April 1994
WHEREAS the Clinton Administration and the director of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation have announced support for reviving the FBI's 1992 legislative
initiative on digital telephony (now named the Digital Telephony and
Communications Privacy Improvement Act of 1994);
WHEREAS the Digital Telephony Act requires telephone, cable television,
and computer network companies to alter their switches and computers to ensure
that the government can conduct surveillance from a remote location while
private communication is going on requires that manufacturers and support
companies aid communications companies in complying;
WHEREAS the Digital Telephony Act also requires the installation of
surveillance-facilitating software in telephone switching equipment in
order to expose personal information -- such as telephone-calling patterns,
credit-card purchases, banking records, and medical records -- to the view
of agents of the government and requires that communications companies make
that information available to government agencies;
WHEREAS any company that fails to comply with the requirements of the bill
would be fined $10,000 per day and closed down;
WHEREAS such personal information including transactional data should be
the private property of either the company that assembles it, the individual
to whom it pertains, or some other private third party -- depending on the
contractual situation;
WHEREAS enactment of the Digital Telephony Act would require a fundamental
re-engineering of the infrastructure supporting communication and the
transmittal of information, at great expense to American taxpayers and the
users and owners of private communications systems,
WHEREAS enactment of the Digital Telephony Act would make furnishing the
FBI with easy wiretapping capability the overriding priority for designers
of telephone equipment and related software; and
WHEREAS it is a lie to call this legislation a "Privacy Improvement Act";
Therefore, BE IT RESOLVED that the Libertarian National Committee opposes
enactment of the proposed Digital Telephony Act as a serious infringement of
civil liberties and a gross violation of property rights.
«
Resolutions of the LNC
