From: Jon Lebkowsky <jonl@well.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 23:15:19 +0800
To: jim bell <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960904121017.006cbc1c@mail.well.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:33 PM 9/3/96 -0800, jim bell wrote:
>At 10:41 PM 9/3/96 -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote:
>>The terms "responsibility" and "accountability" are misused, which is
>>unfortunate, since I think we'd all argue in favor of taking responsibility
>>for our speech/actions in a positive sense. The negative is in asking me to
>>sacrifice my freedom because some few behave irresponsibly. This is like
>>setting an illogical default, assuming that it's a preventive, but it
>>prevents nothing.
>>
>>Getting beyond this discussion of EFF, has any global entity discussed
>>making remailers illegal?
>
>The Leahy crypto bill introduced early this year made (paraphrasing) "the 
>use of encryption to thwart a law-enforcement investigation illegal."  I 
>immediately pointed out that while this wouldn't make _encrypted_ remailers 
>illegal, per se,  effectively it would because the moment an investigation 
>(even a phony or trumped-up one) is started and is "thwarted" by the 
>encryption used, the remailer operator became guilty of a crime.  

Is that true? Or is it that the individual user would be guilty of a crime?

The real problem, to me, is that the remailer operator might be required to
breach anonymity; cf the decision in Finland that led Julf to squash
anon.penet.fi.


--
Jon Lebkowsky <jonl@hotwired.com>  FAX (512)444-2693  http://www.well.com/~jonl
Electronic Frontiers Forum, 6PM PDT Thursdays     <http://www.hotwired.com/eff>
"No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough."--Saul Alinsky