From: futplex@pseudonym.com (Futplex)
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 95 13:14:45 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks Mailing List)
Subject: Re: FBI Files on Clipper Release
In-Reply-To: <Pine.D-G.3.91.950817035141.3096A-100000@dg.thepoint.net>
Message-ID: <9508232014.AA18754@cs.umass.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


A FBI document reads:
# To ensure that this occurs, legislation mandating the 
# use of Government-approved encryption products or 
# adherence to Government encryption criteria is required.

Ex-AAG Jo Ann Harris told a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee in 1994:
$ we have absolutely no intention of mandating private use of a particular
$ kind of cryptography, 

I ranted:
% Just what real legal recourse do we have against lying scum in the
% bureaucracy ?  

Brian Davis writes:
> You sure are anxious to prosecute government officials.  

You're damn right I'm anxious to prosecute government officials who appear
to have willfully lied about public policy in testimony before Congress !

Look, plenty of people here are honest-to-[insert your higher power of
choice here] anarchists. I happen to be at most an anarchogroupie ;) and
I'm reasonably comfortable with the U.S. version of representative democracy.

[Note to the list: I'm not looking to spark any sort of debate about political
philosophy, on or off the list. I'm not interested in arguing semantics, so 
don't bother trying.]

For representative democracy to be even vaguely democratic at all, the
representatives need to level with their constituents as much as possible.
I certainly intend to hold public officials speaking in an official
capacity about official business to a high standard of conduct. 

> What is untrue about her statement.  Maybe she meant it's OK to use
> ROT-13 but nothing else ...

How could that be compatible with "no intention of mandating...a particular
kind of cryptography" ?

> And you guys complained about the Jake Baker prosecution!

Non-sequitur. How is the Baker case relevant to this ?

-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>
"Say goodbye to the clowns in Congress" -Elton John/Bernie Taupin