Volume 3.06 March 18, 1996
[1] House Approves Weakened Counter-Terrorism Bill [2] House and Senate Debate Immigration Legislation [3] Internet "Indecency" Hearing Begins This Week [4] Commerce Dep't to Release More Info on Foreign Crypto [5] Doctors Group Criticizes Senate Medical Bill [6] Netscape CEO Defends Right to Privacy [7] EPIC/PI Sponsor 2nd Conference on Surveillance Technologies [8] Upcoming Conferences and Eventss
[1] House Approves Weakened Counter-Terrorism Bill
The House of Representatives on March 14 approved a modified version of HR 2703, the Effective Death Penalty and Public Safety Act of 1996. The bill was watered down the previous day after a coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans approved (by a vote of 246 to 141) an amendment introduced by Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) which deleted provisions on wiretapping; access to consumer reports and telephone records; and the use of secret information in deportation hearings. The final bill includes no funding for the 1994 FBI Digital Telephony legislation. It still retains limitations on appeals to federal courts from state actions (habeas corpus). A replacement bill supported by civil liberties groups and introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) was defeated. The bill now goes to a conference committee to reconcile with the Senate bill which was passed last June. The Senate bill includes funding for digital telephony, increased use of wiretaps, and increased law enforcement access to consumer reports. President Clinton and Rep. Henry Hyde, the sponsor of the House bill, have called on the Conference Committee to include those provisions in the final bill. EPIC opposed funding for the digital telephony legislation as well the proposals to expand wiretapping and law enforcement access to consumer reports. A copy of the final House bill and other information on the terrorism bills is available at: http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/
[2] House and Senate Debate Immigration Legislation
The Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6 voted to defeat an amendment by Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI) to strike all identification registries out of the Senate immigration bill. Senators supporting the amendment were Abraham, Specter, Thurmond, Thompson, DeWine, Leahy, Heflin, Feingold and Hatch. Senators opposing the amendment to strike the identity registry were Simpson, Grassley, Brown, Kyl, Biden, Kennedy, Simon, Kohl and Feinstein. The Committee then approved an amendment offered by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to replace a mandatory registry with pilot programs in five states (which would expire in four years) and to require the Attorney General to submit a report on the programs to Congress. Abraham vowed to bring up his amendment on the Senate floor. The bill still requires states to place Social Security Numbers on drivers licenses and to obtain fingerprints or some other form of biometric identification for licenses. The House is expected to vote on immigration legislation (H.R. 2202) on Wednesday, March 20. Rep. Lemar Smith (R-TX), the chief sponsor of the bill, has said that due to opposition, he will modify the identity registry provisions to make them voluntary rather than mandatory. The House will also vote on a proposal by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) to strike the identification provisions from the bill. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL) will introduce a proposal to require the Social Security Administration to issue a tamperproof identity card with a biometric identifier.
[3] Internet "Indecency" Hearing Begins This Week
The constitutional challenge to the Communications Decency Act goes to court this week in Philadelphia. Beginning on March 21, a special three-judge federal court panel will begin hearing testimony and viewing on-line presentations designed to explain the nature of the Internet and interactive communications. This is expected to be the first time that a judicial proceeding has included a real-time demonstration of the Internet. The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU, EPIC and a broad coalition of on-line organizations on February 8, immediately after the CDA became law. A second lawsuit, filed by the American Library Association and a coalition of publishers, content providers and commercial access providers, has been consolidated with the ACLU/EPIC case. Both plaintiff groups will present evidence in the upcoming hearing. EPIC will continue to provide up-to-date information on the judicial proceedings at: http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/lawsuit/
[4] Commerce Dep't to Release More Info on Foreign Crypto
In response to a lawsuit filed by EPIC, the US Department of Commerce has agreed to release some previously withheld portions of a classified report on the international market for encryption software. The report, which was jointly produced by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration and the National Security Agency, reviews the foreign availability of encryption products and other nations' import, export and domestic use policies. A sanitized version of the report was released in January (See EPIC Alert 3.02). Significant portions were withheld at the request of the NSA. EPIC had earlier filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a full copy of the report. In recently filed court papers, the Department has agreed to release additional information by March 30. A copy of the sanitized Executive Summary of the report and more information on crypto policy is available at: http://www.epic.org/crypto/
[5] Doctors Group Criticizes Senate Medical Bill
The American Medical Association has written to Sen. Nancy Kassenbaum (R-KS) urging the Senate to revise S. 1360, the Medical Records Confidentiality Act of 1995, before enacting it into law. The AMA cited inadequate privacy safeguards as the primary problem. The AMA called for substantial changes to the bill: "The bill as introduced does not assure adequate confidentiality protections for personally identifiable medical information, and the AMA would discourage the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee from reporting such language without significant reexamination and modification." The AMA recommended several changes to the bill, including limiting disclosures of personally identifiable information, requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant based on a "probable cause" showing that the particular information is needed for an immediate law enforcement purpose, preventing the use of personally identifiable information for research without the consent of the patient, and limiting federal pre-emption to allow states to enact stronger laws. The committee is expected to consider the comments of the AMA as well as the proposal of the Medical Privacy Coalition, a group that includes the Coalition for Patient Rights, the Justice Research Institute, EPIC, the Consumer Project on Technology, the ACLU, and others, and mark-up the bill in early May. More information on medical privacy is available at: http://www.epic.org/privacy/medical/
[6] Netscape CEO Defends Right to Privacy
Computer Reseller News recently discussed cryptography policy with James Barksdale, chief executive of Netscape Communications. Barksdale had this to say on the issue of electronic privacy and government surveillance: There's also just an issue of right and wrong, of First Amendment rights, freedom of speech, probably the principal differentiator of the United States from all other forms of government. I don't even accept that there's an inalienable right for the government to eavesdrop on conversations between two private individuals. ... Why is it we've given up this basic right? I don't want to give up more of that right. I feel very strongly about this. These remarks are consistent with Netscape's published policy on encryption export, which notes that "Corporate and individual rights to privacy are placed in question by the current U.S. Government escrow proposal and process." The Netscape policy is available at: http://www.netscape.com/newsref/ref/encryption_export.html
[7] EPIC/PI Sponsor 2nd Conference on Surveillance Technologies
Privacy International and EPIC will sponsor the second conference on Advanced Surveillance Technologies (AST II) in Ottawa, Canada on September 16, 1996. The conference will examine new technologies of surveillance are being used by government and industry. Topics tentatively include artificial intelligence systems; new video surveillance; digital cash; and intelligent vehicle highways. There will also be extensive discussion of the sources of these technologies and legal and technological solutions. Two other conferences will also be held the same week in Ottawa. On September 17, Industry Canada (the Canadian government agency in charge of commerce) will be holding a one day conference on Internet Commerce. On Sept 18 and 19, privacy commissioners from around the world will be holding their annual meeting hosted by the Canadian Privacy Commission. More information on AST II is available at: http://www.privacy.org/pi/conference/
[8] Upcoming Conferences and Events
C|NET's Electronic Commerce Conference, March 20-22, 1996. Four Seasons Hotel, Newport Beach, California. Contact: (415) 395-7805 x. 165; conference@cnet.com or http://www.cnet.com/Community/Econference/ 1996 NY MacFair Seminar. March 23, 1996. NY Hilton Hotel, 54th Street & 6th Avenue. Sponsored by NYMUG. Computers Freedom and Privacy '96. March 27-30, 1996. Cambridge, Mass. Sponsored by MIT, ACM and WWW Consortium. Contact cfp96@mit.edu or http://web.mit.edu/cfp96/ Conference on Technological Assaults on Privacy, April 18-20, 1996. Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Papers should be submitted by February 1, 1996. Contact: Wade Robison, privacy@rit.edu, by FAX at (716) 475-7120, or by phone at (716) 475-6643. Electronic Democracy, April 24-25, 1996. Ottawa, Ontario. Sponsored by Riley Information Services. Contact: 76470.336@compuserve.com or http://www.rileyis.com. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, May 6-8, 1996. Oakland, CA. Sponsored by IEEE. Contact: sp96@cs.pdx.edu or http://www.cs.pdx.edu/SP96. Visions of Privacy for the 21st Century: A Search for Solutions. May 9-11, 1996. Victoria, British Columbia. Sponsored by The Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Province of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. Program at http://www.cafe.net/gvc/foi Internet Privacy and Security Workshop. May 20-21, 1996. Haystack Observatory, MA. Sponsored by Federal Networking Council and MIT. Contact: papers@rpcp.mit.edu. InfoWarCon (Europe) '96, Defining the European Perspective. May 23-24, 1996. Brussels, Belgium. Sponsored by the National Computer Security Association. Contact: euroinfowar@ncsa.com. Australasian Conference on Information Security and Privacy. June 24-26, 1996. New South Wales, Australia. Sponsored by Australasian Society for Electronic Security and University of Wollongong. Contact: Jennifer Seberry (jennie@cs.uow.edu.au). Personal Information - Security, Engineering and Ethics. 21-22 June, 1996. Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge. Sponsored by Cambridge University and British Medical Association. Paper submission due 10 May 1996. Contact: Ross Anderson (rja14@newton.cam.ac.uk). Privacy Laws & Business 9th Annual Conference. July 1-3, 1996. St. John's College, Cambridge, England. Contact: Ms. Gill Ehrlich +44 181 423 1300 (tel), +44 181 423 4536 (fax). Advanced Surveillance Technologies II. Sponsored by EPIC and Privacy International. September 16, 1996. Ottawa, Canada. Contact: pi@privacy.org or http://www.privacy.org/pi/conference/ 18th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. September 18-20, 1996. Ottawa, Canada. Sponsored by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. (Send calendar submissions to Alert@epic.org)
The EPIC Alert is a free biweekly publication of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. To subscribe, send email to epic-news@epic.org with the subject: "subscribe" (no quotes). Back issues are available via http://www.epic.org/alert/
The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research center in Washington, DC. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy issues relating to the National Information Infrastructure, such as the Clipper Chip, the Digital Telephony proposal, medical record privacy, and the sale of consumer data. EPIC is sponsored by the Fund for Constitutional Government, a non-profit organization established in 1974 to protect civil liberties and constitutional rights. EPIC publishes the EPIC Alert, pursues Freedom of Information Act litigation, and conducts policy research. For more information, email info@epic.org, HTTP://www.epic.org or write EPIC, 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington, DC 20003. +1 202 544 9240 (tel), +1 202 547 5482 (fax). If you'd like to support the work of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, contributions are welcome and fully tax-deductible. Checks should be made out to "The Fund for Constitutional Government" and sent to EPIC, 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington DC 20003. Your contributions will help support Freedom of Information Act and First Amendment litigation, strong and effective advocacy for the right of privacy and efforts to oppose government regulation of encryption and funding of the National Wiretap Plan. Thank you for your support.