Sigh. Plus ca change -----Original Message----- From: Dave Farber [mailto:farber@cis.upenn.edu] Sent: Monday, December 28, 1998 1:20 PM To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: And you thought it was Larry Flynt . . . From: sbaker@steptoe.com Dave, I am sending you part of a note we sent to our clients a week or two ago. I haven't seen it in the press yet, but after it shows up in IP, the NY Times will be more or less irrelevant. Stewart From: Stewart Baker (sbaker@steptoe.com) Elizabeth Banker (ebanker@steptoe.com) The press would have you believe that it was Larry Flynt and his million-dollar tales of infidelity that caused the unexpected change in House leadership this month, but encryption policy buffs -- paranoid by nature and proud of it -- are beginning to focus on another suspect, one with more to gain. That's because it is the Federal Bureau of Investigation that looks like the biggest winner now that Robert Livingston has been replaced by Dennis Hastert as odds-on favorite to be Speaker of the House of Representatives. Livingston supported the industry's version of SAFE, the crypto decontrol bill that died in Congress last session. In contrast, J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) has shown strong solidarity with the FBI on encryption issues as a member of the House Commerce Committee. Indeed, Hastert supported the Oxley-Manton Amendment that would have turned the SAFE Act of 1997 (H. R. 695) into a mandate for domestic regulation of encryption. And when Oxley-Manton was rejected by the Committee in favor of the Markey-White Amendment, Hastert voted against the SAFE Act. ..