<In mail Paul Ferguson said:>
Dave Mandl <dmandl@panix.com> writes -
I think this is a very bad idea and not the purpose of the cypherpunks list.
Ditto. Leave the political battles to those with more (desired) visibilty (ie, EFF, CPSR, SEA).
I replied to Dave via mail but it may warrant a public clarification. My intent is not to form a group to go lobby congress or anything of that nature. My idea was to create a list of "credentials" for the group as a whole so that when active folks do go to the press or to meetings between CPSR & the NSA then they can have in their hands a bit of "proof" that we aren't the computer-student-woodstock-wannabes the NSA et al. say we are. Remember the E.F. Hutton commercials where a guy is asked for investment advice and he says "My broker is EF Hutton and EF Hutton says..." and everyone in the room gets quiet and leans over to hear the advice? That is what the Cypherpunks name doesn't have... respect. Your comments, either for or against, are appreciated and counted. They will be used to help me see if there is sufficient interest in my opinion to warrant trying to organize such a thing. Right now it's slightly in favor but there are too few replies to be fair either way. Jim -- Tantalus Inc. Jim Sewell Amateur Radio: KD4CKQ P.O. Box 2310 Programmer Internet: jims@mpgn.com Key West, FL 33045 C-Unix-PC Compu$erve: 71061,1027 (305)293-8100 PGP via email on request. 1K-bit Fingerprint: 8E 14 68 90 37 87 EF B3 C4 CF CD 9A 3E F9 4A 73