Coalition Letter of Law Professors to Hon. Thomas J. Biley Regarding SAFE Amendments

Tags: 1990s Academic Crypto Wars Crypto Wars I US Congress

Authors: Aoki, Keith and Ashley, Kevin D. and Balkin, Jack M. and Boyd, William E. and Brown, Darryl K. and Burk, Dan L. and Cohen, Julie E. and Fitzgerald, Peter E. and Freedman, Eric M. and Froomkin, A. Michael and Gibbons, Llewellyn J. and Hoff, Timothy and Kang, Jerry and Katsh, Ethan and Koppelman, Andrew and Lemley, Mark and Lessig, Lawrence and Litman, Jessica and Perritt, Henry H. and Post, David G. and Radin, Margaret and Rich, William D. and Romberg, Jon and Rossi, Jim and Samuelson, Pamela and Scarberry, Mark S. and Sorkin, David E. and Swire, Peter and Moglen, Eben and Shiffrin, Steven

Published: February 1999

URL: https://web.archive.org/web/19990224070155/http://www.cdt.org/crypto/legis_105/SAFE/97093_profs.html

Abstract: In September of 1997, a collection of law professors from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA and twenty-six other law schools, wrote to the Thomas J. Biley, then Jr. Chairman of the House Committee on Commerce, to “express alarm about an unprecedented proposal…advanced to impose criminal penalties on the manufacturing or distribution of domestic encryption products” that lack a government-mandated “back-door.” The proposal had recently been adopted by the House Intelligence Committee and was anticipated to be offered to the Commerce Committee as an amendment – the Oxley-Manton amendment – to the Security and Freedom through Encryption (SAFE) Act. The professors expressed their belief that the amendment was a “profound mistake” that would render the United States government “the architect of the most comprehensive surveillance plan the world has seen since the end of the Cold War.” Key amongst their concerns were potential violations to the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and the risks of instituting a “Global Key Recovery Regime.”