"Nothing good can come out of crypto legislation." --said by several of us over the past year The big mistake was ever introducing the SAFE and Pro-CODE bills, as it brought the NSA and FBI out of their warrens and into the warrens of Congress. Without any crypto bills at all, it is possible (though by no means certain) that no legislation at all would have been introduced this year. But once SAFE and Pro-CODE were out there, on the table, the forces in favor of a surveillance state began their lobbying in earnest, giving the infamous "if you only knew what we knew" scare tactic pitches. Last minute amendments and even complete bill replacements are easier to slip in than a Big Brother bill from the gitgo. Sure enough, the tide is now moving swiftly toward a future far, far, far worse than the mere annoyance of export controls. Several committees are now competing to see which can "protect us" from the Four Horsemen the best. The archives say this many times. For a change, and to forestall criticism, I'll find a quote from someone other than me. For example, Mike Duvos said this, last June, 1997-06-19: "You really can't fight Congress. Ten minutes after you defeat a bill and spend all your resources, it will be back on the floor under another name and the whole thing will start over again. After you defeat that one, you will discover that the text of the measure got passed late one night as an ammendment to something completely unrelated. "The government has infinite resources to harp incessantly on anything until they engineer consent for it and get what they want. Resistance is Futile. You will be Assimilated." Recall that several of us were involved in a serious battle with Rotenberg over the basic wisdom of the CDT and EPIC types pushing for export legislation, with (even then) unacceptable language about "use a cipher, go to prison." The current language is of course a full-blown disaster. Pandora's box was opened by SAFE and Pro-CODE. And so here we are. Multiple committees in both houses jockeying to see who can clamp down the hardest on crypto. CDT, EPIC, and all the other Beltway insiders ought to think about this mess. Sometimes it's better just to let sleeping dogs lay. Or lie. Or whatever. Time to just pull out of D.C. It is corruption on Earth. --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."