At 7:29 PM 7/16/96, Declan McCullagh wrote:

(Note that Leahy is only occasionally a friend of the Net. His original crypto bill had troubling additional criminal penalties; he shepharded Digital Telephony through Congress; he is a co-sponsor of the vile copyright bill pending right now. In sum, he'd hurt the Net more than help it. This becomes a problem when netizens hold him up as an champion of our freedoms -- and then when DT II comes along his fellow senators think it's okay to vote for it 'cuz Mr. Net, Leahy, is a cosponsor.)

By the way, I certainly don't hold him up as a champion of views I can support; I vividly recall his role in the disastrous DT Act.

My rebuttal to Gorelick's fantasy is: well, what about Japan, where the country's constitution forbids wiretapping?

Many countries have constitutions which say fine things, even though the reality is quite different. Some even constitutions which are in many ways better than the U.S. version...until of course the reality on the street is taken into account. Japan has an active SIGINT capability, called Chobetsu, directed domestically at U.S. installations (a la NSA's own SIGINT facility at Misawa AFB) and at domestic companies. Whatever their constitution may say, intercepts are used. Chip companies with facilities in Japan communicate with their facilities with the expectation that MITI and Chobetsu are making all attempts to intercept useful economic intelligence. Information on the intelligence agencies of various countries may be found in the standard reference by Jeffery Richelson, or on the Web at such URLs as http://www.onestep.com/milnet/iagency.htm Here is one entry for Chobetsu: Chobetsu Ground Self-Defense Forces Investigation Japan Division, Second Section, Annex Chamber In short, I don't believe that a New Crypto World Order, with buy-ins already apparent from most European and Asian countries, will be deterred by Japan's nominal promise in its constitution not to wiretap. As a friend of mine who spent the last nine years working for an American chip company in Tsukuba and Tokyo puts it, "Japan is a fucking police state." --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."