-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The following message is written on my own behalf; it is not an official statement of MIT. Over the past few weeks, MIT has been negotiating a research framework agreement with Sandia Labs. A framework agreement does not fund any particular piece of research. Rather it establishes policies and procedures under which future research will be funded and carried out. This saves MIT and Sandia the trouble of working out a separate agreement for each new contract. We have several such agreements in place with various organizations. Sandia has also set up agreements with universities in the past, and is currently setting then up with several more universities, including MIT. In the current round of negotiations, Sandia is requesting to add language to the agreement, giving them right of prior review over any publications arising from their sponsored research at MIT, in order that Sandia can review these for possible violation of US export control regulations. When our contract people queried this, they were put in touch with Bruce Winchell, a Sandia lawyer. Winchell told them that the State Department had "made it clear" to DOE that the Department was very concerned that "MIT did not have procedures in place to monitor the dissemination of material that is subject to export controls." Winchell went on to say that a recent MIT publication by "a Philip Zimmermann" came very close to violating export control laws. As far as we know, Sandia has not been discussing such a clause with other universities with which it is negotiating contracts. I assume that Mr. Winchell's comment above refers to the publication of the PGP source code book by MIT Press. Before publishing the PGP book, the Press wrote the State Department, informing them of our intent to publish the PGP book and giving them the opportunity to let us know if they thought this would raise an export control problem. We never received a response. Since publication, MIT has never (to my knowledge) heard from State that they had any objection to the PGP publication. Now, we learn of a back channel communication from State to DOE to Sandia, which has prompted Sandia to want to act as a policeman for MIT vis a vis export controls. This is troubling for what it says about how the State Department is dealing with export issues surrounding information about cryptography, and about the extent to which policies are being administered in a clear and above-board manner. Hal Abelson Prof. of Comp. Sci. and Eng. MIT -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBMeNIKviGKLV9Y6XFAQFeRwP6ArPEyMTY3IgfuAQGcCCfmbuc5D/505N/ +x/9hhVZOIv33sEummQ5UtJeSAyH9gLg0GMOxKCpQOqsBsed5YAO9xVRjIW3dXfQ Xgo975qFHHmlRA3cxa5EZFg7Q/39V3QVKlCrcZ8jyYW9ECgNJtbMSvcvaO3Qzgom lgo4OB6g7eo= =QABK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----