ACCESSION
NUMBER:325670
FILE ID:ECO503
DATE:02/04/94
TITLE:ENCRYPTION EXPORT CONTROLS MAINTAINED, BUT PROCESS RELAXED (02/04/94)
TEXT:*94020403.ECO ECTELELD EXPORT CONTROLS /te
ENCRYPTION EXPORT CONTROLS MAINTAINED, BUT PROCESS RELAXED
(Few restrictions on government-backed standard) (460)
By Bruce Odessey
1SIA Staff Writer
Washington -- The Clinton administration has decided to maintain export
controls on products incorporating encryption technology, but has taken
some steps to expedite licenses for them.
Martha Harris, deputy assistant secretary of state, announced February 4
that new regulations will allow U.S. manufacturers to export with few
restrictions products using key-escrow encryption, the federal
government-backed standard also called the Clipper chip.
For encryption devices aside from the Clipper chip, she said, manufacturers
can still ship to foreign countries already approved for such exports and
will no longer have to obtain individual licenses for each end user.
For the bulk licenses still required, she said, the State Department's goal
is to speed up the reviews to two working days, down from several weeks.
The Clipper chip, developed by the federal government, enables U.S., state
and local law-enforcement agencies with proper wiretap authorization to
eavesdrop on digital telephone communications.
Harris said the Clipper chips could be exported without license to nearly
all countries except those subject to U.S. sanctions for foreign policy
reasons.
As for U.S. industry's disappointment about strict export controls remaining
for other encryption devices, White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers'
written statement offered an explanation.
"If encryption technology is made freely available worldwide, it would no
doubt be used extensively by terrorists, drug dealers and other criminals
to harm Americans," Myers said.
"For this reason, the administration will continue to restrict export of the
most sophisticated encryption devices," she said, "both to preserve our own
foreign intelligence-gathering capability and because of the concerns of
our allies who fear that strong encryption technology would inhibit their
law-enforcement capabilities."
Also announced by the Clinton administration was formal approval of the
Clipper chip as a voluntary federal standard, allowing government agencies
to purchase such chips for use with telephones and modems. A Justice
Department official said his agency was purchasing 8,000 at a cost of about
$8 million.
Two government agencies, one in the Commerce Department and one in the
Treasury Department, will store the keys needed for decryption of
communications using the Clipper chip.
The administration made the Clipper chip standard voluntary, not mandatory,
for government and business. In January several computer hardware,
software and telecommunications companies said they intended to support
some standard other than the Clipper chip in order to protect the privacy
of communications from the government.
An FBI spokesman said at a February 4 briefing the administration hopes
private industry will go along with the voluntary standard. He realized
some criminals won't use the Clipper chip to encrypt their messages.
"We know we'll have to deal with that," he said.
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