[This appears to be a radio transcript.]

Presumed Guilty

By Glen L. Roberts

It's all over the news...the Clipper Chip - it will protect our privacy and 
let the FBI and other law enforcement agencies catch criminals. It's being 
sold by Vice President Al Gore as a ``law and order issue.'' This law and 
order claim is apparently to appease the privacy proponents. This double 
speak isn't going to solve the crime or any other problem. Al Gore would have

more luck putting a dent in crime, if he simply asked criminals to come 
forward and turn themselves in for the good of society.

Newman Flanagan, executive director of the National District Attorneys 
Association jumped on the band wagon of the fear mongers. He claims that 
without the Clipper Chip law enforcement would ``be out on a limb.'' Quite 
frankly, law enforcement is and has been out on a limb for a long time. This 
double speak is doing nothing to remedy the situation.

Law enforcement is acting like it will be put out of business, if criminals 
could encrypt their communication. Supposedly there would be a major crime 
wave and all the criminals would avoid arrest and punishment. 

Well, my friends, right now, today, and since the beginning of time, 
criminals have been able to use whatever ``secret'' codes they think will 
stymie law enforcement agencies. Certainly, the criminal element will only 
use those schemes which they believe will thwart the cops.

In today's world, for a mere $1,000 to $2,000 criminals can get telephone 
encryption devices for their telephones. Encryption devices that the 
government can't dechiper. So, if Al Gore, Newman Flanagan, and the others 
are correct, they were pushed off the limb long ago. Do they truly expect the

criminal elements to endorse an technology openly declared bogus by the 
government?

Let's take a close look at the real situation. We hear all these implications

about the need for wiretaps. That is balanced against the fear of some major 
crime wave. Without trying to disregard the problems of crime, we must look 
at whether these claims surrounding wiretaps have any basis.

The fear of crime abounds. We are afraid of robbers, muggers, rapists, 
murders and the like. Yet, how many of these are being caught on a wiretap? 
How likely is it that these street criminals, the criminals, the criminals 
that are most likely to have a profound effect on your life, conspiring with 
others over the phone? Would you like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, too?

I think a look at the various wiretapping statistics will open your eyes. For

the entire United States, every law enforcement agency, federal, state, 
county and local, as well as every intelligence agency combined, each year 
obtain around 1,500 court authorizations for wiretaps, bugs and other 
electronic surveillance. Approximately half of those are for intelligence, 
not criminal matters.

Clearly, the wiretap is not a common occurrence. The wiretap is not something

that is not routinely used against the common criminals that plague our lives

as Al Gore and others would lead us to believe.

The criminals targeted by wiretaps are the sophisticated, organized crime 
figures. These are just the criminals that have the resources to defeat 
wiretaps, the Chipper Chip or not. 

What effect will a bogus encryption technology, such as the Clipper Chip have

on the average, law abiding citizen? The government says, in effect, that we 
are all presumed guilty.

They want 800 million daily telephonic communications to be open an open book

to them in hopes of catching some 1,500 criminals each year. Let's do a fair 
comparison, each year there are 292 billion telephone communications in the 
United States, and the law enforcement community is says that these all need 
to be an open book, in hopes of catching 1,500 criminals.

It might be a tad easier to simply search the surroundings of the 155 million

telephones in the country. Such a search could certainly yield more than 
1,500 arrests! Yet, we all have a constitutional and human right to be let 
alone. Not one person in the country would tolerate a house to house, office 
to office, street by street search of the country, by law enforcement 
officers, in hope of locating contraband or evidence of crimes.

Yet, this concept of search is exactly what they want us to accept in the 
telephonic world.  But they can't do it directly. Instead they want to sucker

us into a false sense of security in our telephonic communications. Al Gore 
and his fear mongers want to lure us into a bogus technology by imposing a 
false economy.

By engaging in unfair, monopolistic and if conducted by the private sector, 
illegal business activities, the government hopes to artificially lower the 
price of the bogus clipper chip. The low price, is supposed to be our 
incentive to forego true privacy and fall sucker to the government inspired 
hype.

Let the FBI and other law enforcement agencies rediscover one of the most 
powerful investigative and crime fighting techniques known to mankind: the 
power of the human intellect!

Glen L. Roberts can be heard on WWCR Sundays 7 to 8pm (central), 5,810 khz, 
Radio Copan Intl, Monday-Friday, 5:45-6pm (central), 15,675 khz. PO Box 734, 
Antioch, Illinois 60002. Ph: (708) 356-9646.



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