From: Ernest Hua <hua@chromatic.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 08:35:32 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: News: California Legislature Backs Encryption Exports
Message-ID: <199709090006.RAA18844@ohio.chromatic.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Incredible ...  I've been tracing this for the last few days, and I
have seen ZERO mention in print and ONE tiny mention in San Jose
Mercury News (which did NOT get reflected in the print version;
someone please prove me wrong).

The Key Bill Numbers:

    SB-1133 and SJR-29 (Start from: http://www.ca.gov and look under
    "senate")

    SB-1133 is a full encryption policy direction declaration (yes,
    that means it's still fluff, but at least it says key recovery
    does not work.)

    SJR-29 is the resolution mentioned below.

Full Article:

    http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/daily/970908b.html
    by Will Rodger

Key Passage:

    Clinton administration officials tried to fight passage of the
    resolution in the technology-heavy state, while at the same time
    trying to conceal their moves from industry opponents, according
    to lobbyists close to the floor action.

    Commerce Undersecretary William Reinsch, for example, sent the
    state senate committee considering the measure a three-page fax
    urging them to vote down the resolution an hour before a scheduled
    committee vote on Aug. 28.

    Officials of the Office of Management and Budget then tried to
    keep the contents of the fax secret from opponents by warning that
    the work was protected by copyright and could not be shown outside
    the committee without violating the author's copyright.

    "We eventually got a copy anyway. It's nothing but the same old
    arguments," said Chuck Marson, a lobbyist for the Internet
    Industry Alliance, an industry group composed of Netscape
    Communications Corp., Microsoft Corp., America Online Inc. and
    Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc.

It is just utterly amazing that NO major news organization has yet to
challenge the Clinton Administration on this issue:

    That the Administration has consistently misrepresented the facts
    and, in some case, just plain lied, to the public, and have tried
    every under-handed method to slow the spread of encryption,
    key-recovery or not, and to increase the surveillence powers of
    law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

And now, here we are, on the eve of a series of important votes to gut
Goodlatte's SAFE legislation, and no one knows anything about the
slimeball tactics the Administration is using to regulate, for the
first time, what kind of software one can write.

Maybe it is just as well.  Perhaps the best way is to fold and appear
weak on the initial vote and let the whole damn thing pass (after all,
I'm willing to bet that the purpose of trying to gut the legislation
before it reaches the floor is to make it not worth anyone's vote).
If our side can get everyone to vote for the GAK-compliant version,
perhaps it will pave the way for a most excellant CDA-style challenge.

Ern