---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- From: shabbir@vtw.org (Shabbir J. Safdar) To: Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org> cc: declan+@cmu.edu (Declan B. McCullagh), fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu, jim@rsa.com Subject: Re: NYT: Encryption compromise bill introduced Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 15:14:01 -0500 Sender: shabbir@panix.com The Leahy bill is actually much better than Stanton lets on. Take a look at it, it affirms Americans' right to choose whatever algorithm or technique they'd like, as well as takes great pains to go on record to say that Congress treaded very carefully to preserve Americans' right to not use key escrow algorithms, and if they did, not to use escrow agents. You don't get much more of a guarantee than that. Regardless of the ulterior motives of the White House, key escrow programs are still voluntary as read on the books. The best we can write into a law is to have our rights reaffirmed. Leahy has given this to us in spades. Let's not soft-pedal this legislation. Leahy and Goodlatte are going head to head with the White House to undermine the strongarm export tactics of Clipper and Son of Clipper. They've stuck their necks out for us, we need to back them up. Just wait until the White House starts to act in reaction to this. It's not going to be pretty.... -Shabbir J. Safdar * Online Representative * Voters Telecomm. Watch (VTW) http://www.vtw.org/ * Defending Your Rights In Cyberspace Stanton McCandlish writes:
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 96 13:26:39 PST From: jim@RSA.COM (Jim Bidzos) Message-Id: <9603052126.AA19534@RSA.COM> Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
I'm in favor of the Bill because it specifically prevents, by law, the US Govt from mandating key escrow.
This is only true of the Goodlatte bill. The Leahy bill just explicitly does not mandate GAK. Goodlattes does this, and goes further, preventing the Administration from doing so.
Needless to say, we'd like to see the two bills merged, and the better features of each kept.
I anticipate that the Administration, led by the intelligence and law enforcement interests, will vigorously lobby against this bill...
Right. We don't expect it to pass, but it could be an important step in raising the issues.
-- <HTML><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/"> Stanton McCandlish </A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech@eff.org"> mech@eff.org </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/"> Electronic Frontier Foundation </A><P> Online Activist </HTML>