At 09:50 AM 8/26/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 12:23:57 -0400 From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org> Cc: shabbir@vtw.org, fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu, brock@well.com, telstar@wired.com Subject: Re: INFO: Democratic convention chats online! Be there! (8/25/96) Declan: In a world where we have very few real friends, I simply don't understand what you are trying to accomplish. It's fine (and healthy) to raise concerns about the particular positions a member of Congress takes (hell, I don't agree with everything Leahy does), but to simply dismiss Leahy as a 'no friend of the Net' is naive and counterproductive.
Look at the record. Leahy is hands down the strongest supporter of the Net in Congress. Period. No other Member (including our small but growing handful of other friends like Burns, White, Wyden, Cox, Eshoo, etc) has been a more forceful or consistent advocate for your causes for as long as Leahy has. What exactly do you want? Perhaps we should elect you to Congress and see how well you can do.
Leahy's crypto bill sucked, bigtime. The portion of the bill criminalizing the use of encryption that had the effect of thwarting a government investigation is classic, "foot in the door" creeping government manipulation. I was particularly disgusted to notice that a number of the traditional net-freedom organizations rushed to announce that they were in favor of that bill, without even a few days of analysis, and did not retract or even restrict that support when a more careful study (specifically, that of Peter Junger) showed how seriously flawed it was. Indeed, I never saw another analysis that purported to defend Leahy's bill, despite the fact that it would have been the responsibility of any organization which claimed support of it to prepare one. I believe that it is particularly suspicious that these bills come into existance without even cursory "vetting" on the Internet. Both the Leahy bill and even the Burns crypto bill popped into public view without any indication of how they were written, or any public input on their intent and scope. Perhaps this "take it or leave it" practice is old hat to politicians, but frankly I'm disgusted at politicians' presumption that they can prepare a law with no identifiable input from the public. I am similarly disgusted at any organization (even if, ostensibly, acting in support of "net freedom") that assisted in the development of the Leahy crypto bill (and to some extent, even the Burns bill) because they clearly failed to solicit the kind of public input that such bills should automatically get. And in a sense, "the Net" doesn't NEED "strong supporters": what we need are politicians who are willing to LEAVE US ALONE! It should come as no surprise that the call you frequently see among net-freedom- supporters for new legislation is that which repeals existing restrictive laws, such as ITAR and censorship laws. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com