At 03:09 PM 9/26/97 -0400, Jonah Seiger wrote:
We also recognize the realities of politics. No matter how much any of us might wish it to be true, members of the Commerce Committee were not willing to stand up and simply oppose everything. It was not in the cards. White and Markey offered them a chance to defeat Oxley while throwing a small bone to law enforcement. We believe that passage of SAFE with the White-Markey amendment, despite the problems with the criminal provisions, is on balance, a step forward in the fight for encryption policy reform.
That's why we have described the vote on cryto.com as a "vote in favor of privacy". I do not expect that this will convince all of our detractors, but I do hope this clarifies the substance of Declan's criticism.
One of the realities of politics is that every gain for the opposition contributes to a critical mass that can result in eventual passage of 'bad' legislation. Though I tend to be pragmatic, I'm concerned that we tend to give away too much early on in the legislative process. Considering that there is substantial opposition (by attorneys, professors, and corporations as well as by crypto-anarchists) to crypto restrictions on the table, we hurt ourselves if we declare a partial win as anything but a loss at this point. Consider that crypto is hard to grasp for many, and we may be feeding complacency with unrealistic claims of victory. ---- jonl@well.com http://www.well.com/~jonl