FC: President Clinton is a back door man
http://syninfo.com/ian/PRIVATE/2000/01/20/2000012023104299.html
Title: FC: President Clinton is a back door man
FC: President Clinton is a back door man
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http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33779,00.html
Clinton Favors Computer Snooping
by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
6:00 p.m. 19.Jan.2000 PST
WASHINGTON -- Visions of stealthy black
helicopters landing on your lawn and
disgorging Nomex-clad troops to steal
your PGP keys aren't just for conspiracy
theorists.
The Clinton administration wants to be
able to send federal agents armed with
search warrants into homes to copy
encryption keys and implant secret back
doors onto computers.
"When criminals like drug dealers and
terrorists use encryption to conceal their
communications, law enforcement must
be able to respond in a manner that will
not thwart an investigation or tip off a
suspect," Attorney General Janet Reno
and Deputy Defense Secretary John
Hamre wrote in a seven-page letter to
Congress.
The idea first surfaced in mid-1999, when
the Justice Department proposed
legislation that allowed them to obtain
surreptitious warrants and "postpone"
notifying the person whose property they
entered for 30 days.
The Justice Department's thinking was
that if a suspect was using
data-scrambling encryption products, the
FBI's G-men might need to enter the
suspect's home and install software to
tap into and decipher scrambled
communications.
After vocal objections from civil liberties
groups, the administration backed away
from the controversial plan. The final
draft of the Cyberspace Electronic
Security Act (CESA) submitted to
Congress had removed the secret-search
portions.
But the White House now appears to
think it doesn't need new legislation to
enter a suspect's computer.
[...]
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