[This note refers to a later FOIA submission that that referred to in most
of the other documents in this directory.  In this form, it came from
CuD, but is based on material from CPSR/Portland News and SurfPunk
Technical Journal.]

Date: 7 Apr 1994 13:42:26 -0500
From: abacard@well.sf.ca.us (Andre Bacard)
Subject: Gilmore Files Clipper FOIA

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The following news item appeared in the March 1994 issue of the
CPSR/Portland Newsletter with Editor Erik Nilsson & Copy Editor
Andrea Rodakowski at <erikn@cpsr.org>.
************************************************************

           GILMORE FILES FOIA FOR CLIPPER KEY DATABASE

Prominent Cypherpunk and CPSR member [and EFF boardmember] John Gilmore has
filed a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Clipper key
"escrow agents" for the database of Clipper key components.
Releasing the information would effectively give anyone the ability
to decrypt Clipper-encrypted communications.

The escrow agents are the Treasury Department and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.  While the escrow agents
will be highly motivated to deny Mr. Gilmore's request, Mr. Gilmore
believes that they will have meager grounds to do so, stating on
the Cypherpunks mailing list that,

          There appears to be no FOIA exemption that would
          justify withholding the key escrow databases which
          Treasury and NIST are building.  (The keys are not
          tied to any individual, so individual privacy
          isn't a valid exemption.  The database isn't
          classified.  Etc.)

If the escrow agents claim that the keys are classified, "... they
can't give them out to cops," Gilmore stated.

Possibly, the escrow agents will claim that the keys are
proprietary commercial information of the holder of the Clipper
device.  Or, they might claim that the keys are classified, but law
enforcement agents are able to use the keys in a way that doesn't
give them access to classified information.

However, Mr. Gilmore has doubtless given Clipper proponents a
puzzler.

Thanks to SurfPunk for some of this info.