
If you use a cordless or cellular phone, then any kid with a radio receiver
can listen in to your calls legally. Snoops can wiretap other phone
conversations with a simple alligator clip even though it may not be legal
without a warrant.

This annoying lack of privacy could soon come to an end because a marvelous
new technology is now available for unbreakable encryption. By putting a
special chip in your telephone your voice could be scrambled in such a way
that only the person at the other end can understand it. An eavesdropper would
only hear gibberish, which all of the world's fastest computers could not
unscramble.

This new technology is not secret... it has been published in scientific
journals. The Russians have it. Third world dictators and terrorists have
it. If we have to fight World War III we will never be able to break the
enemy's codes, as we did in World War II.

Our federal law enforcement and spy agencies are not happy about this. The
National Security Agency (NSA) which has a budget bigger than the CIA's and
likes spending even more, has come up with a brilliantly devious plan to keep
this great invention from becoming available to ordinary Americans.

The NSA has designed its own version of the encryption chip with an electronic
"backdoor" which enables the government to unscramble individual telephone
conversations. With the endorsement of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Janet Reno,
the NSA's snooper chip is on the way to becoming standard equipment in
telephone networks throughout the United States.

The Clinton Administration has declared the snooper chip an "Escrowed
Encryption Standard." This means federal agencies will soon begin buying
millions of them for all government offices.

The Administration plans to use the massive purchasing power of the federal
government to ensure that snooper phones dominate the marketplace. Then
government contractors and everyone else dealing with the government will have
to install them, too.

It might still be legal to buy secure (wiretap-proof) telephones; Mafia dons,
drug kingpins, and other sophisticated criminals will surely use them to talk
to each other. But since secure phones are incompatible with the snooper
phones everyone else will have, ordinary Americans would find them as useless
as having 8-track tapes instead of cassettes, or Betamax video instead of VHS.

At the same time, the Clinton Administration has classified the snooper chip
design as top secret. It's the first time in U.S. history that any federal
standard has been kept secret.

Clinton even wants to force telephone and cable companies to install special
equipment to assist direct government monitoring. His proposed Digital
Telephony Act would do just that.

I suppose the federal snoops are tired of sending out field agents with
alligator clips they just want to flip a switch in the comfort of their
Washington or regional offices and listen in on your phone calls. Their bill
has not yet been introduced this year, but one of its previous sponsors is
Senator Joe Biden (the same Senator who lectures Robert Bork on privacy).

Clinton has renewed the ban on the export of all cryptographically secure
products in order to thwart the development of international standards for
secure private communications. This export ban has the effect of preventing
Americans from buying secure encryption products because companies can't
afford to produce electronic devices in a different version for export.

Clinton and the NSA are vigorously opposing H.R. 3627, introduced by Rep.
Maria Cantwell D-WA (cantwell@hr.house.gov), which would allow the export of
encryption technology that is commonly available overseas anyway. The
principal effect of her bill would be to create a larger domestic market
for electronic privacy products.

The feds say that there are top-secret reasons for their wiretap plan, and
that therefore it should not be subject to public scrutiny. Don't believe it.
In a free society, citizens should enjoy privacy, but the government should be
accountable to the public for all its actions. Clinton has it exactly
backwards he supports secret government plans for the electronic monitoring of
American citizens.

Vice President Gore like to talk about the National Information Infrastructure,
with futuristic talk of interactive television, data highways, and other
technologies. Why doesn't he tell you that his plan includes an Orwellian
scheme for the federal government to monitor private conversations between
Americans?

Clinton claims to believe in a constitutional privacy when the issue is getting
an abortion. Isn't it strange that he doesn't think you have a constitutional
privacy right to keep your medical records out of a national database, or to
keep government wiretappers from listening in on your telephone and modem
conversations?

The model was his health plan. Hillary's health task force met in secret,
defied the law and a court order to make its deliberations public, "lost" the
minutes and the personnel records, and then came up with a plan that involves
a national ID card and a central database on which the feds can track
everyones medical history. Tell your Congressman you want him to oppose the
Digital Telephony Act and to support the Cantwell bill. Ask him to demand
hearings on the government's plan to put a snooper chip in every telephone.


The Phyllis Schlafly Report
schlafly@netcom.com
Box 618
Alton, Illinois 62002
ISSN0556-0152


"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up
with wings as eagles, they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk
and not faint." Isaiah 40:31
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(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)
