From: Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 03:41:26 +0800
To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Sucking Sound...
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980123083544.006a9088@popd.netcruiser>
Message-ID: <v03007805b0eff02a772c@[204.254.22.58]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Tim is right to bring this up. It will have immense impact on the issues
the cypherpunks care about. How can Clinton talk about policy proposals
(crypto, Net-taxes, etc.) when his presidency is spiraling away?

At the daily press briefing yesterday, McCurry tried to talk about some
welfare plan or something. Whatever. Doesn't matter what it was; I don't
remember -- point is you don't see it on the front page of newspapers today.

Note the grand jury is set to meet next Tues, not coincidentally, the day
of the SoUA. A week ago everyone was scrambling to find out what was going
to be in it. Nobody cares anymore. I may sit in on it in the press gallery
just to see the dynamic and hear the catcalls.

Where I work, most of the folks are liberals. Before this week, they lent
scant credence to Paula Jones etc. -- the previous Bimbo Eruptions. This
time is different. This time there is serious talk of impeachment: what the
legal standards are, what the Republicans are doing on the Hill, what this
means for Gore.

This time, it's for real.

-Declan



At 18:30 -0800 1/23/98, Tim May wrote:
>At 8:35 AM -0800 1/23/98, Jonathan Wienke wrote:
>
>>Has anyone else heard a "giant sucking sound" from the vicinity of the
>>White House lately?
>
>If that was an intentional pun, a good one.
>
>But I had been marveling at how the Clinton troubles were being ignored by
>the Cypherpunks...I figured we were all so jaded about government and the
>criminals who flourish in Washington that there was no point in commenting
>on this latest revelation of corruption. (The apparent perjury, suborning
>perjury, and witness-tampering, not the affair with Lewinsky, however
>tawdry it was.)
>
>It would have been interesting to see the whole process leading up to
>Clinton's resignation (next week?) pass without any discussion by us.
>
>(Actually, I threw in an aside yesterday about "President Gore," but no one
>picked up on it.)
>
>Personally, I think having a crippled and ineffective President is better
>than having an activist bozo President Gore, so I'm kind of hoping this
>whole affairs takes several more months to unwind.
>
>--Tim May
>
>
>
>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."