From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 03:37:14 +0800
To: Jim Gillogly <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Personal use crypto export
In-Reply-To: <34450E74.5C1@acm.org>
Message-ID: <v03102802b06ac8c55738@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 11:41 AM -0700 10/15/97, Jim Gillogly wrote:
>I'm moved to repeat Matt Blaze's exercise of a couple of years
>ago, where he went through the rigamarole to get an Official
>Paper from Customs or State or whoever was in charge to take his
>laptop out of the country with crypto on it for his personal use
>overseas.  His experiences finding the right person to talk to
>to get a form, then his inability to find a Customs official to
>look at it on the way back, were semi-hilarious.
>
>However, now that crypto exports in general have moved from ITAR
>to EAR and BXA is in charge of general crypto exports, I can't find
>out how to get the right form to take out a laptop with PGP (or
>anything else) on it.  Can anybody give me a pointer to whoever
>thinks they're in charge of this stuff?
>
>Or have they given up on this phase?

Given that Matt did the exercise the one time it was worth doing, as a
"demonstration," and given that nobody has been prosecuted for this sort of
thing, and given the "personal use exemption" issued a while back, what's
the point?

If your point is to show that you, too, can jump through hoops and run
around collecting papers, then it hardly seems fair for any of us to give
you help, right?

--Tim May

(P.S. I seem to recall that some time _after_ the Matt Blaze experience
there was an even more clearcut statement that laptops leaving the country
for temporary trips did not need _any_ permission forms, even officially. I
dimly recall this as part of the new BXA/EAR documents.)

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."