-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 02 Sep 1995, "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> wrote:
Alan Westrope writes: [replying to M. Froomkin about statute of limitations for prz]
June '96. Zimmermann and Dubois appeared on a local talk radio show recently; a friend happened to catch the program, taped it, and played excerpts at a Cypherpunks meeting. This date was mentioned by Phil Dubois.
That's not possible. The offense in question took place on or before September 8, 1992, and the statute of limitations is, to my knowledge, three years. Even if it were four years, it would have to be September 8th of that year. Branko Lankester announced availability of PGP 2.0 on Mon, 7 Sep 1992 at about 20:22 GMT, so since the allegation is that he exported PGP Version 1.0 to the team that developed PGP 2.0 overseas, any export that Phil performed would have of necessity to have taken place before then.
Perry's response and Brian Davis' remarks about prosecutorial "creativity" prompted me to ask Phil Dubois for clarification. (I told him I would probably pass his reply along to the list, so I'm not violating email confidentiality here.) Here's the relevant snippet: ======================================================================== I believe that the statute expires in June of '96, because there is a five-year statute on the export-violation allegation and because PGP was released in June of '91, and whoever exported it did so shortly after the release. It is true, however, that prosecutors have been very creative in extending the statute when they've felt the need to do so. We can only hope that DOJ will not feel the need in this case. ======================================================================== I also feel Phil will be largely off the hook by June. It would be damn silly to prolong the matter, especially since the complete source code has been published internationally in OCR format now. Also, I expect the Feds would rather focus their "creative" energies on the Bernstein/EFF export issue. But who knows what anti-crime hysteria might be whipped up in an election year, or who it might become handy to demonize, etc. Alan Westrope <awestrop@nyx10.cs.du.edu> __________/|-, <adwestro@ouray.cudenver.edu> (_) \|-' 2.6.2 public key: finger / servers PGP 0xB8359639: D6 89 74 03 77 C8 2D 43 7C CA 6D 57 29 25 69 23 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: I *swear* I have not used the term 'big-endian' in the last 10 years. iQCVAwUBMFWsMlRRFMq4NZY5AQHTgQP8DFDKtcK3JfFffURlwwXP+o+PMkk57dO2 baWIaBBSRxp0pUivP+vVDSP1NwMhpRDt+apW10qCgemJWgGlg8f2NRW6rq2LgpfJ 1fuJJL/mLQo2W+UfGqQS8PFv3CwvFLdE1hEMQfysFGo3UY2nYOeuMe8vJdednFP2 MSm7B2e9JcM= =SOsn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----