roundtable: Telecom Post #16

roundtable: Telecom Post #16

Telecom Post #16

CWHITCOM@bentley.edu
Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:14:56 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:14:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: CWHITCOM@bentley.edu
Subject: Telecom Post #16
To: tpr-ne@mitvma.mit.edu, tpr-annc@mitvma.mit.edu, roundtable@cni.org,
Message-Id: <01HWB2IN0H028WYA9N@bentley.edu>


TOPICS:

1.  The Conference Committee Emerges

2.  Encryption Difficulties

3.  TIIAP Survives!

4.  Who Does Congress Represent?

5.  Social Contracts


Our waiting seems to be coming to an end on all fronts this week
as the OJ trial reaches its conclusion and the long awaited list
of Conference committee members begins to emerge from the House
and Senate chambers.  Some of the delay seems to have been due
to disarray among House members.  Rep. Jack Fields (R-TX) is in
charge of the Republican side while Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) was
to select the Democrats.  Dingell's biggest sticking point is
probably the inevitable naming of Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) since
they do not agree on several issues.



The Washington Telecom Post of Sept. 29 reports that the draft
conferee list seems to include the following:

HOUSE

Democrats - Dingell, Markey, Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA), Bobby
Rush (D-IL), Anna Eshoo (D-CA). John Conyers (D-MI), Patricia
Schroeder (D-CO), John Bryant (D-TX), Howard Berman (D-CA),
Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)



Republicans -  Commerce - Fields, Reps. Thomas Bliley (R-VA),
Mike Oxley (R-OH), Rick White (R-WA)  This group will be
responsible for all six titles of HR1555.



Judiciary - Henry Hyde (R-IL), Carol Moorehead (R-CA), Bob
Goodlatte (R-VA), Steve Buyer (R-IN, MIchael Flanagan (R-IL)

Title I -Dan Schaefer (R-CO), Joe Barton (R-TX), Dennis Hastert
(R-IL), Bill Paxon (R-NY), Scott Klug (R-WI), Daniel Frisa
(R-NY) ,Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Buyer, Martin Hoke (R-OH)

Title II - Schaefer, Hastert, Frisa

Title III - Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Paxon, Klug

Title IV & V - Schaefer, Hastert, Klug

Title VI - Schaefer, Barton, Klug



SENATE

Republicans - Pressler (R-SD), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Joh McCain
(R-AZ), Conrad Burns (R-MT), Slade Gorton (R-WA), and Trent Lott
(R-MI)



Democrats - Ernest Hollings (D-SC), Daniel Inouye (D-HI),
Wendell Ford (D-KY), James Exon (D-NE), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

The conference process will probably include two meetings of the
full group with multiple meetings of the subgroups working on
individual titles.  Best guess is that conferencing will not
produce a bill until late Fall.



The presidential veto threat still looms in the background. 
Though the President has done nothing to bolster his threat, the
Vice President has recently reminded the Congress of
Administration opposition to this bill.  The longer Clinton's
silence continues, however, the less serious the threat seems.





ENCRYPTION DIFFICULTIES

Last week's look at the issue of the exportation of encryption
products failed to fully examine the implications of a key
escrow system.  The Administration has altered it original
Clipper proposal to allow private enterprises to act as the
escrow agents rather than government agencies.  Only the law
enforcement community has expressed a need for a key escrow
system.  The entire idea is, otherwise, extremely unpopular.



A key escrow system would require that every encrypted
communication store portions of its encryption key with two or
more agencies.  Originally, those agencies were to be the
Treasury Department and the National Institute for Standards. 
Recently, the Administration altered that requirement to allow
private companies meeting certain certification requirements to
serve as escrow agents.  Industry claim that businesses should
be able to serve as escrow agents for their own keys. 



While the Administration's latest efforts show concern for the
ability of American companies to participate in the global
market, few believe a key escrow requirement will enhance the
desirability of American products.  



The Electronic Privacy Information Center  identifies the
following 10 flaws in a key escrow logic:



1.   Increased network vulnerability.  The key escrow
configuration necessarily increases the likelihood of
communications compromise and improper interception by third
parties.  Computer crime will skyrocket.



2.   Policy incoherence.  The key management needs of business
differ sharply from the real-time intercept plans of law
enforcement.  The latter has little to do with the former.



3.   Emergency circumstances taps.  The current wiretap law
permits the initiation of a wiretap *without court order* upon a
certification that emergency circumstances exist.  If this
procedure is built into the CKE procedure, *no judicial review*
will be done prior to the disclosure of the keys.



4.   Complexity.  Is it realistic to think that this kind of
system could satisfy the enormous amount of encrypted
information in the next 20 years?



5.   Cost-benefit.  The benefits and convictions based on
wiretapping have fallen over time while the cost of developing
intercept technology is rising.



6.   Intrusiveness.  How will proper compliance by escrow agents
and crypto users be enforced?  Given no evidence of wrongdoing,
will random checking ensue?



7.   The future of PGP.  What happens to non-escrow encryption
schemes?



8.   Ability to Defeat.  There are many other means of hiding
communications within a message.  There is no reason to think
law-breakers aren't aware of this.



9.   The Long Term.  Ultimately does this plan build an effective
law enforcement strategy or a surveillance infrastructure that
can be used at every level of our communications.



10.   Oklahoma City.  The Administration uses terrorism as its
argument for a key escrow system - yet, despite the existence of
the Clipper Chip system, 170 people were killed.  It hadn't
occurred to the FBI to request a wiretap warrant for threats of
arson, weapons, or explosives since the late 1980s.



For more information on this mess, visit EPIC's web site at
www.epic.org/crypto/



THE DISMANTLING OF THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT

TIIAP lives!



As of last week, S 929, the Senate Commerce, Justice, State
appropriations bill was still to be decided upon.  This bill
intends to eliminate the Commerce Department as it exists today,
including reducing the budget for the National
Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA), the
President's  main telecommunications advisory body, by 82%.  The
NTIA administers the TIIAP grant program which awards funding to
a myriad of telecommunications projects around the country.  



In a rare moment of clear thinking, the Senate passed an
amendment by Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) to restore $18.9 m in TIIAP
funds for FY '96.  This bill will now be reconciled with the
corresponding House bill which contains $40m in TIIAP funding. 
The Conference committee must still decide on the grant money
for FY '95.  That money exists in the House bill but was not
restored in the Senate version.



NTIA has also had a shot in the arm with a restoration of funds
to somewhere between $17-19.2m for FY '96.  This is down just
$2m from FY' 95 levels.



WHO IS IT CONGRESS REPRESENTS?

The merging of media giants apparently does not sit well with
the American public.  Consumer Federation of America reports
that the results of a public opinion survey show that 



54% of the respondents felt that it should be harder for mergers
between local telephone and cable companies to take place, not
easier.   34% said it should be easier.



47% felt entertainment company mergers should be made more
difficult.  19% felt it should be easier.



This survey serves as yet more proof that this telecom
legislation has nothing to do with public opinion and everything
to do with the pocketbooks of special interests.



SOCIAL CONTRACTS

Until recently, a basic tenant of American information and media
policies has been the that the power of the people reigns
supreme, that a diversity of voices benefits civic discourse,
and that open and public debate leads to better governance. 
Various constructs in our mass media have been developed in
order to reserve some space for that public voice to flourish
without marketplace pressures.  Public access television
provides a space for local communities to develop and broadcast
their own programming.  The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(CPB) has enjoyed government subsidies in order to free it from
the pressures of advertisers.  Even commercial broadcasters are
subject to programming constraints for the public good.  While
public access TV has faired well in the legislative pass, we are
all well aware of the move to boot CPB out of business in the
interest of turning more VHS broadcast spectrum over to private
concerns.



In the wake of the massive media mergers, the concept of a
"social contract" is appearing as a means of greasing the wheels
for FCC approval.  When seeking waivers of existing ownership
restrictions, parties (ABC/Disney, CBS/Westinghouse) must
demonstrate that the transfer is in the public interest and will
provide extraordinary benefits to the public.  The United Church
of Christ and the Center for Media Education are leading the
charge to require an increase in the hours of children's
educational programs broadcasters are required to air.  A
petition to deny the waivers sought by CBS/Westinghouse was
dropped after Westinghouse agreed to supply 3 hours of
educational programming a week.  The two groups will continue to
advocate on behalf of children's programming with a goal of 7
hours per week.



Far be it from Congress to support such a move.  Sen. Larry
Pressler (R-SD) and Rep. Jack Fields (R-TX) sent letters to FCC
commissioners claiming that such social contracts could violate
the First Amendment.  "[S]uch a contract could allow public
interest groups to unfairly gain the ability to control
broadcast programming content in a way that could not otherwise
be accomplished through established notice and comment
rulemaking proceedings." says Pressler.  This move has been
dubbed "green mail" and "legalized extortion".  Pressler and
Fields are afraid that public interest groups will wield unfair
pressure over broadcasters by doing an end run around the
traditional "process" by getting FCC chairman Reed Hundt to
support their concerns.



The United Church of Christ and the Center for Media Education
have filed a petition for the denial of the Disney/ABC merger. 
Again, increased children's educational programming is requested
to satisfy the public interest.  The Children's Television Act
of 1990 requires television broadcasters to serve the
educational and informational needs of children, including
programming specifically designed to do so. But that requirement
has been satisfied by some channels by airing these programs
before 7:00 am.



Personally, I find it rather hard to reconcile the concerns
expressed in the Exon Amendment over material buried on the
Internet, available to a small fraction of American homes, with
this resistance to providing quality programming on television
sets in almost every American home every Saturday morning.  Who
are these people?  Don't they have children?









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