Clipping liberty's wings

Cyberspace, privacy, and the government

By Anders Monsen

Science fiction has been termed a ghetto form of literature, Bruce Sterling mockingly defined sf writers as court jesters who can act out their mad fancies in public without fear of censure or retribution. Other harsh critics equate science fiction with pure fantasy, impossible dreams at odds with “the real world.” And yet, as readers of science fiction recognize, we are living in an ever-increasing science fiction-like world. Exploration of outer space, technological advances, medical miracles all predicted by sf writers, enter our lives and assume more prominent roles.

The computer is just one such example. Although even sf writers failed completely to predict both the mass appeal of computers, and their rapid revolutionary advances. Why their popularity? Perhaps because computers are the product of individual, unfettered creation. There are no government regulations specifying exact dimensions, safety standards, and air bags for disk drive crashes.

The world of computers has been relatively free from such intervention. Yet this is about to change, and change drastically, as even the government realizes the dramatic importance of computers in daily living, and sees with great concern and consternation that, yes, individuals can get along fine without government help. There are no training periods for computer users, no qualifications, licenses, and yet millions of new computers are sold each year to new users, as well as to tech-lovers.

The change proposed by the government strikes at the very heart of computer use. The focus is on the electronic activity that takes place not within someone's home but between individuals, who may be next door, or at different ends of the earth. Ideas are dangerous things, and if there's one thing governments worry about, it's dangerous ideas spreading like a deadly virus.

This essay tries to explore some of the questions around computers, privacy and government.

Cyberspace, the new frontier

While space continues to remain the final frontier, it is still a distant frontier, limited to a few rich nations hurtling an occasional space shuttle or satellite into orbit, or to works of literary and cinematic science fiction. A new, more immediate, and rapidly expanding frontier has taken over the imagination and pocket books of a growing number of Americans: the electronic frontier.

Limited only a decade ago to the imagination of science fiction writers, world-wide electronic communication via computers has become the focus of social, economic, and political attention.

William Gibson's razor-edged computer-focused 1984 novel Neuromancer spawned a new sub-genre within sf, cyberpunk, which embraced the new computer network technology.

In 1994, cyberspace may be passé, but the hardware of the novels has entered the real world, once again demonstrating the relevance of science fiction, too often derided as “escapist.”

Cyberspace, as the imagined “reality” where electronic communication and action take place, now affects the daily life of more than just lonely nerds and hackers, or those who write their stories. Used by businessmen, scientists, students, and just curious individuals, cyberspace has acquired a virtual identity, linking far-flung individuals via a loose, spontaneously ordered system known as the Internet.

Unlike centralized ground-based highway systems where all roads lead to Rome, on the Internet roads simply link individual computers and their users via cooperating systems don't necessarily follow the shortest physical route. The prime function of the Internet is e-mail and file transfer areas, a global “marketplace” for messages and software.

So far the Internet has been the product of individual initiative, free from centralized government control or involvement. While the original main computer systems which originated the Internet were based in large government installations, such as research libraries and military posts, the add-ons and direction taken have been the result of private individual action. This is about to end, raising many issues of prime importance to libertarians and computer users in general.

Two popular issues have computer users worried. One of these is immediate and direct, and threatens civil rights and privacy. The other is more subtle, yet goes to very root of the infra-structure of electronic communication. To grant government the right and opportunity to enter into either area is a very direct and potential threat to liberty on the Net as well as individual liberty in general.

Clipped…

Imagine all regular mail is in the form of postcards only. You have no privacy, and anyone who wishes to read your mail can and will do so without your knowledge or consent. Privacy would not exist. This is Philip Zimmermann's analogy in his introduction to his encryption program PGP.

Instead, we have envelopes, a thin paper barrier of privacy, informing us if one's mail has been opened and read. In effect, e-mail today is like the postcard. Anyone who intercepts that note, for example by wiretap, can read your mail. Wire-tapping is not limited to phones, but any electronic communication. Enter the world of cryptography, the envelope of e-mail.

In recent years private electronic encryption created virtually unbreakable codes. Two articles in Reason magazine (“Hide and Peek,” November 1993, and “Code Blues,” May 1994) point out the advanced work in encryption, and how it worries government.

If we compare electronic mail to regular mail, we notice the similarities in the government's position. The government does not seem to mind envelopes, instead of postcards, yet it is anxious to control the means of transmission through the post office. This way, it still can open your mail, with “proper cause,” naturally.

Likewise, the government does not object to encryption, as long as it holds the key. To this end, the National Security Agency (NSA) has developed what it calls the Clipper and Tessera (also known as Capstone) chips, the former for telephones, the latter for computers. These chips contain “back doors” which the government can access.

This way, the government says you can still encrypt your message so that only the intended receiver can read it, while at the same time the government can, supposedly with proper warrant, tap into your message if it feels you are threatening national security. Strange term this, “national security.” It can mean so many things to so many different people, can rise and fall with current events, beliefs, and opinions. And always, personal liberty and privacy end up squeezed aside to accommodate ever growing national security needs.

Yet where the threat of government's misuse of authority arises, individuals join together as watchdogs, ever alert. One of these watchdogs, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), was founded “to defend liberty both in cyberspace and the real world.”

EFF has questioned the need and legality of the Clipper chip, contending it smacks of Big Brother. While the intent of government is control of potential terrorists and computer hackers, many within EFF see the recent enforced encryption efforts as “last ditch attempt to establish imperial power over cyberspace,” John Perry Barlow, cofounder and vice-chairman of EFF, warns about Clipper in the April issue of Wired, a popular and cutting edge cyberculture magazine (“Jackboots on the Infobahn,” 2.04, 1994). Trusting the government with encryption is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds, according to Barlow.

Science fiction writer Bruce Sterling is no libertarian, but like Barlow does not trust the government in his computer or phone. Sterling, a member of EFF-Austin in Texas, renowned cyberpunk writer, and electronic journalist with his 1992 book, The Hacker Crackdown, has become a prominent speaker against the Clipper chip.

As the government goes ahead with its plans for Clipper, stories pitting EFF and NSA crop up, even in local newspapers, such as the Austin American-Statesman, which carried a feature on Sterling and Clipper on April 11, 1994. Sterling worries that the government will not be satisfied with the slow process of acquiring the keys to tap your encrypted computer or phone, but as in the case with game inventor and libertarian Steve Jackson, will crash in and confiscate all electronic equipment, then slowly sort out what they determine is illegal.

Preventing this after-the-fact methodology is crucial to the privacy-minded computer user. With the sophisticated encryption codes now available on the market, Clipper is redundant as a means of safe communication of electronic information. The easy availability of privately designed and distributed programs, such as Zimmermann's Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), has given encryption mass appeal.

The only reason for government to pursue such a device then is surveillance. The computer has evolved so quickly, government has panicked and responded with hints of coercion. How can they know who to tap? How can they tap if private encryption is foolproof? Surveillance will surely reach into many areas government has no right to tread, and many individuals regard encryption as a matter of individual choice, and want to keep it that way.

Wide use of encryption before the forced introduction of Clipper will raise awareness of the issue, and ensure added protection. As Zimmermann writes, one or two envelope users in a postcard world attract attention and suspicion; even if they are doing nothing wrong; many envelope users renders that suspicion moot. So it would happen with encryption in cyberspace.

… and Gored

Vice President Al Gore has made it one of his goals to increase government involvement in cyberspace, or what is commonly termed in the press, the “information highway.”

The term seems innocent enough, yet contains the essence of its worry. The metaphor of our “highly efficient” interstate system, grafted onto the emerging new electronics communications technology, is not a hopeful image.

Just the metaphor of a highway brings visions of radar-enforced speed limits, licenses of cars and drivers, taxes and safety regulations, rush hour congestions and messy pile ups. Beyond this is the overriding concern of government activity in cyberspace, politicizing everyday actions among individuals.

Of course, the bold visionaries cautiously note that this grand highway cannot become reality without just a teensy weensy bit of government help. Gore denies this would in any way restrict use. Rather, it would ensure free access to all, and also test that what we want, anyway? Yet, that little crack in the door for government to shoulder its hairy way through is just the problem.

When you talk about the “information highway,” beware the information highway “cops.” This does not mean that cyberspace would be a free-for-all haven for illicit activity; libertarians contend that the exercise of private property rights ably deters and deals with wrong actions.

Most BBS owners are very careful about how activity on their boards develops, and exercise their power to restrict or deny access to wrongdoers. Yet this is not enough for the government, which feels it necessary to freely be able to survey and crack down on any suspicious behavior.

Gore's vision is nothing more than the propaganda of big government. Unless computer users wake up to this fact, the information network will become the information tollway. Your computer will be just another milkcow to fund equalizing programs, uniform standards, and guidelines to control and verify user qualifications. Regulation of information is next, with rules on what information can flow through the national treasure of the phones lines (scarce goods, must be regulated, you know). What then, as libertarian futurists, are our choices?

Get involved. Join or find out about EFF. Learn about encryption and PGP. Be aware of and boycott future Clipper products, in hopes that they will at most end up with a small market presence. If we are to hope for a free future, we must play an active, individualist role in keeping that future in sight.