From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 07:19:48 PDT
To: danisch@ira.uka.de (Hadmut Danisch)
Subject: Re: Laws Outside the U.S.
In-Reply-To: <m0qnQTf-00018RC@elysion>
Message-ID: <9409211416.AA18758@wombat.sware.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hadmut Danisch writes:

>                                     The EC forces their countries to
> equalize their laws in the sense of "what you can do in one country,
> you can do everywhere".

> If France forbids the import of crypto software, but allows to sell it
> inside of France, then I can sue France, because the french programmer
> can sell his programs in France and I can't.

Isn't it inevitable that this will -- for the same reasons of equity
among the member countries -- evolve into a single set of laws governing
the *use* of crypto throughout the EC?


> I'm sure we will get a special crypto law within the next years.

Can you provide any predictions as to its content?  It seems to me
that the EC may be a *huge* force -- for good or ill -- with respect to
crypto, depending on which way the rules fall out.  In the first place,
because of the sheer size of the EC and the combined power and populace
of its member countries, but also because any internal crypto advantage
the EC is perceived to hold might be an additional spur to liberalization
of US crypto export policy.


-- Jeff