From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:39:33 +0800
To: Jonah Seiger <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: FCPUNX:In response to Declan's questions about crypto.com
Message-ID: <199709282213.PAA26939@proxy3.ba.best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 03:09 PM 9/26/97 -0400, Jonah Seiger wrote:
> 4. CDT continues to support efforts to relax encryption export controls. 

And that is where you are wrong:

We need crypto legislation like we need nine inch nails hammered through
our skulls.

Any legislative attention to crypto is bad and dangerous, as we have been
saying for years, and has just been dramatically proven once again.

Business lobby groups are intermediaries, and therefore serve
two masters, both the politicians and the businessmen, not one
master.  Frequently they serve the interests of the politicians
at the expense of their donors, at the expense of the goals
that the lobby group is supposed to pursue.

> We also recognize the realities of politics.  No matter how much any of us
> might wish it to be true, members of the Commerce Committee were not
> willing to stand up and simply oppose everything. 

This is a bunch of crap:  It is highly likely that no bill will go
through.  Most bills die.   This bill should die.

Killing bills is always politically safer than passing them, doing 
nothing cannot get you into trouble.

>  It was not in the
> cards.  White and Markey offered them a chance to defeat Oxley while
> throwing a small bone to law enforcement.  We believe that passage of SAFE
> with the White-Markey amendment, despite the problems with the criminal
> provisions, is on balance, a step forward in the fight for encryption
> policy reform.

This is untrue and dishonest.  No bill at all is the best step forward,
and doing nothing is always easiest to attain.

> As always, I am happy to respond to queries about CDT's positions and
> tactics, but I am not interested in engaging in public flame throwing.

The CDT is ultimately a business lobby group, because it gets
most of its funding from businesses.  It is therefore potentially
subject to the same corruption as other business lobbies.

Business lobby groups are intermediaries, and therefore serve
two masters, both the politicians and the businessmen, not one
master.  Frequently they serve the interests of the politicians
at the expense of their donors, at the expense of the goals
that the lobby group is supposed to pursue.

Suppose for example you have a lobby group that
represents the widget industry.

On the one hand, the CEO of General Widgets might ring them up 
and say: "We are being trashed by these great japanese widgets, 
and unless something is done about it we might have to reduce 
prices or improve quality", and the lobby organization has a 
little chat with some tame politicians about the terrible 
suffering the Japanese are inflicting on American workers.   
That is the way lobby groups are supposed to work, but seldom do.

On the other hand sometimes the politician (or a
gofer on his staff), rings the lobby and says:  "I need a
million dollars fast:  What potential political action gets the
chairman of General Widgets waking up in a cold sweat in the
middle of the night?  What could destroy the widget industry, 
and yet be politically feasible?"  Shortly thereafter the 
lobbyist has a little chat with chairman of General Widgets 
about forthcoming legislation.  The lobby group
gets a big bag of money, some of which it passes on to
the politician, and the threatened legislation evaporates 
until the next election.

To be a successful lobby group, the CDT needs to get its
fingerprints on legislation, so that it can make threats and
promises to businessmen in the computer industry.

Thus the CDT's best interests as an organization are contrary
to our desires and contrary to the announced aims of the 
organization.  Legislation, any legislation, is in their 
interests and legislation, any legislation is against our 
interests.

Our interests, and the CDT's interest are opposed with no
apparent mutual good possible.

Now it is possible that the CDT is virtuously pursuing its
supposed goals, rather than its practical interests.  We should
consider the available evidence in order to infer what it is
in fact up to.

According to Dave Barry the word "politics" derives from the Greek 
"poly" meaning many, and "ticks" meaning small disgusting 
bloodsucking parasites.

In order to be well funded, the CDT needs government
regulation of the net.  The kind of regulation that would be
most effective in ensuring large donations would be regulation
that compels internet businessmen to lobby the government.
for example regulations that make impossible, inconsistent, and
contradictory requirements on those who provide software,
hardware, and services, for example a demand that big
companies police the net in ways that even governments would
find extremely difficult, such as the British child porn
crackdown, or legislation which if properly crafted would 
have the effect of giving some businessmen a monopoly of 
some aspect of the net, and putting other businessmen out 
of business,  for example legislation that requires case 
by case approval of software, or legislation that compels
the businessman to invade his customers privacy, and also
prohibits him from invading that privacy unless he has a
waiver issued by the state.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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and our property, because of the kind	|  
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derives from this right, not from the	|  
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