From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 15:42:08 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Cryptography Export
In-Reply-To: <19970408124924.5846.qmail@squirrel.owl.de>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970411151006.005ddf28@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 12:49 PM 4/8/97 -0000, a Potential Postal Worker wrote:
>  I can't believe that corporations pay legal experts huge
>sums of money to receive advice telling them to bend over
>and spread 'em for the government's bullshit legislation.

_Corporations_ have to.  Unlike individuals or partnership businesses,
a corporation is a legal fiction chartered by the government,
and has to do what Big Daddy says or it'll be informed that
it no longer exists.  (The lawyers can point out that it's
obviously more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea.)
If they don't like it, they don't have to be a corporation.

>  If the government wants to prosecute me for exporting
>encryption code, then they had best be prepared to 
>prosecute _all_ exporters of every single item that
>involves altering data that can be re-converted on 
>the other end to render the output intelligible.

Doesn't work that way.  Unless you can make a very strong case that
they're singling out _you_ because you're black/female/Republican/Jewish,
it's extremely difficult to say "you can't prosecute me because you
didn't prosecute _him_ first" - otherwise there'd be no way to 
prosecute the first person.

>  I not only already have the paperwork set up to 
>defy any potential restraining orders that may 
>arise, but I have a judge that is fully prepared
>to institute the necessary proceedings to validate

If you're not just trolling (:-), here's one piece of advice -
please don't go in with a case that's too weak, whether
it's because you're underfunded, have other problems affecting
the overall case results, don't realize how much abuse you'll be taking,
or look too much like a Waco for the average mundane jury,
because every case the Good Guys lose sets bad precedents.


>  If the government thinks that they can legislate
>the thickness of condoms available for export,

The FDA already regulates testosterone and oxygen.
Ain't gonna get mine until they.....

>standing on legal precedents that are as solid as
>the Rock of Gibralter. (Think about it.)

GibraltAr ?  It's full of caves, tunnels, and other holes.....

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#     (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)