At 4:25 PM -0700 7/17/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
---------
July 2,1997
Time to Walk the Walk on Telecom Policy
by Jeffrey A. Eisenach The Progress & Freedom Foundation
Thanks to Ira Magaziner -- of all people -- the Clinton Administration has finally learned to talk the free market talk that brings joy to denizens of the Internet. Now, as always with this Administration, the question is whether it will also walk the walk.
To use their own Yuppie expression, "will it 'walk the walk' down the gang plank"? The only thing the Administration can do is to do _nothing_. Gibberish about the freedom of the Net while other departments speak of key escrow and content control is a meaningless gesture.
easy-to-use technical solutions." And last month, Treasury Undersecretary Larry Summers, reportedly at Magaziner's urging, had very positive things to say about the "no new taxes on the Internet" legislation sponsored by Congressman Chris Cox and Senator Ron Wyden.
Taxes are already essentially uncollectable, even in interstate transactions, so the moves by Summers and Magaziner are truly token gestures. Their continuing support for GAK and content control are what has earned them only our vicious enmity.
Telecommunications is not the only problem area with respect to policy. Most notable among the others: Encryption, where the Administration stubbornly adheres to its unworkable, privacy-invading notion of "key escrow" for encryption software -- i.e., giving the police the key to your house in advance in case they decide later they want to conduct a search.
Oh, yeah, this minor issue of their demanding access to diaries, phone calls, e-mail, and other computer-mediated communications without so much as a search warrant. They all deserve to be hung for treason, or dispatched the old-fashoned way (a la Guy Fawkes). --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."