Hal Finney sez:
In this light, the explicit exemption for printed materials is really quite welcome. It has never been 100% clear that a book of source code is exportable. Yes, we've had some favorable court cases recently but none of these have been fully resolved. Rumors were posted here that the NSA came very close to trying to stop the export of the original PGP source code book from MIT Press (and supposedly arranged for MIT to be punished later for its audacity).
My uncharitable side says that is because they wanted to stay as far away from cries of "book-banning" as they could. If nothing else, IN THAT NARROW CASE, reason prevailed over fervor. And I caution against thinking in terms of "NSA did" in favor of "Under FBI pressure, NSA did" just to remind ourselves where the real battle lies..... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433