ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704210094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY THE ROANOKE TIMES
The congressman is fighting the Clinton administration over the use of cryptography on the Internet. What does this have to do with Roanoke?
Rep. Bob Goodlatte is out to make the Internet safe for kids and commerce. "We don't want the Internet to be the Wild, Wild West," the Roanoke Republican says.
So, without much fanfare, he's become the unlikely leader of a congressional effort to bring order - perhaps even law and order - to cyberspace.
For two years, Goodlatte has used his position on the House panel that handles computer issues - the intellectual property subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee - to write into law his vision of how the Internet should work:
* He played the pivotal role in establishing the controversial "decency" standard for material on the Internet, which the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on later this year.
* He sponsored a bill, now law, cracking down on counterfeit merchandise. Although the bill generated headlines about fake Rolexes and knock-off Calvin Klein jeans, he says the biggest targets were computer counterfeiters. "The biggest portion of piracy," he says, "is piracy of software."
* He sponsored another bill, also now law, that toughened penalties for computer hackers.
* Now, he's at the center of battle with the Clinton administration to allow the export of "strong" encryption programs. On one level, this seems a jargon-jammed technical dispute over bit-lengths and mathematical algorithms and the merits of a "brute force attack" vs. "key management" and "key escrow."
But Goodlatte believes encryption - the ability to scramble material on the Internet much the way cable TV signals are scrambled so that non-subscribers can't view them - holds the key to opening up cyberspace for commerce and turning an untamed computer frontier into the on-line equivalent of a suburban shopping mall.
He's not alone. "It's a critically important bill for the growth of information technology both in the U.S. and globally," said Harris Miller, head of the Arlington-based Information Technology Association of America. Without encryption, Miller said, businesses and consumers won't feel secure transmitting confidential information over the Internet.
Becca Gould, a lobbyist for the Business Software Alliance trade group, said of Goodlatte: "He has come to be seen as a leader on all Internet issues."
Perhaps, but that still doesn't answer what may be the central question for Goodlatte's constituents: Why is Roanoke's congressman spending so much time on computers?
"I get asked that all the time," he said.
Usually, he begins by telling a story about Snow White.
"The issue," Goodlatte said, "is what is going to be the full potential of the Internet in our society. Right now, there are lots of problems with it. People don't trust it. You don't want to put your credit card on it, because you don't know who's going to wind up with your credit card number. You've got lots of parents concerned about their children finding pornographic material on the Internet."
He's hoping the "decency" standard - on hold until the Supreme Court rules on its constitutionality - will take care of that problem.
"But most important," he said, "the content of the Internet is really lacking. There are a lot of great things out there that people will not put on the Internet because people are afraid of losing their copyright value."
Like "Snow White."
The technology will soon exist to allow someone to download an entire movie from the Internet. But companies are reluctant to allow it because they fear losing control of their product to software pirates.
``So there comes encryption,'' Goodlatte said. ``You scramble `Snow White.' You put it on the Internet. If you want to see it in the enjoyable form, you separately buy a key, you put it in your computer - it's an algorithm that unscrambles the thing. You've paid your fee, Disney's got their money and you've got `Snow White' that you bought on the Internet without ever leaving your home. It's great, but we have a government policy that is major league hindering the advancement of this technology.''
Put another way, Goodlatte's bid to put "Snow White" - or other forms of popular entertainment - on the Internet has pitted him against the National Security Agency in a battle over who should control cryptography, the Cold War science of codes and code-breaking.
The details of this issue can be as technical as a Tom Clancy novel. The highlights version goes like this: Cryptography was the sole province of the government until mass-market computers came along. Now, Goodlatte said, ``it's very easy for computer programmers to write mathematical algorithms to scramble things.''
It's perfectly legal for ordinary citizens to use encryption in the United States. The catch is, federal law doesn't allow American software companies to export ``strong'' encryption programs - meaning those more than 40 bits in length, the kind most difficult to break - because the United States classifies them as a ``munition.'' But foreign companies are producing ``strong'' encryption at will, and industry leaders say two things are happening:
One, American software companies are losing out on a global market in "strong" encryption.
Two, they say, many American companies are reluctant even to e-mail information within their own firms because they can't protect themselves with "strong" encryption.
"The right to privacy in communications is critical," said Miller, who heads the information technology trade group. "If GM is sending information on a new car design, or a major pharmaceutical company is sending information on a new formula they're working on, all of that is proprietary information" - and a prime target for hackers.
This isn't just an issue for big businesses. Data Systems Consulting is a 20-employee Roanoke software firm that makes computer forms for 25 insurance companies across the country. Company president Russell Ellis says his customers want him to incorporate "strong" encryption into his programs, but "what we need to use is not fully available," because companies are reluctant to produce encryption even for domestic use. If it were, he's sure he could expand his business.
The bottom line: The computer industry wants "strong" encryption.
But the Clinton administration contends that "strong" encryption will make it more difficult to catch lawbreakers who use the Internet to e-mail everything from stolen military secrets to child pornography. It's pushing for a system that would give the federal government access to, if not control of, encryption keys.
"We need to strike a balance," the deputy director of the National Security Agency, William Crowell, told a Senate committee last month. "If encryption is used by criminals and other adversaries [e.g., terrorists] to help hide their activities, the public safety ... may be placed in jeopardy."
Goodlatte, however, said the administration's proposal is an unnecessary government intrusion. "It's an Industrial Age solution to an information problem," he said. "They're trying to control something that can't be controlled. You're talking about little ones and zeros going over electronic wires."
Besides, he said, government access to encryption keys wouldn't stop crime because Internet criminals would find ways around putting their keys on file. "There's no question that the increasing use of cryptography is going to be a problem for law enforcement," Goodlatte said. "The problem is, their solution is not going to prevent that."
Last year, Goodlatte introduced a bill to allow the export of some "strong" encryption. The bill never went anywhere. This year, he's introduced it again. This time, momentum seems to be building. He has 70 co-sponsors - including a majority of the House Judiciary Committee, which will first take up the legislation this spring.
Unlike the debate over the decency standard, which pitted liberals against conservatives, the encryption issue cuts across ideological lines - and Goodlatte has rallied a diverse coalition, from the American Civil Liberties Union to conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly's American Eagle Forum, from Rep. Maxine Waters (the head of the congressional black caucus) to Rep. Tom Delay (the No.3 House Republican).
By contrast, the administration hasn't been able to find a congressional sponsor for its version.
The liberal-oriented computer group, the Center for Democracy and Technology, credits Goodlatte for changing the way the encryption debate has been framed. "What he has brought to this issue, which is critical, is a pro-law enforcement voice," said lobbyist Jim Dempsey. "The encryption debate had been framed as basic privacy vs. law enforcement." But Goodlatte, he noted, has argued that encryption will prevent crime, by making life more difficult for hackers. "Goodlatte has hammered away at that distinction."
Miller, the trade industry chief, said that Goodlatte has positioned himself as a leader on an issue that will grow in importance. "I don't know that this is going to make Congressman Goodlatte a household name, but the information technology community is certainly going to know of the role he played. He's already getting publicity for it."
But he's not getting many campaign contributions. The only identifiable "computer" money he received in the last campaign cycle was $1,000 from Microsoft's political action committee, a pittance of the $708,894 he raised. He received another $22,050 from a broad range of telecommunication and entertainment groups that have a general interest in copyrights and other issues before the intellectual property subcommittee.
Yet the question remains: Why Goodlatte?
The congressman concedes the effect on his constituents is "indirect" at best, for now.
"Here's why I think it's so important," he said. "I view the Internet as a way to put rural areas and small cities like Roanoke on a par with major cities. We can have the best jobs here that used to be done in major cities because you don't have to be in the major cities anymore to do them. I think that's the bottom line for Roanoke."
To read Goodlatte's bill, visit his on-line home page: http://www.house.gov/goodlatte/
LENGTH: Long : 178 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: color headshot of Goodlatteby CNBchart - Security on the Internet