At 6:43 PM -0700 7/17/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
We need the administration to do one thing: lift export controls.
Then it and Congress should forget all about the Net.
-Declan
I don't think it is going to do that. Unless it gets something _major_ in return, as part of a deal. And given the choice between liberty and a lifting of export restrictions, I know which side I support. No doubt about it. If export restrictions remain in place, the world will still have arbitrarily strong crypto. After all, implementations of RSA and other public key systems are widely available in Europe and Asia. Stronghold comes from overseas, Israel is a major center, Switzerland has long been a point of development (though perhaps with NSA involvement, it is rumored), and so on. And an export ban might actually _help_ us all, by incentivizing world-wide development, by "breaking the monopoly" the U.S. has held. (I'd rather that Big Brother stay the hell out of the whole issue, especially as export controls are worthless anyway.) In any case, we as American citizens (and others) cannot accept limitations on our basic freedoms to hold our own keys, to speak in whatever languages we wish, to whisper and write in private languages, to sign whichever keys we wish (in whichever ways we wish), and to write and speak without "labeling" requirements...we cannot accept limits on these basic rights just so that Netscape and Microsoft can export their patent-entangled products! I wish Netscape, Microsoft, and others well, but not if it means Big Brother gains new powers. I'd rather see them lose billions to the foreign equivalents, even face eventual loss of all of their markets, than see my freedoms compromised. And it's reprehensible that civil liberties groups are even _talking_ to these statist creeps. What part of "Congress shall make no law" is unclear to them? Has it ever been the case that one basic right is compromised so that some company can get an export license? That the right to keep and bear arms is restricted so that Colt can export M-16s to Iraq? That the right to publish is limited so that the New York Times can get the lucrative overseas publishing franchise for Americans stationed in Europe? And so on. Our basic rights are not to be traded away for export licenses. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."