As you may recall, Vice President Gore’s name was floated here recently for wireless industry poster child in recognition of his staff’s cache of mobile phones. Remember, Al, fund raising is your first call.
Well, Gore has competition. And not from Bill Bradley. Try the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Jackson, with the world watching, whipped out a cell phone so U.S. soldiers Christopher Stone, Steven Gonzales and Andrew Ramirez could call home after being freed from Yugoslav prison cells.
With the administration and impotent GOP-led Congress on the fence about how to respond to the Butcher of Belgrade, the void in statesmanship has been filled by cute little gimmicks. Between freelance Jacksonian diplomacy and Cuba’s rout of the Baltimore Orioles, the State Department is at a loss for words.
But the war goes on, and NATO high-tech is not winning the day. Quite the contrary.
Indeed, I think I now know why telecom firms were falling over each other to pay $250,000 to sit on the NATO summit host committee last month. The U.S. aside, NATO countries are in the market for secure radio communications systems. Or at least should be.
Seems the Serbs and anyone else who wants to can eavesdrop on NATO pilots, who communicate with air traffic controllers on frequencies lacking encryption. That vulnerability apparently has thrown a wrench into bombing logistics.
In contrast, low-tech wireless technology has worked well for Serb slaughterers. Despite non-stop NATO sorties, Yugoslav military and paramilitary forces have proven resilient and elusive in cleansing Kosovo of ethnic Albanians. How? Serbs rely on unsophisticated mobile communications. Bombs are no match for fancy walkie talkies.
But having secure communications is not enough these days.
In the U.S., a debate still rages between wireless firms and the FBI over the ways and means to wiretap digital networks. Funding, capacity, capability and constitutionality dominate the crossfire. Now, add human error to the list.
Out of the furor over alleged technology transfers and nuclear spying by China comes this little reported factoid. The FBI in 1982-on President Reagan’s watch-got court approval, executed a wiretap and got the goods on their man. Then what happened? Not much. And that’s the problem.
The recipient of the FBI wiretap was Wen Ho Lee, the ex-Los Alamos scientist who today is at the center of what could be one of the biggest thefts of U.S. nuclear secrets ever. Lee’s lawyer says his client is innocent.
So should the debate be about the FBI’s CALEA punch list or about punchy agents?
