White House seems to send mixed messages on privacy Surveillance and Privacy from Government7/19/2000; 2:01:30 PM Silicon Valley News says in a happy article:'The White House plans to propose legislation designed to make it as difficult for police to legally read your e-mail as it is now for them to tap your telephone. ``It's time to update and harmonize our existing laws to give all forms of technology the same legislative protections as our telephone conversations,'' White House chief of staff John Podesta said Monday. ``Our proposed legislation would harmonize the legal standards that apply to law enforcement's access to e-mails, telephone calls and cable services.'''The Register seems a bit more pessimistic about it:'Current regulations under which federal law enforcement can intercept private communications vary for e-mail, a phone calls and a cable modems. In this instance the result might be a bit less government monitoring of private e-mail messages, which at the moment requires a lower legal standard than monitoring a telephone conversation. (You are using PGP religiously, right readers?) 'Meanwhile, the White House would like to see increased penalties for violations of US wiretapping laws, thereby giving the Feds the undisputed monopoly on snooping, and another weapon which can potentially be used against the dreaded malicious hackers, whose activities might at times be construed as the illegal interception of communications.'Good news or bad news from the Whitehouse? Apparently, there's no consensus. Still, the Register's seems to ring true:'The entire proposal was packaged under the benign heading of assuring public trust in cyberspace, another White House obsession. Bill Clinton is convinced that the Internet is the golden goose of his tenure as President, and there is little he would not do to individual civil liberties in his eagerness protect it from disruption by those who fail to appreciate its economic implications as he does.'