E L E C T R O N I C F R O N T I E R F O U N D A T I O N
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: BARRY STEINHARDT 203 226 4897
MAY 12, 1998 ALEXANDER FOWLER 202 986 4141
EFF Reacts to Senate E-PRIVACY Act (S. 6027)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) termed the "Encryption
Promotes the Rights of Individuals in the Virtual Arena Using
Computers" (E-PRIVACY) Act introduced into the Senate today "the most
thoughtful piece of encryption legislation to date." At the same
time, EFF expressed concern that it does not go far enough to remove
the restrictions on the use of strong encryption and contains some
provisions that threaten privacy rights.
Introduced by Senators John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) and Patrick J. Leahy
(D-Vt.),Conrad Burns (R-Montana), the new bill sharply differs from
Clinton Administration proposals by easing export controls on mass
market encryption products, limiting government access to decryption
keys, and prohibiting the government from requiring key recovery
mechanisms. It also provides important new protections for private
information held by third parties.
"Senators Ashcroft, Leahy and Burns are to be congratulated for
introducing the most thoughtful piece of encryption legislation to
date," said EFF President Barry Steinhardt. "The basic thrust of the
bill is consistent with the desire of privacy advocates to encourage
the use of strong encryption, which are the lock and keys of the
digital age. We hope to work with the Senators to expand the reach of
the bill and to remove those sections, which enhance governmental
power at the expense of personal privacy," Steinhardt continued.
Steinhardt said EFF particularly applauded the provisions in the bill,
which provided privacy protections for stored electronic data held by
third parties, location information generated by wireless
communications services, and transactional information obtained from
pen registers and trap and trace devices.
But he said that EFF had concerns about other aspects of the bill.
Noting that EFF represents academic cryptographer Daniel Bernstein in
his thus-far-successful challenge to the constitutionality of the
Clinton Administration's restrictions on strong encryption, Steinhardt
said that EFF was disappointed that the bill did not provide any
relief for academic and research work. "Existing U.S. controls on the
export of encryption products and technology need to be repealed for
everyone, not simply mass-market producers of encryption software," he
said. "Legislators need to acknowledge that cryptography is a science
in which the United States has always been a leader, and the science
of cryptography needs to grow and develop through the free and open
exchange of ideas among scientists, academics, and others around the
world," Steinhardt concluded.
Steinhardt said that EFF had several other concerns about the bill.
Among them:
* Overly broad provisions requiring key holders to release a
decryption key to a foreign country without regard to whether those
countries recognize the broad speech and privacy rights of individuals
accorded to Americans;
* The creation of new penalties for using cryptography in the
commission of a crime, which EFF views as unnecessary and which will
discourage the widespread use of strong encryption; and
* The National Electronic Technologies (NET) Center that would be
established under the bill. The NET Center would concentrate new
resources in the hands of intelligence agencies such as the National
Security Agency (NSA).
Citing the historical example of the NSA pressuring the wireless
telephone industry into weakening the encryption in digital cellular
phones, Steinhardt said that EFF was "gravely concerned that the NET
Center will result in the intelligence agencies inserting themselves
into domestic policy and strong arming the business community into
compromising encryption products."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil
liberties organizations devoted to the protection of online privacy
and free expression. Founded in 1990 as a nonprofit, public interest
organization, EFF is based in San Francisco, California. EFF
maintains an extensive archive of information on privacy and free
speech at http://www.eff.org.
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