US Plans for Decryption Orders

[Brian Gladman]

A change to the SAFE bill in ths US proposes the addition of decryption
orders as follows (thanks to John Young for this):

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"SEC. 14. FAILURE TO DECRYPT INFORMATION OBTAINED UNDER COURT ORDER.
Whoever is required by an order of any court to provide to the court or
any other party any information in such person's possession which has
been encrypted and who, having possession of the key or such other
capability to decrypt such information into the readable or
comprehensible format of such information prior to its encryption, fails
to provide such information in accordance with the order
in such readable or comprehensible form -- (1) in the case of a first
offense under this section, shall be imprisoned for not more
than 5 years, or fined under title 18, United States Code, or both; and
(2) in the case of second or subsequent offense under
this section, shall be imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or fined
under title 18 United States Code, or both."

House GAKs SAFE Crypto Bill, July 23, 1999
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While this is being publicised as a 'GAK' measure, in fact it is much more
sensible than the UK government proposals because it is NOT Government
Access to Keys (GAK) but instead required decryption by the keyholder under
a court order.  And there is no tipping-off offence.

While some will consider this SAFE modification to be oppressive, my own
view is that this is not unreasonable provided that there are good legal
safeguards.  What I object to is the true GAK that is proposed in the uk
bill and the pernicious consequences this has in respect of privacy,
criminal prosecution and imprisonment for entirely honnest, law abiding
citizens, who it seems, can be imprisoned if they cannot prove that they
don't have a key that they have never ever had.

Our US colleagues may be upset about decryptiion orders but they should at
least be thankful that their legislators have realised that true GAK is a
step too far.  And what is good enough for the US government should be good
enough in the UK as well.

          Brian