------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 17:19:15 -0800 From: Jim Warren Subject: File 5--White House altering of Public Electronic E-Docs? Feb.17, 1994 "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." -- Thomas Jefferson [from John Dilley ] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% PUBLIC ACCESS TO *INACCURATE(?)* PUBLIC RECORDS I don't know if you followed or are interested in the flap over "Altered White House documents" but thought I would brazenly bring it to your attention. It is certainly germane to the question of public access to *reliable* government information. I objected on alt.internet.services on Feb 5 to having found a version of a story on the ftp site whitehouse.gov which did not match facts widely reported in the media. The Internet flap which ensued finally caught the attention of the White House and I received a denial from Jock Gill of the Office of Media Affairs that the WH altered or edited any documents - despite the fact that I had evidence to the contrary. The story hit the AP wires and the on-line community has been extremely interested - and supportive of the need to protect the accuracy and reliability of what we receive on-line from the government! I prepared an approximately 11k synopsis of the gist of the story, including the AP version which appeared on-line, if you are interested. I think much of it is still contained on alt.internet.services though it went everywhere and bits and pieces are scattered all over. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ABOUT THE NEXT ITEM HEREIN: EXPLICIT EXAMPLE OF A NET-BASED POLITICAL PUSH This GovAccess list began as online support for an effort to mandate that California's *state*-level legislative information available via the nets. Because of (1) its public/popular support and (2) the net-ability of *timely* mass-communications among geographically-disbursed supporters, it was politically irresistable. GovAccess.015 and the following message both concern a net-based *federal* political push regarding a *national* net-related issue. GovAccess.015 concerned a national petition addressed to the President - the Executive Branch. It has already drawn OVER TEN-THOUSAND CO-SIGNATORS. The following item concerns direct advocacy to representatives in the Legislative Branch - supporting Congressional action to redress the grievance. Although I am personally a furious and flaming advocate on this issue, I am weaseling the information in, here, under the [legitimate] excuse that it is clearly an example of a net-based populist political push - this time, at a federal level. The "just-cause" and "public-interest" aspects are merely icing on the cake: * Shall the Clinton/Gore administration continue to supress national and global adoption of the best possible personal-communications privacy- protection technology - that can be most-easily deployed and least expensive? * Shall the administration continue to force U.S. high-tech companies into non-competitive positions, by prohibiting their foreign sale of the best secure-communications technology - even though it is already known world- wide, published in the open technical literature more than a decade ago, and gleefully sold by foreign competitors? * Shall the administration continue to pretend that this globally-known security technology is a "dangerous munition," the export of which must be mostly-prohibited by the Secretary of State, when it is sold on diskettes throughout the U.S., is readily available throughout the world, and can be downloaded in a few minutes from many thousands of Internet sites, globally? * Shall the administration continue its efforts to deploy and install costly new communications systems that are exclusively *designed* to aid its covert surveillance of personal, financial and business communications - electronic-snooping so-often abused by politicians and officials in the positions to exercise it? * Does the administration *really* think that alleged wrongdoers will actually use communications systems that are *designed* to facilitate government eves-dropping - especially when provably-secure technology is available to everyone, worldwide, at little or no cost? * Should the government develop and deploy ever-greater citizen-surveillance technology for ever-increasingly-convenient, undetectable peeping-anywhere at the touch of a Washington keyboard, while citizens are offered only a guaranteed-insecure secret system to protect against corporate and personal snooping while facilitating government peepers? Thus - the next item concerns net-based political action by those who have the technical competency to understand the issues and their ramifications - to address this bizarre lunacy. While opposition-action is still permitted. --jim %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% CONGRESSIONAL ACTION SEEKS NET-WIDE SUPPORT (INCLUDING YOU! :-) From ssteele@eff.org Tue Feb 15 12:11:15 1994 * DISTRIBUTE WIDELY * subject: EFF Wants You (to add your voice to the crypto fight) Monday, February 7th, 1994 [reformatted for GovAccess. --jim] From: Jerry Berman, Executive Director of EFF. jberman@eff.org --- Dear Friends on the Electronic Frontier, I'm writing a personal letter to you because the time has now come for action. On Friday, February 4, 1994, the Administration announced that it plans to proceed on every front to make the Clipper Chip encryption scheme a national standard, and to discourage the development and sale of alternative powerful encryption technologies. If the government succeeds in this effort, the resulting blow to individual freedom and privacy could be immeasurable. As you know, over the last three years, we at EFF have worked to ensure freedom and privacy on the Net. Now I'm writing to let you know about something *you* can do to support freedom and privacy. *Please take a moment to send e-mail to U.S. Rep. Maria Cantwell (cantwell@eff.org) to show your support of H.R. 3627, her bill to liberalize export controls on encryption software.* I believe this bill is critical to empowering ordinary citizens to use strong encryption, as well as to ensuring that the U.S. software industry remains competitive in world markets. Here are some facts about the bill: Rep. Cantwell introduced H.R. 3627 in the House of Representatives on November 22, 1993. H.R. 3627 would amend the Export Control Act to move authority over the export of nonmilitary software with encryption capabilities from the Secretary of State (where the intelligence community traditionally has stalled such exports) to the Secretary of Commerce. The bill would also invalidate the current license requirements for nonmilitary software containing encryption capablities, unless there is substantial evidence that the software will be diverted, modified or re-exported to a military or terroristic end-use. If this bill is passed, it will greatly increase the availability of secure software for ordinary citizens. Currently, software developers do not include strong encryption capabilities in their products, because the State Department refuses to license for export any encryption technology that the NSA can't decipher. Developing two products, one with less secure exportable encryption, would lead to costly duplication of effort, so even software developed for sale in this country doesn't offer maximum security. There is also a legitimate concern that software companies will simply set up branches outside of this country to avoid the export restrictions, costing American jobs. The lack of widespread commercial encryption products means that it will be very easy for the federal government to set its own standard--the Clipper Chip standard. As you may know, the government's Clipper Chip initiative is designed to set an encryption standard where the government holds the keys to our private conversations. Together with the Digital Telephony bill, which is aimed at making our telephone and computer networks "wiretap-friendly," the Clipper Chip marks a dramatic new effort on the part of the government to prevent us from being able to engage in truly private conversations. We've been fighting Clipper Chip and Digital Telephony in the policy arena and will continue to do so. But there's another way to fight those initiatives, and that's to make sure that powerful alternative encryption technologies are in the hands of any citizen who wants to use them. The government hopes that, by pushing the Clipper Chip in every way short of explicitly banning alternative technologies, it can limit your choices for secure communications. --- Here's what you can do: I urge you to write to Rep. Cantwell today at cantwell@eff.org. In the Subject header of your message, type "I support HR 3627." In the body of your message, express your reasons for supporting the bill. EFF will deliver printouts of all letters to Rep. Cantwell. With a strong showing of support from the Net community, Rep. Cantwell can tell her colleagues on Capitol Hill that encryption is not only an industry concern, but also a grassroots issue. *Again: remember to put "I support HR 3627" in your Subject header.* This is the first step in a larger campaign to counter the efforts of those who would restrict our ability to speak freely and with privacy. Please stay tuned--we'll continue to inform you of things you can do to promote the removal of restrictions on encryption. In the meantime, you can make your voice heard--it's as easy as e-mail. Write to cantwell@eff.org today. --- If you want additional information about the Cantwell bill, send e-mail to cantwell-info@eff.org. To join EFF, write membership@eff.org. The text of the Cantwell bill can be found with the any of the following URLs (Universal Resource Locaters): ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Policy/Legislation/cantwell.bill http://www.eff.org/ftp/EFF/Policy/Legislation/cantwell.bill gopher://gopher.eff.org/00/EFF/legislation/cantwell.bill --- [The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the most-effective spokes- groups for online civil-liberties that I know of in Washingtoontown, and Berman is one of the most effective DC advocates for such issues. --jim] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ONLY IN AMERIKA: CRYPTOIDS' COMIC RELIEF IN THE FED-SNOOP AND GOV-PEEP GAME From washofc!banisar@uu5.psi.com Wed Feb 16 12:08:21 1994 Organization: CPSR Washington Office From: Dave Banisar To: CPSR Civil Liberties Group Big Brother Inside Logo A parody of the Intel's Logo modified for the Clipper Chip is now available for use for stickers, posters, brochures etc. The Big Brother Inside graphic files are now available at the CPSR Internet Archive - ftp/gopher cpsr.org /cpsr/privacy/crypto/clipper big_brother_inside_sticker.ps (postscript-scale to fit your project) big_brother_inside_logo.gif (Color GIF - good startup/background screen) big_brother_inside_picts_info.txt (Info on the files) The files have also been uploaded to America Online in the Mac Telecom and Graphic Arts folders. big_brother_inside_sticker.ps is a generic postscript file, created in CorelDraw. The postscript image lies landscape on the page, and consists of the intel-logo's ``swoosh'' and crayon-like lettering on the inside. This design was originally created for the sticker project: the image was screened onto transparent stickers 1" square for the purpose of applying them to future clipper-chip products. (cdodhner@indirect.com was in charge of that project; as far as I know he's still distributing them for a small donation to cover printing & mailing costs). The design was created by Matt Thomlinson =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ + END THIS FILE + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+===+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=