From: "K. M. Ellis" <kelli@zeus.towson.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 95 12:28:51 PDT
To: Ian Goldberg <cme@tis.com>
Subject: My new perspective on ITAR (was Re: Munitions shirt (again)
In-Reply-To: <199509201549.IAA19844@cuzco.CS.Berkeley.EDU>
Message-ID: <Pine.ULT.3.91.950920151359.6005A-100000@zeus.towson.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Wed, 20 Sep 1995, Ian Goldberg wrote:

> So, Dave and I got free munitions shirts (they're different, though;
> the font is smaller and they have a bunch of X'd out Constitutional
> Amendments on the back; I think they ere designed by Joel Furr) for
> our bug find.

Good.

> 
> So I'm wearing it today.  The thing is, I live in International House,
> a residence that has 50% non-Americans.
> 
> So, any consensus as to whether it's actually illegal to do so?  I
> remember some disagreement a few weeks ago that AFAIK wasn't resolved.
> 
> As far as I can tell, it's _technically_ illegal, but any LEO would be
> out of his mind to try to enforce it (it would have to be a Fed, too,
> wouldn't it?  Or can regular city cops get you for violating export
> restrictions?).
> 
>    - Ian
> 

Funny, this thread sounds awfully familiar.  In fact, I think I wrote 
almost this _exact same post_ about 3 weeks ago, just substituting 
"Berkeley" for "Towson State University".  I mentioned the fact that I 
live in the International House of _my_ campus, and we discussed the 
legality of my wearing it.  We hashed over it for a few days, and never 
really came to a real answer, since ITAR is rather vague in that area.

I might add, however, that two days ago I wore my RSA shirt to my sound
design class, where the guy I happened to sit down next to recognized it,
was familiar with what it stood for, and knew all about the Zimmerman
case; not because he was a crypto enthusiast or a comp sci major, but
because he works for customs at Baltimore-Washington International
Airport. 

This event really changed my point of view considering ITAR... I figured 
that it was just one of those dumb laws that _nobody_ really paid much 
attention to except for the FBI and that was only because they were 
looking for a way to nail Zimmerman for writing good crypto.  I had 
assumed that ITAR was something that  customs agents/L. E. O's/etc. 
learned about, took a  test on it, then forgot about it the next day.

Interesting... they _really_ are serious, aren't they?

-=me=-

kelli@zeus.towson.edu       Geek Code v3.0      http://zeus.towson.edu/~kelli/
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