From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 22:21:48 +0800
To: declan@well.com
Subject: Re: SAFE Bill is a Disaster--"Use a cipher, go to prison"
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970430194258.6805D-100000@well.com>
Message-ID: <v03020900af8e49aa795c@[207.226.3.4]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Tim -

It's too bad we may not see eye-to-eye on this one.

For what it's worth, CDT shares your concerns about the criminal provision
in the SAFE bill.  We believe that as currently written, the provision is
overly broad and could create a chilling effect on the everyday use of
encryption, and  unnecessary because it duplicates existing obstruction of
justice law.

We have expressed these concerns both publicly (in a letter to the
committee signed by EPIC, ACLU, EFF, VTW, CDT, and over 20 other
organizations - see  http://www.privacy.org/ipc/safe_letter.html) and
privately in conversations with the committee staff.  We hope to work with
the authors of SAFE to address these concerns, but, as you know, we are not
running this show and have to work with what the Congress gives us.

However, despite our concerns about the criminal provisions, we believe
strongly that the SAFE bill, and the bills in the Senate sponsored by Burns
and Leahy, are vitally important and should be passed.

As you know, the debate over encryption policy reform has been going on for
more than 4 years.  Despite all of our efforts to promote the use of
encryption, crypto is still not widely used by the public.

The Clinton administration has not backed off from their commitment to a
global key-escrow/key-recovery system with guaranteed law enforcement
access to private keys. And despite the brilliant work of EFF on the
various legal challenges to the export restrictions, we feel this issue
will only be fully resolved through legislation.

The status quo, in our view, is not good enough.  Because of the export
controls and the lack of a coherent US encryption policy, Internet users do
not have access to the privacy protecting encryption products they need.

Congress needs to stand up to the Administration and say, with a strong
voice, "your policy is a failure - we need a different solution".  That's
what SAFE, Pro-CODE, and ECPA II do.

Best,

Jonah


 ** THE FIGHT FOR FREE SPEECH ONLINE IS IN THE HANDS OF THE SUPREME COURT **
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Jonah Seiger, Communications Director              (v) +1.202.637.9800
Center for Democracy and Technology              pager +1.202.859.2151
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