Negotiations among members of the House Commerce Committee over the regulation of software containing encryption have apparently stalled, according to a Reuters report. The Committee was given an additional two weeks to work out differences between amendments to a bill that would have removed restrictions on the length of encryption keys in any product for domestic use or export. There are currently no such restrictions for domestic use but companies with products employing keys greater than 56-bits in length intended for export must show the government that it has a key recovery plan in place for law enforcement officials to gain access to any data encrypted. According to the report, opinion on the committee is shifting towards imposing restrictions on domestic use – the same draconian conclusion the House Select Intelligence Committee came to a week ago. The Commerce Committee is half way through its two week period right now. The original bill to remove the restrictions, proposed by Virginian Republican Bob Goodlatte has been turned on its head by an amendment from Ohio Republican Mike Oxley. Lobbyists opposed to Oxley’s amendment say the two sides are far apart and one of them told Reuters that to call this negotiation is kind of a joke. Lurking in the background in this story is the FBI. Its director Louis Freeh recommended domestic restrictions to a Senate committee hearing to counter what he reckons is the specter of terrorists and other criminals using software to plan their operations, leaving the FBI unable to detect them. Since then the National Security Committee went through the bill and replaced all the elements that removed restrictions with ones that imposed them, and the House Select Intelligence Committee then rubber stamped it. It remains to be seen what the software giants feel about such Orwellian restrictions in the country that the vast majority of software companies call home.
