Dear Mr. President, I am writing to express my disapproval of the Clinton Administration's position on the ITAR restrictions for encryption software. This is an important issue to me. 1) Software is writing, so it is protected by the first amendment, so the ITAR is unconstitutional. The idea that only paper books are first amendment protected, and electronic books are not, is just plain wrong. 2) The ITAR does not help National Security, but in fact greatly reduces our nations security because the Internet, and the computers and information connected to it, are kept from using good Encryption. 3) I feel that encryption is very important for doing commerce on the Internet, and that commerce on the Internet is important for our economy (Internet is the fastest growing sizable segment). You say you like the "Information Super Highway" and you are "going to focus on the economy like a laser". You should be removing the ITAR restrictions on American businesses. Otherwise the business for commerce software will go to companies in other countries. 4) The Clinton Clipper III proposal to have government key escrow is not acceptable. Also, it will never work, since people will always be able to buy and use software from the rest of the world. This proposal is just slowing down Internet progress. Please cancel Clipper III. 4) I really don't want to vote for a president who would continue this type of regulation of the Internet. The Republican candidate Bob Dole and the Libertarian candidate Harry Browne support Senator Burns Pro-CODE bill S 1726 that would end this foolishness. The current law, (see http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/2778.html), says that "The President shall periodically review the items on the United States Munitions List to determine what items, if any, no longer warrant export controls under this section. The results of such reviews shall be reported to the Speaker of the House [...] at least 30 days before any item is removed from the Munitions List [...]." It seems either of your two rivals would, if president, end the control of software. Will we have to elect one of them president to remove software from the Munitions list? 5) As an act of civil disobedience I have personally exported an encryption program (it is 3 lines of writing) using the web page at http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/ Yours sincerely, Cypherpunks cypherpunks@toad.com Sent from host niobe.c2.net with IP 140.174.185.17