It's even deeper than this really. Opponents of the bill say it says X. Supporters of the bill say it says Y. The bill actually sounds more like X than Y. There is very little incentive to make the bill anything like Y. The bill could probably be a straight forward X and still pass.
This will probably be unpopular, but: There has been a defacto toleration of some cheap arguments in many online forums dedicated to crypto discussions, including this one. People who agree with us are brave freedom fighters, and our enemies are evil people who want to take everyone's freedoms away. There are honest, intelligent, and well informed people on both sides of the Leahy bill here on this list. We are appalled, rightfully so, when Schneier, Blaze, et al are smeared by anonymous posts dencouncing their characters and calling for mailbombings. But we shouldn't be surprised -- those tactics have been used repeatedly during the larger crypto debate. Remember when Bizdos was the anti-christ? I think we'd all be better off if people like Denning felt that they could come online and mix it up with the rest of us without worrying about being shouted down or harassed. I remember when she used to answer questions on sci.crypt with some regularlity. Say what you want about her politics, she wrote a good crypto textbook and she's good at teaching. There'd be more people who know their crypto if she was still hanging around. Arguing exclusively against straw men isn't good for us. It lets us slide by with weaker arguments than good opponents would coax from us, and it hurts our ability to repsond effectively to their arguments. Crypto technology is going to effect society in lots of ways, some blunt and others subtle. It's complicated stuff, and intelligent people can disagree without being evil or in cahoots with the forces of tyranny. There's a line from an old Neil Young song -- even Richard Nixon has got soul. Well, so does Dorothy Denning, and so do the people at the NSA, and the management at AT&T. Those who would restrict crypto are wrong, and if they prevail in the debate they will do a lot of damage, and yes, they will end up depriving us of a big part of our liberty. But to them *we* are doing a lot of damage -- we're creating a dangerous and lawless world where personal safety will be nothing but a dim memory. Who's right? How can you tell? With an open and honest debate between their best people and ours. I am absolutely certain that we would prevail in such a debate. But we can't get together to stage such a thing -- here on our home turf they're not welcome, and we're certainly not welcome at the security briefings, or whatever it is they call it when the feds lobby lawmakers about crypto issues. I do not mean to imply that any of the leading figures here on cypherpunks stoop to character assination and harassment. But there has been what seems to me to be an effort to romanticize the issue, create a sort of counter-culture fervor. There is a tendency to shout and protest rather than to argue and persuade. Unthinking intolerance of dissent is common among a lot of the transient people on the list, as is a bias against people affiliated with large companies. All I'm suggesting is that the next time somone get creamed for saying something unpopular, that maybe we should defend their right to say it, as long as they say it well and honestly.