On Fri, 27 Oct 1995 10:05:10 -0400 (EDT), you wrote:
And yet people like MIT get approval for the release of PGP this way.
It is clear that 1) the government will (verbally?) clear the "PGP procedure" when pushed.
Yes, I believe that they have only ever given verbal agreement to this sort of thing, which is worth the air it is written on.
2) they need to be pushed.
If anyone from MIT is reading this, it would be a real public service to put on a web site (a) what the system used for the release of PGP is exactly and (b) what assurances (oral, written, names & dates) was received from State/Commerce that this was legal.
You are assuming that because the government has chosen not to prosecute MIT that they will not prosecute anyone else. This is a faulty assumption, laws are not invalidated if they are not enforced, only if they are repealed or overturned.
Publicizing this information would lay the groundwork for APA (or, given the way the ITAR is written, maybe no...) and 5th Amendment / due process challenges by other parties unable to get the straight answers they deserve.
Their are certainly issues that need to be discussed here, and before any such discussion can take place we need a determination from the government as to what sort of verification is adiquite. Dan Weinstein djw@pdcorp.com http://www.earthlink.net/~danjw PGP public key is available from my Home Page. All opinions expressed above are mine. "I understand by 'freedom of Spirit' something quite definite - the unconditional will to say No, where it is dangerous to say No. Friedrich Nietzsche