From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Sat, 28 May 94 08:43:23 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: My 2.3a Key is listed as a 2.6 (Aaargh!)
In-Reply-To: <9405281319.AA01214@deathstar.iaks.ira.uka.de>
Message-ID: <9405281549.AA26482@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   will come where it is prohibited to be european and we get arrested
   after coming to the States... ;-)

There's a serious issue lurking behind here, which is that a
sufficiently motivated USA government could keep a hot-list of known
crypto users on the computer at Customs, and arrest them upon entry.
This is unlikely to the point of ridiculousness right now, and, with
Cantwell's bill having passed committee and alternate PGP releases
already out, becoming moot.

   Do I violate american law when I transfer files from United Kingdom
   to Germany?  In some cases the internet packets are routed through
   american machines because the connection Germany/Britain is lousy
   slow.

Well, the USA might want to claim jurisdiction.  They've already done
this with money in transit.  There was a recent case where money was
being wired from Columbia to Europe somewhere.  New York was an
intermediary which provided connectivity for the money--a holding
account.  The money was seized while in the holding account.  The
Supremes upheld the seizure.

An agressive prosecutor might apply this precedent to data flows,
arguing that at the point the data entered a US computer, it came
inside USA territory and therefore was re-exported.  Ignorance might
be no defense.  As I recall, the bankers knew the money was flowing
through New York, but I don't think their client did.

Eric