Politech archive on Scott Charney: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=charney ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 22:47:41 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Platt <cpat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Cc: cpat_private Subject: More Charney Declan, I believe that since I was offered an interview by a public official, for subsequent publication, and since the magazine formally rejected the feature and explicitly told me I could offer it elsewhere, I have the (copy)right to offer you the following excerpts for distribution. --- Below are a few excerpts from the interview that Scott Charney granted when he was head of the computer crime division of the Department of Justice. These quotes were offered to me for publication in Wired magazine, but the magazine chose not to use the feature. Subsequently, with Mr. Charney's permission, I adapted some of the material for a feature in the L. A. Times, and he made some additional statements at that time, during a telephone interview. I had the impression, while listening to Mr. Charney, that he was speaking personally. I didn't get the sense that I was receiving canned policy statements dictated via the Clinton administration. However I must add that although Mr. Charney saw his interview transcript shortly after the time I wrote it (more than six years ago), he has not seen it since then, and his personal views may have changed since then. --Charles Platt ------------------------------------------------------------- Charney on key escrow: "if you look at the debate at cryptography, are we better off with more privacy and less law enforcement? I think key escrow makes a lot of sense for many reasons, not just law enforcement reasons. We invade privacy under important constraints such as the fourth amendement. But if a judge says we can go into someone's home, this is to protect society, which is a right for society at the expense of the individual. Suppose you buy a bigger lock, we bring a bigger sledgehammer. But cryptography is a lock so strong, society cannot penetrate even if 1) everyone agrees it's very important, 2) it will save many many lives, and 3) a court has authorized it after a neutral judicial review. People communicating about blowing up an airline--we can't intercept, so 400 people die. There are those who say that's the price of privacy, but you have to be able to live with the choices you make, and I'd rather save the 400 people." Charney on data monitoring: "There's a concern about law enforcement engaging in illegal wiretaps, and there's no doubt you can find cases in history to justify that concern. But there's no evidence for systematic abuse of that process. I'd rather think that if a judge orders access to data and it satisfies the fourth amendement test, it should be permitted." Charney's computer background: "I was programming in Cobol when I was eight. My father went to MIT and got into computers in the vacuum tube days. Then he worked for Seligman[?], mutual fund co on Wall Street, he wrote one of the first programs for processing mutual fund checks by computer. He had me writing flow charts, then do the punch cards, go into the air conditioned room with a Honeywell computer, we'd process the cards. So I had a long informal history with computers." "I had a PC relatively early on. The first machine was XT class. And I program as a hobby, for the department, mostly in FoxPro, dBASE IV. I've toyed with C but I don't have the time." Charney on influencing the evolution of net culture: "It's fun to be a part of it and have some small impact on what the future's going to look like and whether we're going to like it. The players include civil libertarians, academics, policy makers--and law enforcement is an important part of that. You only have to look at the front cover of Time magazine to wonder if criminal law is going to drive the internet. The answer is, it should not. The goal is to minimize harm but allow the benefits to be maximized." "I think it's really important that we find ways to protect children, but not paint with such a broad brush that we chill the use of the net. Computer crime is a very important thing. If people abuse the networks, that's trouble. But you don't want networks in the next century to be driven by the computer crime issue. There's so many social benefits in the net, the democratizing factor, the free speech factor, we need to preserve those benefits while minizing the harm." ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Events: Congreso Nacional de Periodismo Digital in Huesca, Spain from Jan. 17-18 (http://www.congresoperiodismo.com) and the Second International Conference on Web-Management in Diplomacy in Malta from Feb. 1-3. (http://www.diplomacy.edu/Web/conference2/) -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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