The Net's crypto wet-dreams were demolished this afternoon by a Congressional committee's fear of coffee-drenched kids and the Ku Klux Klan. A two-hour debate over whether KKK volunteers could be sued for spilling coffee on an 8-year old at a bake sale blew through millions of dollars in billable lobbyist-hours and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from voting on Rep. Bob Goodlatte's (R-VA) SAFE crypto bill today. Somnolent yet somehow alert, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) wasted an hour sparring with the avuncular Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) over the "Volunteer Protection Act," which insulates people volunteering for nonprofit organizations from civil liability. But would that apply to the KKK, wondered Conyers? Is the KKK a registered 501(c)(3) organization under the IRS code? What about 501(c)(4) organizations? What if a KKK member decided to build houses for Habitat for Humanity? I kid you not: these are the questions that the august House Judiciary committee grapples with. The members ran out of time and never got around to voting on SAFE. It was a bizzare meeting, to be sure, but at least one point made sense: these decisions should be left to the states, not imposed on them by the Feds. Some Congressmen even cited the landmark Supreme Court decision in _Lopez_, which shortened the reach of the Federal government. Conyers: "Someone has to explain why this is a federal issue." Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): "I don't see why it's necessary for the federal government to invade." Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) coughed up an odd position: he likes the bill, but wants to make sure his GOP colleagues appreciate that this bill would screw the states. (It uses the Constitution's "interstate commerce clause" to justify the Feds interfering.) Frank said: "The notion that the coach of the Little League is involved in interstate commerce -- unless the third baseline is in another state -- strikes me as a hard sell. A dispute involving the coach in a little league will now be federalized... I don't have a problem with that... I do insist, however, that those in the past who have invoked [states' rights understand that] this is an obliteration of Lopez." Those were the high points of the debate, and it went downhill from there. Frank claimed that the Civil War meant that states have no rights. Someone rambled about girl scouts in South Carolina. Someone else spoke passionately about "standards of tortious behavior." Then there was talk about tricyles and hammers. By this time, the audience was falling asleep. I counted 10 people nodding off before I ran out of fingers. A frustrated Hyde tried to broker a deal: "If your staff person can work with your staff person, can you draft replacement language?" Conyers replied. "We're trying to help chairman Hyde. We've got 12 minutes [left]. There's no way in the world we're going to allow hate group hangers-on to be exempted from simple negligence." It worked. By 5:15 pm, after a dozen amendments, the committee passed the "Volunteer Protection Act." As for SAFE -- well, if you're a Congressman faced with the choice of bashing the KKK or tackling crypto policy, what would you do? -By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) and Will Rodger (rodger@worldnet.att.net), who refuses to wear a tie to these events any more.