Subject: Re: [Raven] IETF vote

From: "Richard Payne" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 09:03:08 -0500

Ed Stone quoted Barry Smith (in a story from the Washington Post) as saying:

>Smith said those setting the standards should understand that federal
>wiretap laws do in fact require them to design in wiretap capabilities. "We
>have every confidence that the technical-standards-setting bodies will
>fulfill that statutory requirement," Smith said."

I certainly hope that the Washington Post misquoted Mr. Smith, because we
might otherwise have to conclude that the FBI was misinformed or trying to
mislead people.

CALEA is the only U.S. law requiring specified tap-friendly capabilities, it
applies only in the U.S., and even there it does not apply to "information
services", which includes ISP's among others. The "statutory requirement"
that Mr. Smith refers to is therefore mythical for at least a couple of
distinct reasons.

I leave to one side the difficulties of trying to enforce such a "statutory
requirement", pointing only to the resounding success of the Clipper chip
and crypto export controls <snicker>.

The outcome of the IETF vote, and the level of informed discussion on this
list and elsewhere, leads me to the happy conclusion that, in this case,
truth beats FUD.

Richard Payne

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