From: Paul Elliott <paul.elliott@hrnowl.lonestar.org>
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 95 09:51:45 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (cypherpunks mailing list)
Subject: Re: Why no action alert, coalition opposing S. 974?
In-Reply-To: <199507201536.LAA05105@eff.org>
Message-ID: <300f5b5a.flight@flight.hrnowl.lonestar.org>
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Many of the leaders of the major net civil liberties organizations have made
statements concerning SB 974. They seem to agree that no action alert
or coalition on SB 974 should be formed at this time.

Some of the statements about SB 974.

"Silly Bill"
"not going anywhere"
"subcommittee hearing not set yet"
"premature"
"inflammatory distraction"
"campaign is unlikely to be successful"
"the bill is doomed"

I remain concerned about this bill and am not satisfied with the response
to this bill.

Exon was a silly bill, but it passed the Senate by a wide margin.
How can a campaign to stop the bill not be successful if the bill
is not going anywhere? Perhaps we need to have a success to
gain momentum. The people on the subcommittee are going to be very
important as the rest of the Senate will consider them to be the "experts".
Since the net is esoteric to most people there will be a strong tendency
to depend on the "experts". The best time to persuade these "experts"
will be before they make any public statements about the bill in the
subcommittee hearings and their positions are locked by pride not 
wanting to publicly change their positions. Thus we should be contacting
these people now, and we may have a chance to nip SB 974 in the bud.

By the way, what subcommittee was it sent to? I understand it was
one of the subcommittees of Judiciary but no one said which one.
Because there is no action alert, people do not know what States 
have the senators on the sub-committee. People from these States
are the ones that should be especially encouraged to contact their Senators.

In any case, it is clear that if any significant action on SB 974 will
be taken at this time, the CYPHERPUNKS will have to do it. The major
net civil liberties organizations have bowed out for now.

Are there any cypherpunks out there who can help? Perhaps someone
has writing skills that would be willing to write an action alert?
Perhaps someone knows which subcommittee it was sent to?
Since SB 974 hobbles our right to use encryption, the cypherpunks
should be especially interested in opposing it.

-- 
Paul Elliott                                  Telephone: 1-713-781-4543
Paul.Elliott@hrnowl.lonestar.org              Address:   3987 South Gessner #224
                                              Houston Texas 77063