---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 13:15:35 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Senator plans to ban .gov porn-parodies; new crypto-campaign More on Gates in NYC and the FBI's antihacker crusade is at the URL below. --Declan =========== http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/afternoon/0,1012,1782,00.html The Netly News / Afternoon Line March 4, 1998 Loin-cloth One lawmaker who doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor about titillating web sites is Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.). When his presumably technology-impaired staffer stumbled across whitehouse.com and found not Hillary Clinton's child care proposals but a doctored photo of Hillary in leather, Faircloth decided to take action. "I plan to introduce legislation that would ban the assignment of popular government agency names to anyone," he told The Netly News after speaking at an Internet child safety seminar this afternoon. "Can you imagine how many people have thought they were contacting the White House only to see that?" A better question might be which site is the more popular one. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington Might Makes Right Congress rarely does the right thing for the right reason.Instead, lobbyists vie to make voting the wrong way too politically costly for legislators. Now a new coalition, called Americans for Computer Privacy, is trying out this strategy on encryption legislation. The group of high tech firms and nonprofit groups aims to convince lawmakers that supporting restrictions on either the domestic use or overseas shipment of encryption productions is too politically painful. "We would not turn the keys to our front doors over the government. Why should we have to turn over the keys to our computers?" asked ACP counsel and former White House lawyer Jack Quinn. To convince Americans that ACP's answer is the right one, the coalition has gathered together an advisory panel of former spooks and law enforcement agents. Quinn told the Netly News that his strategy has already won results: "Senior officials at the National Security Council and the vice president's office" this morning signaled they're willing to sit down at the table for a friendly chat about crypto-laws. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington