From: "Vivek Vaidya" <phirebearer@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 04:00:05 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: RE: What was the quid pro quo for Wassenaar countries?
Message-ID: <19981205193720.25762.qmail@hotmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




>John Gilmore may be right, but remember folks that in Europe we have 
>this thing the Greeks invented called democracy. One of the ideas of 
>democracy is that decisions are not made in secret closed meetings.
Would you really call the EU protocols a democracy? rule by the 
unelected technocrats?  And Europes history of not making decisions in 
secret closed meetings is hardly commendable.  Excepting perhaps the 
swiss.

>The interpretation of the US ambassador appears to be based on the
>assumption that the governmental proceedures of democratic countries 
>are like those of his home country. In fact European governments 
>cannot make law simply by telling the national police force to >arrest 
folk who engage in particular behaviour.
Now my understanding of european law is, of course, limited.  But in 
France wasn't there that case of some rapper been arrested for insulting 
the police?  And in Germany you can strip the constitutional rights of 
citizens who engage in treasonous behaviour ( could this include 
cryptography? if connected with neo-nazis almost certainly right? )

>The system of checks and balances may be described in the US 
>constitution but it is entrenched in the European polity. The UK >does 
not have a national police force precisely to stop Hooverism.
>
>Even directives of the European Commission do not have legal force 
>until the national parliaments enact legislation to implement the 
>directive.
What about those airline accords where the EU took its member states to 
court over cabotage agreements.  I'm sure there are ways to sneak these 
things through.

>One should also remember that the government of the Netherlands has 
agreed
>to control the sale and use of narcotics. If their efforts to control
>cryptography are as dilligent we have nothing to worry about.
>
>In addition under the single European act the entire country of Europe 
is
>one export zone for crypto control purposes. I fail to see that 
stopping
>Brits from exporting crypto to the US changes the equation a great 
deal.
>
>
>There once was an English king called Canute who attempted to 
demonstrate
>to his courtiers that he was fallible and could not order the tide to
>turn. Perhaps Clinton's courtiers need to learn that they suffer the 
same
>limmitation.

I'm afraid that that may not be the point.  The primary objective of the 
arms control laws ( which are the ones being used as references in this 
case ) is to prevent advanced weapons technology from spreading to the 
third world.  Now Europe, America, Japan, and other first world 
countries are all capable of developing high level crypto indiginously.  
The less advanced countries on the earth are forced to import it from 
these countries.  What the passage of this law will do is prevent this 
export ( example:  the Netherlands, as you pointed out has not cracked 
down on its internal narcotics trade.  However it doesn't permit 
exporting narcotics.  Similarly this agreement will probably freeze 
exports of high level crypto by all the signatory countries, in the same 
way that america no longer permits high level crypto exports. )
The end result being the NSA should able to read India and Chinas 
communications without irritations.  

Vivek Vaidya


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