From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 20:44:45 +0800
To: ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov)
Subject: Re: Federal key registration agency
Message-ID: <199606200854.BAA06982@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 09:48 PM 6/19/96 -0500, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) wrote:
>A couple of questions [admittedly, I am not the best expect in American
>politics]: 
>1) Is there anything real that individual citizens can do?
Agitate - it worked well when Clipper first came out.
Write code to do things regular people want to do, so that they'll
be trying to ban existing material instead of new material,
and so people will get used to using encryption.  PGP is nice, but
imagine if everyone who used Netscape had windows popping up that said
"Encrypting your message to $RECIPIENT.  Cc: to the FBI? [Yes] [No]"

>2) Would it be helpful to kick democrats out of office and replace
>them with republicans? In other words, are republicans any better
>than democrats in respecting citizens' right to protecting their
>privacy from the government?

Remember that the Clipper initiative and development started
during the Presidency of ex-CIA-director and all-around sleazemeister
George Bush.  You could say it was dumb luck that it came out
during Clinton's watch, so he got the credit/blame, but the folks who
are pushing it have the political savvy to know they'd have far less luck
with a lame-duck Bush proposal during a Clinton "Reinventing Government"
than by waiting until Clinton's securely in office, giving him some credit,
and having the Republicans who were around when it started supporting
them as well.  [Or they could have expected Bush to be re-elected,
and figured announcing it before the election wouldn't help.  Or the
product could have just been late :-)]

Not much difference; if anything, Democrats are usually more in favor
of free speech than Republicans, and would be more likely to oppose it.
They're both a pretty sad lot, though there are occasional Congresscritters
who sometimes get it.  Now, kicking out Democrats and Republicans and
replacing them with Libertarians, Perotistas, Greens, or even Reds would have
a positive effect, at least for a little while, but that's a bit more work. :-)


#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# http://www.idiom.com/~wcs
#				Dispel Authority!