The FBI's Kerr has been named the CIA's next deputy director for science and technology: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30341-2001Aug3.html EPIC has placed the documents online: http://www.epic.org/crypto/scarfo.html --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45851,00.html Feds: Spy Tool Is a Secret By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) 2:00 a.m. Aug. 7, 2001 PDT The U.S. government has invoked national security to argue that details of a new electronic surveillance technique must remain secret. Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge overseeing the prosecution of an alleged mobster that public disclosure of a classified keystroke logger would imperil ongoing investigations of "foreign intelligence agents" and endanger the lives of U.S. agents. In court documents (PDF) filed Friday, the Justice Department claims that such stringent secrecy is necessary to prevent "hostile intelligence officers" from employing "counter-surveillance tactics to thwart law enforcement." [...] Donald Kerr, the director of the FBI's lab, said in an affidavit filed Friday that "there are only a limited number of effective techniques available to the FBI to cope with encrypted data, one of which is the 'key logger system.'" He said that if criminals find out how the logger works, they can readily circumvent it. The feds believe so strongly in keeping this information secret that they've said they may invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act if necessary. The 1980 law says that the government may say that evidence requires "protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security." If that happens, not only are observers barred from the courtroom, but the trial could move to a classified location. Federal regulations say that if a courtroom is not sufficiently secure, "the court shall designate the facilities of another United States Government agency" as the location for the trial. But the FBI's Kerr said that CIPA's extreme procedures aren't good enough. Says Kerr: "Even disclosure under the protection of the court ... cannot guarantee that the technique will not be compromised.... To assume otherwise may well lead to the compromise of criminal and national security investigations, and, in some cases, threaten the lives of FBI or other government agency personnel." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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