At 5:53 PM 5/23/96, jim bell wrote:
Well, he must have learned it all in the last few months, because his bill was the closest thing to DOA that we've seen in a long time, exceeded only by GAK 3. I'd like to hear from him what the source of the text of the Leahy bill on encryption really was: Who pressured him to make it so bad?
"If you only knew what we know..." ("...you wouldn't support encryption, you wouldn't push for privacy legislation, you would order all citizen-units to have tatooed ID numbers on their arms...") Though I normally avoid "Wired," I did pick up the latest issue to skim through. A couple of good things, actually, including a nice summary of the state of crypto laws, etc. (I don't recall the author, as I didn't buy the issue.) A great discussion of the Deepest and Darket Secret in Washington, the special "If you only knew what we know..." briefing given to legislators, staffers, etc. to convince them of the Evils of Cryptography. Paraphrasing the "Wired" item, "No person who has ever received "The Briefing" has ever again argued forcefully for the rights of citizens to use strong cryptography." I surmise that either Sen. Burns has not yet been given The Briefing, or he is for some reason more resistant than most other burrowcrats to the scare tactics used in The Briefing. I sure would like to know what's in this briefing. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."