From: Alex Strasheim <cp@proust.suba.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 18:52:33 +0800
To: hfinney@shell.portal.com (Hal)
Subject: Re: Golden Key Campaign
In-Reply-To: <199604232353.QAA13608@jobe.shell.portal.com>
Message-ID: <199604240707.CAA06398@proust.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


I know you feel strongly about this, and I don't expect to change your 
mind.

But sometimes in politics you have to play the angles.  I don't think 
most people care about their civil liberties as much as they should.  If 
it were just a question of censorship and wiretapping, I think we'd 
probably lose the political fight.  Sure we're right.  But that's not 
enough.  We don't have any clout.

But fortunatly big business has come to the conclusion that it's going to
have to kill the crypto parts of ITAR in order to do business overseas. 
And that means the export restrictions are as good as dead.

The other side of the debate has been raising the spectres of the four
horsemen, and that argument has to be addressed, at least nominally.  RSA
can't say, "We know that law enforcement is concerned about terrorism,
drugs, and child pornography.  But we need the rules changed anyway so we
can make buckets of money."

So they say stand on civil liberties.  Yes, it's disingenuous.  But if 
they win, we'll all come out ahead.  In order to make the money, they're 
going to secure our civil liberties.

The patents won't last forever.  They're going to expire, and when they
do, the war will be over, because ITAR's crypto restrictions will be 
dead.

And it will be due, in large part, to the cypherpunks who made corporate 
customers afraid to use 40 bit keys.

Security isn't the only thing that's economics.  So's politics.