ONE DAY DEADLINE! The House Intelligence Committee will probably make their decision on this vital issue tomorrow afternoon, Wed. June 15, 1994. If you've not had your say on whether the State Dept. & NSA will be allowed to continue to restrict the flow of public cryptographic products, write, call and fax *today*. Updated fax information for the entire Intelligence Cmte. is below. The Committee seems receptive to hearing alternatives to the extreme position held by the National Security Agency - what you have to say does matter! From: gnu@eff.org (John Gilmore) Subject: URGENT: Please Tell Congress to Allow Encryption Export Reply-To: ask@eff.org (rather than send us email please fax +1 202 225 1991) House Intelligence Committee holds key to Crypto Export ask@eff.org June 14, 1994 *DISTRIBUTE WIDELY* Today, the U.S. State Department controls the export of most encryption, working closely with the National Security Agency (NSA) to limit products that provide real privacy, from cell-phones to PC software. A bill introduced by Rep. Maria Cantwell would instead give authority over non-military crypto exports to the Commerce Department. Commerce has much more reasonable regulations, with "First Amendment"-style unlimited publishing of publicly available software, including PGP, Kerberos, RIPEM, RSAREF, and mass-market commercial software. The bill also prevents the Commerce Dept. from tightening the regulations even if NSA somehow gets its tentacles into Commerce. A few months ago, you-all sent over 5600 messages to Rep. Cantwell in support of her bill, H.R. 3627. As a result, on May 18, the bill passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by being incorporated into the Export Administration Act of 1994, H.R. 3937. Now the battle has become more intense. This portion of H.R. 3937 has been referred to the House Intelligence Committee with the intent to kill or severely maim it. We need your help again, to urge the Intelligence Committee to keep crypto export liberalization intact. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees, the only watchdogs for the NSA, tend to follow the agency's wishes when they wave the magic "national security" wand. They need plenty of input from the public that tells them that the nation will be *more* secure with good encryption, even though the NSA will be less happy. Not just computer users, but all users of telephones, cable TV, health care, and credit information systems would benefit from this change. The security of these applications is built on the foundation laid by the operating systems and network protocols on which they run. If this bill is passed, you will see high quality encryption built into Microsoft Windows, into the MacOS, into major Unix workstations, into the Internet, into cellular phones, into interactive television. The software already exists for confidentiality, privacy, and security of local and networked information, but it's not built-in to these systems because of the export ban. Today, each company could build two operating systems, one gutted for international use, but this would be costly and confusing for them and their customers, and would not allow international networks such as the Internet or telephones to be made secure and private. With this bill, these limits disappear. Furthermore, the Clinton Administration plans to permit high volume exports of Clipper products, while continuing to require tedious paperwork for truly secure encryption products. The bill would give Clipper and other crypto software more even-handed treatment. The bill also eliminates a senseless situation on the Internet. Today, crypto software can only be freely distributed from non-U.S. archive sites. It would eliminate that problem as well as the threat of prosecution against U.S. freeware authors of crypto software. This is the dream we've all been working toward. Here's how you can help to make this dream a reality. The Intelligence Committee must make its decision on the bill before June 17, so time is critical: 1) Fax a short letter TODAY to the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Representative Dan Glickman (D-KS). Ask him in your own words to leave the encryption provisions of H.R. 3937 intact. Use a positive tone ("Please support...") rather than a flame or a rant. One paragraph is fine. State your title and organization if you will look more important or better informed than the average citizen. Rep. Glickman's committee fax number is +1 202 225 1991. This is the best option, since individual letters are given the most weight by members of Congress, particularly when sent on letterhead paper. 2) If you are unable to fax a letter, send an e-mail message to Rep. Glickman at glickman@eff.org. Software or staff at the Electronic Frontier Foundation will either fax it in, or print it out and hand-deliver it for you. 3) Send a copy of this message to everyone you know in Kansas, and personally urge them to write to Rep. Glickman today. Letters from constituents get a lot more weight, since they are from people who could actually vote for or against him in the next election. 4) If your own Representative is on the Intelligence Committee, send him or her a copy of what you sent Rep. Glickman. There's a list of all such Reps. below. Even if we lose this battle, you will have started educating your own Rep. about crypto policy. 5) Become a member of EFF. Our strength comes from our members' strength. Send a note to membership@eff.org asking how to join. Thanks again for your help! You can check at any time on the current status of the campaign at the location below. Send any comments on this campaign to campaign@eff.org. John Gilmore Chairman, EFF Crypto Committee EFF Board of Directors Member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Member of International Association for Cryptologic Research House Intelligence Committee Members ------------------------------------ Subcommittee phone: +1 202 225 4121 Subcommittee fax: +1 202 225 1991 <== send your fax HERE <== p st name phone fax ___________________________________________________________________________ D KS Glickman, Daniel +1 202 225 6216 +1 202 225 5398 Chair [Glickman fax number just released] D WA Dicks, Norman D. +1 202 225 5916 +1 202 226 1176 D CA Dixon, Julian C. +1 202 225 7084 +1 202 225 4091 D NJ Torricelli, Robert +1 202 224 5061 +1 202 225 0843 D TX Coleman, Ronald D. +1 202 225 4831 +1 202 225 4831 [Coleman's staff manually switch line to fax if they hear fax tones. Preceeding your fax with a voice call might help] D CO Skaggs, David E. +1 202 225 2161 +1 202 225 9127 D NV Bilbray, James H. +1 202 225 5965 +1 202 225 8808 D CA Pelosi, Nancy +1 202 225 4965 +1 202 225 8259 D TX Laughlin, Gregory H. +1 202 225 2831 +1 202 225 1108 D AL Cramer Jr, Robert (Bud) +1 202 225 4801 private [Cramer's fax number just released] D RI Reed, John F. +1 202 225 2735 +1 202 225 9580 D MO Gephardt, Richard A. +1 202 225 2671 +1 202 225 7452 R TX Combest, Larry +1 202 225 4005 +1 202 225 9615 R NE Bereuter, Douglas +1 202 225 4806 +1 202 226 1148 R CA Dornan, Robert K. +1 202 225 2965 private [Dornan's public fax disconnected; office refuses to divulge a fax number] R FL Young, C. W. (Bill) +1 202 225 5961 +1 202 225 9764 R PA Gekas, George W. +1 202 225 4315 +1 202 225 8440 R UT Hansen, James V. +1 202 225 0453 +1 202 225 5857 R CA Lewis, Jerry +1 202 225 5861 +1 202 225 6498 R IL Michel, Robert H. +1 202 225 6201 +1 202 225 9461 The full text of this alert is stored at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/export.alert gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, export.alert http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/export.alert BBS (+1 202 638 6120, 8N1): "Alerts" file area, export.alt The actual text of this part of H.R. 3937 is at: ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Policy/Crypto/ITAR_export/hr3937_crypto.excerpt gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Policy/Crypto/ITAR_export, hr3937_crypto.excerpt http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Crypto/ITAR_export/hr3937_crypto.excerpt BBS: "Privacy--Crypto" file area, hr3937.crp For current status on the bill: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/export_alert.update gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, export_alert.update http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/export_alert.update BBS: "Alerts" file area, export.upd A general Web page on crypto export policy is at: http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/export.html ***************************************************************************** -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist F O R M O R E I N F O, E - M A I L T O: I N F O @ E F F . O R G O P E N P L A T F O R M O N L I N E R I G H T S V I R T U A L C U L T U R E C R Y P T O