At 13:23 -0700 9/24/97, Lizard wrote:
At 09:47 PM 9/24/97 +0200, Peter Herngaard wrote:
They support the penalty enhancement for use of encryption in futherance of a felony.
I don't find this particularly offensive, on the grounds that if you're convicted of any given crime, the government can more-or-less drum up so many related charges they can put you away for 500 years ANYWAY, so what difference does it make?
Lizard's position is sadly incoherent. If he believes in civil
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 06:32 PM 9/24/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: liberties --
and I know he does -- then he should think twice. Just because the federal government has broad powers doesn't mean we should give them more.
<shrug> Rather, my position is that the system is ALREADY hopelessly corrupt and imbalanced;altering the letter of the law to say '20 years' as opposed to '10 years' FOR SOMETHING THAT SHOULDN'T BE A CRIME AT ALL is irrelevant. The government can just as easily create two trumped-up ten year charges as it can one 20 year charge;'law' and 'justice' have nothing to do with one another anymore. The whole concept of criminilizing the use of crpytography is offensive;the exact specifics -- 10 years or 20 years -- are pretty much the same. Though, on second thought, there is a serious issue with it -- if, as we hope, encryption becomes widespread, than anyone doing anything will be using it;including 'in the commission of a crime'. This could make petty misdemeanors into 20 year federal crimes, and THAT is something to worry about. Hm. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNCm7HjKf8mIpTvjWEQL6ywCgrLu61z4DOjcIgboX8wJPZaKxHE4An2yH QzcO/ZeobOWzOnhM5CxeULp4 =pwGM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----