Obama administration revives Draconian communications intercept plans

[Florian Weimer]

>   Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that
>   enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like
>   BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software
>   that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be
>   technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The
>   mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble
>   encrypted messages.

Isn't this just a clarification of existing CALEA practice?

In most jurisdictions, if a communications services provider is served
an order to make available communications, it is required by law to
provide it in the clear.  Anything else doesn't make sense, does it?
Service providers generally acknowledge this (including Research In
Motion, so I don't get why they are singled out in the article).

There are indications that governments have access to Skype these
days  Here's a blog post mentioning it:

<http://www.lawblog.de/index.php/archives/2010/08/17/skype-staat-hort-mit/>

(Udo Vetter is sometimes a bit sensationalist, though.)  Another
indicator is that German law enforcement no longer calls for new laws
granting them access to Skype traffic.

In any case, the cleartext requirement for lawful intercept has always
been very public.  Oddly enough, it has not been perceived as some
sort of crypto regulation, although it puts some constraints on key
management. 

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