wh proposal from police point of view it might pay to start looking at what this proposal might mean to a police agency it just might be a bad idea for them too ok suppose the ny state police want to tap a suspect s phone they need a warrant just like the old days but unlike the old days they now need to a get two federal agencies to give them the two parts of the key now what happens if there s a tiff between the two escrow houses posession release of keys becomes a political bargaining chit state and lower level police agencies have to watch the big boys play politics while potentially good leads disappear lives and property are lost statutes of limitations run out etc not to mention a moderately clever person who suspects the police are after her him will be buying new phones faster than tap requests can be processed or using stolen ones will the turing police come and arrest you for transmitting without a dialing license there s also bureacracy and security problems within each escrow house how will requests for key disclosure be authenticated put in enough safeguards of the kind bureaucrats and activists feel comfortable with and it might take a long time to get that key even when a request is approved how is the key going to be disclosed will it be encrypted by a clipper type chip for transmission in a bureaucracy the size of the federal government with a databank of the necessary size and data traffic of the projected volume there s going to be a lot of weak links how many of these kinds of problems will be open for public or expert scrutiny furthermore the feds might be leery of handing completed keys around even to state police agencies a trust and security issue this would be an especially acute issue if some other state s police had mishandled a key resulting in lawsuits financial settlements and political embarassment so the feds implement it this way b some federal agency gets the keys performs the tap and turns the results over to the ny state police but let s say cuomo s been causing some problems over a clinton aid to urban areas proposal or there just happens to be a turf war going on between the state cops and the justice department on a case now not only do we have the keys as a political chit we have an extra player in the game and we have the tap s tapes as another bargaining chit again the state police lose i understand that legal wiretaps are quite expensive to maintain in scenario b who pays the bill dwight tuinstra best tuinstra sandman ece clarkson edu tolerable tuinstrd craft camp clarkson edu homo sapiens planetary cancer news at six
