From: gnu (John Gilmore)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 10:31:31 PDT
To: Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Helping from Canada re Clipper
In-Reply-To: <9306040154.AA07862@soda.berkeley.edu>
Message-ID: <9306041731.AA07586@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> One of the arguments that is being made in this country against the
> wiretap chip is that it will harm overseas business.  In Canada you
> can turn this around and show what a great economic boon you have
> available.

Another argument the U.S. government is making is that they surveyed
encryption policy in various countries and "it's not beyond the pale
to limit domestic encryption -- France does it, for example".  

If Canada takes a strong stance on domestic encryption, then it is a
counter-example rather than an example of repression.  The Australian
example of deploying GSM in the face of law-enforcement objections has
already been used in testimony to NIST (and I'm sure we'll use it
to convince Congress as well).

You could also argue for removing Canadian restrictions on export of
cryptography.  Currently the Canadian regulations are just
rubber-stamps of the US regulations.  This has the advantage that it's
legal to export US crypto to Canada -- e.g. crypto code developed in
the U.S. can be legally moved outside the range of U.S. law.  This was
useful for PGP; it is legal to use and possess PGP in Canada since
US patent law doesn't apply.  But it limits the development of an
export crypto industry for Canadians, and it furthers the image of
Canada as being under the U.S. government's thumb.

	John Gilmore