From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 07:27:41 +0800
To: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org>
Subject: Re: SAFE Bill is a Disaster--"Use a cipher, go to prison"
In-Reply-To: <v03020900af8e49aa795c@[207.226.3.4]>
Message-ID: <199705012303.SAA12776@mailhub.amaranth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


In <v03020900af8e49aa795c@[207.226.3.4]>, on 05/01/97 at 08:09 AM,
   Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org> said:


>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.

No that is not what they do. :(

In addition to *RESTRICTING* the use of *DOMESTIC* crypto it provides a
rather scary president:

An Admendment to the Constitution of the United States is only valid if
Congress says it is and only if the Rights provided by those Admendments
are exercised by The People in a manner that meets Congress's approval.

If Congress really want's to do somthing then let them pass a resolution
that the export restrictions of crypto in the EAR is unconstitional and
therfore null & void. Anything less or more is unneeded, unwanted, and
unconstitional.

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
                          
Finger whgiii@amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info
- -----------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: I went window shopping...and bought OS/2!

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
Comment: Registered User E-Secure v1.1 ES000000

iQCVAwUBM2kwo49Co1n+aLhhAQHM2QQAuLR47UFIQdk5oipCO7sngTtz2Z0xkSsp
vlVd9/fAY3lvxtIpGj0NdTjxgjBMNeGcExZO1NIZsEhqF9FAt12w8/6cNm3i5rL4
JE8JSUGLCzYgVB9HFBmkbC0J7qyKBJD4k5VVoDAYXIjxYLsKqL1S0+EnMMCbBpCQ
bhzFxCMZ5A0=
=iEJa
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----