Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 20:21:12 -0700 Subject: GovAccess.053: got your number; snoop-and-peep legislation BIG BROTHER'S NUMBERING SYSTEM - THE OTHER SIDE OF "GOVERNMENT ACCESS" >From hibbert@netcom.com Sun Sep 11 18:47:52 1994 From: Chris Hibbert A single identifier, used commonly for many different purposes, loses its ability to identify the owner and allows information to leak out to unintended recipients. The use of the SSN has been increasing continuously over the last several decades to the point where it is now treated as a de facto identifier. It's widespread use renders it easily accessible to many people other than the owner. There are currently proposals to use the SSN as the basis for a national ID card for health or unemployment purposes, its collection by state DMVs is increasing, and the federal department of Health and Human Services will soon create a national database of all family members covered under an employee's health plan. A publicity campaign to educate people about the effects of indiscriminate use of a single identifier in many different areas might reverse this trend. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& ADMISTRATION WANTS A PEEP-HOLE TO EVERYWHERE With elections in November, demand unequivocating policy statements on this from *your* candidates for the House and Senate. This concerns the federal government's continuing efforts to force public and private phone systems to be equipped with undetectable wiretap-at-a- keystroke-from-anywhere capabilities. Although it is being officially pushed as being for "law enforcement," the fine-print always mentions something like, "and whenever otherwise authorized by law." And we don't know what classified and secret authorizations exist, do we? (Otherwise, they'd not be secret! :-) The years of unauthorized political wiretaps by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his resulting political blackmail illustrate how dangerous such a technological surevillance tool can be, when controlled by powerful political figures. Of course, the Clinton administration could propose digital telephony legislation that (a) required a judge to personally "turn on" a wire-tap, and (b) mandate that the phone company computers automatically monitor all government wiretaps and print out all details in monthly reports to appropriate congressional committees and to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the administration and law enforcement that is so zealously seeking the technological ability to listen anywhere, anytime, from anyplace, has shown little interest in having *their* actions automatically monitored and reported to the other two branches of government. --jim BEST NOMINEE FOR THE J. EDGAR HOOVER SNEEK-AND-PEEK AWARD OF THE YEAR >From shabbir@panix.com Sun Sep 11 20:36:20 1994 From: "Shabbir J. Safdar" To: vtw-announce@vtw.org Organization: Voters Telecomm Watch (vtw@vtw.org) Followup-To: talk.politics.crypto [If you've only got 2 minutes, skip down to the "What You Can Do" section.] The FBI's Wiretap bills (also known as the DT - Digital Telephony bills) mandate that *all* communications carriers must provide wiretap-ready equipment so that the FBI can more easily implement their court-ordered wiretaps more easily. The costs of re-engineering all communications equipment will be borne by the government, industry and consumers. The bill is vague and the standards defining "wiretap ready" do not exist. Furthermore, the FBI has yet to make a case which demonstrates that they have been unable to implement a wiretap. There are fewer than 1,000 court ordered surveillances per year. Even if all of them are wiretaps, and even if all of them require the changes mandated by this legisation, are we as a nation prepared to build eavesdropping features into the phones of 250 million people, in order to justify these wiretaps? None of these wiretaps has been demonstrated to be unimplementable, nor has it been proven that the cases could not be made with other methods of electronic surveillance. The Voters Telecomm Watch (VTW) does not believe the FBI has made a compelling case to justify that all Americans give up their privacy. Furthermore, the VTW does not believe the case has been made to justify spending 500 million Federal dollars over the next 4 years to re-engineer equipment to compromise privacy, interfere with telecommunications privacy, and fulfill an unproven government need. WHAT YOU CAN DO =============== You can help stop this legislation before it is too late! Phone/Fax/Write to each of the people below. It should take about two minutes a piece. . Rep. Jack Brooks (his Judiciary Committee must approve the bill before it can be voted upon by the full House) DC Phone: (202) 225-6565, TX Phone: (409) 839-2508 DC Fax: (202) 225-1584 Also try Judiciary Comm. fax at (202) 225-3951 US Mail: RHOB 2449, Washington DC 20515 . Senator Patrick Leahy (the Senate sponsor of the bill) DC Phone: (202) 224-4242, VT Phone: (802) 863-2525 DC Fax: (202) 224-3595 US Mail: SR 433, Washington DC 20510 email: senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov . Rep. Don Edwards (the House sponsor of the bill) DC Phone: (202) 225-3072, CA Phone: (408) 345-1711 DC Fax: (202) 225-9460 US Mail: 2307 RHOB, Washington DC 20515 . Your two Senators . Your Representative Tell them you are opposed to the FBI's Wiretap legislation. Feel free to use the sample communique below: SAMPLE COMMUNIQUE ================= Dear __________, The recent Digital Telephony bills (HR 4922 & SB 2375) disturb me greatly. The FBI has not yet made their case to the public that we need to build wiretap functionality into the telephones of 250 million people to justify wiretaps which have not yet been proven to be difficult to implement. The bills would clearly compromise the privacy of all Americans with no counterbalancing benefit to either law enforcement or the public. The FBI has not demonstrated the need, and the cost is uncalculated, but is known to be at least 500 million tax dollars. Furthermore, the standards are undefined, as are the bodies that would enact these standards. For these reasons, I am opposed to the Digital Telephony bills (HR 4922 & SB 2375). Sincerely, _______________________ If you get a response from your legislator, drop us a note at vtw@vtw.org. We track legislator positions on privacy-related issues such as this one. DISTRIBUTE WIDELY (though no later than October 1, 1994) -- STATUS OF THE BILLS (updated 8/10/94) Aug 18, 94 HR 4922 reported back to committee (write to Rep. Jack Brooks!) Aug 11, 94 Sen. Leahy & Rep. Edwards hold a joint hearing on the bills in Wash. DC at 1pm in Rayburn 2237. Aug 10, 94 HR 4922 referred to Subcomm. on Civil and Constitutional Rights Aug 10, 94 SB 2375 referred to Subcomm. on Technology and the Law Aug 9, 94 Rep. Hyde officially cosponsors HR 4922 Aug 9, 94 HR 4922 referred to House Judiciary Committee Aug 9, 94 SB 2375 referred to Senate Judiciary Committee Aug 9, 94 Identical House and Senate bills are announced by their respective sponsors, Rep. Don Edwards (D-CA) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) EFF states the legislation is "not necessary". -- CONTACT INFORMATION The Voters Telecomm Watch is a volunteer organization dedicated to monitoring federal legislation that affects telecommunications and civil liberties. We are based primarily out of New York, though we have volunteers throughout the US. Voters Telecomm Watch keeps scorecards on legislators' positions on legislation that affects telecommunications and civil liberties. If you have updates to a legislator's positions, from either: -public testimony, -reply letters from the legislator, -stated positions from their office, please contact vtw@vtw.org so they can be added to this list. Voice mail: (718) 596-2851 General questions: vtw@vtw.org Mailing List Requests: vtw-list-request@vtw.org Press Contact: stc@vtw.org Gopher URL: gopher://gopher.panix.com:70/11/vtw WWW URL: We're working on it. :-) &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& The greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good. -- Friedrich Hayek [from rlm@helen.surfcty.com] --jim GovAccess is a series of postings and a distribution-list maintained by Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814 jwarren@well.com -or- jwarren@autodesk.com [James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award, Soc.of Prof.Journalists - Nor.Calif., 1994; Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award, Playboy Foundation, 1994; Pioneer Award, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1992 (first year); founder, Computers, Freedom & Privacy confs, 1991; InfoWorld founder; blah blah blah] >> Permission herewith granted for unlimited reposting and recirculation.<< >> Past postings are at ftp.cpsr.org:/cpsr/states/california/govaccess << >> To add or drop the GovAccess list, email to jwarren@well.com . <<