passage of a bill allowing legal wiretaps of cellular phone conversations removes an important obstacle to effective law enforcement, FBI Director Louis Freeh said Saturday With increasingly sophisticated digital technology, defeat of the bill would have thwarted the FBI's ability to use court-ordered wiretaps, Freeh said. But some critics--calling the bill an erosion of individual freedom--said the FBI had not proved that the bill provided an essential crime-fighting tool and planned to pursue a lawsuit. "We have seen the enemy and he is us" ....POGO