NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/crypt/4989

Text File | 1992-11-18 | 4.6 KB | 92 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Larry Loen)
Subject: Re: Registering "Assault Keys"
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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 19:56:45 GMT
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In <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Bill Meyers) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Dances with Drums) writes:
>[ ... ]
>>    As for registering keys...why do law enforcement officials think
>>they have a right to know what I am saying to another person.  It seems
>>like this is an infringement on *freedom* of expression -- if my expression
>>to another person *must* be subject to monitoring, is it really free?


>Well, I've had a closer look --

>        AMENDMENT I
>        Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
>        of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
>        or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;  [etc.]
>                         ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^
>-- and it's perfectly clear that what they _meant_ was your freedom
>to make a speech, e.g., when trying to get elected to public office.
>There's nothing in there about other modes of communication, and
>_certainly_ nothing about keeping secrets from the Government!  BTW,
>the Amendment only limits Congress.  Individual states may further
>limit your means of running for public office, and many of them do.

Well, it is true that the First Amendment is not an absolute.  There have
been a lot of restrictions placed on "commercial" speech and maybe there
is a compelling argument to restrict speech based on its technology
(something that I am dubious about the older I get; there are more radio
stations than newspapers, for instance, so I wonder if the retrictions
they now labor under really ought to continue).

But, I continue to believe that cryptography, per se, has nothing to do
with the issue.  It is primarily a privacy issue.

For instance, surely any _meaningful_ ability to _prepare_ the speech
also means the right to prepare _drafts_ of the speech in private, without
the cops listening in.  This is the very essence of tyranny; remember that
the KGB and Gestapo let everyone know they weren't above tapping phone
lines or wiring your house lest you think thoughts they didn't like.

We just got done complaining about colorizing old movies.  But, remarkably
few have complained about the now-common practice of retrieving film from
the cutting room floor and adding it.  This is not always done by the
director or the producer.  For instance, I saw a clip from the original
"Frankenstein" where the monster is playing with the girl in the lake.
The "restored" footage has him throwing her in to drown.  Only a couple
of seconds, but think of what a difference it makes to the movie.

It seems the director decided that it didn't belong in this movie.  Why
does it get to be added, after the fact?

Now, imagine of things like this are done _before_ the movie comes out.
Suppose a clip of that kind was widely publicized and the movie was
a bomb because of something that the director _rejected_?

If freedom of speech is to mean anything, it must mean a certain minimum
privacy to _prepare_ that speech -- to try out controversial ideas,
silly-seeming ideas, ideas that are later realized to be at variance with
your own deeply-held set of values.  If one is to have a meaningful public
personna, such ideas, even if committed to paper or to data processing
systems, ought to remain private.  And, people ought to have the means of
preventing "unethical" disclosure in a society where it is legal for
newspapers to print information that even the government itself claims
ought to be secret.

There are, perhaps, other ways than private cryptography to preseve this
privacy.  But, Dr Elsberg's psychiatrist probably wishes he had effective
encryption.  There are times and places where it is the right thing to do
and I have seen no good argument against it still, even if the government
decides that it is all constitutional.


--
   Larry W. Loen        |  My Opinions are decidedly my own, so please
                        |  do not attribute them to my employer