|
North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: FBI calls for mandatory key escrow; Denning on export ctrls
On Wed, 3 Sep 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote: > FBI Director Louis Freeh also told a Senate Judiciary > subcommittee that "network service providers should be > required to have some immediate decryption ability > available" permitting agents to readily descramble > encrypted messages that pass through their system. One last point: here are some excerpts from the transcript that amplify Freeh's argument about ISPs (and backbone providers?). --Declan --- MR. FREEH: Yes. I think the legislation has to begin by requiring the manufacturers to have the feature available and then take up the larger and maybe more complex discussion about how that's enabled. Is it done voluntary by the user? Is the network provider of the service required to have that immediate decryption ability because they're providing a public service? And there's a lot of permutations of that which we're trying to work through. But the key concept - you've hit the nail right on the head, Senator. [...] MR. FREEH: Senator, just the point that I made before, that I think it's a worthwhile issue for discussion to look at whether network service providers should also be required to have some immediate decrypting ability to respond to a court order. We work, as you know, particularly in the pedophile cases, with on-line services who give us, when we run up against encryption, court-authorized access to information that is the subject of crimes. And that deals in many respects with our problem, particularly as networks proliferate and more and more people use them for communications. It also maintains the court-authorized requirement and it also gives us the balance that I think is required in a policy that's going to work.
|