---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 12 Sep 2001 19:11:23 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger"
To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
Subject: The tragedy in NYC
[I sent this originally yesterday, but the, er, problems our mail
server in downtown New York suffered for a while caused some
delay. Another copy was published on Dave Farber's interesting
people. Several people wrote me afterwards vilifying me. Ah well.
The list is now running on a new machine in Virginia, which
should be safe even as more buildings collapse and burn. --Perry]
In the wake of the tragedy in NYC today, I was asked by someone if I
didn't now agree that crypto was a munition. At the time, I thought
that a friend of mine was likely dead. (I've since learned he escaped
in time.)
My answer then, when I thought I'd lost a friend, was the same as my
answer now and the answer I've always had.
Cryptography must remain freely available to all.
In coming months, politicians will flail about looking for freedoms to
eliminate to "curb the terrorist threat". They will see an opportunity
to grandstand and enhance their careers, an opportunity to show they
are "tough on terrorists".
We must remember throughout that you cannot preserve freedom by
eliminating it. The problem is not a lack of laws banning things.
I know the pressure on everyone in Washington will be to "do
something". Speaking as a New Yorker who dearly loves this city, who
has felt deep shock throughout most of the day, watching the smoke
still rising from the fires to the south of me, listening to the
ambulances and police cars continuing to wail about me, let me say
this:
I do not want more laws passed in the name of defending my home.
I do not want more freedoms eliminated to "preserve freedom".
I do not want to trade my freedom for safety. Franklin has said far
more eloquently than me why that is worthless.
If you must do something, send out more investigators to find those
responsible for this and bring them to justice. Pass no new laws. Take
away no freedoms. Do not destroy the reason I live here to give me
"safety". I'd rather die in a terrorist attack.
--
Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com
--
"Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."
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