On Fri, 10 Nov 1995, Peter D. Junger wrote:

In any case, I want to thank him for doing so, because it brought home to me the important fact that it is possible that the ITAR provisions relating to cryptographic software could be struck down, not because they violate the first amendment, or would violate it if passed by congress, and not because the court is trying to dodge the difficult first amendment issue, but simply because the provisions are not authorized by any legislation.

Hmmm, Peter actually has me worried. I actually _understood_ what he was talking about. And that has me worried. I guess that reviewing all that LIBOR financing documentation over ten years ago, when I was extending a helping hand to the CIBC helped. No one should ever attempt to figure out what happens when you have an American highrise owned by a private Canadian citizen, go into receivership with a syndicated Euro-financing while attempting a head lease to AT&T. An experience like that leaves you scarred for life. You actually learn to grok "lawyer speak". I guess that an interesting follow up occurs, if I perhaps muddy the chrystal clear waters of Peter's analysis. It relates to another thread on this list, the thread on time-release crypto and the economics of information. A hypothetical which might clarify by making things murky. If I ... as a foreign citizen ... a Canadian ... were to release an algorithm for time-release crypto to another Canadian ... another foreigner, could I actually be hauled down by the scruff of my neck to face US style "justice". Could I be deprived of our Canadian traditions of Napoleonic Code and of British Common Law, to face Americanism's. Does anyone from State have any clarification of this policy-shift?? I find it ridiculous to hear that if I load a series of messages into a fax machine, and instruct that machine to send out a series of documents at some set point in time -- and that if I were to *communicate* this method of time delay cryptographically secure communication to another Canadian citizen, that I could actually be hauled out of my own country and dragged across an international border to face charges of treason against a state to which I have no allegiance. This would be laughable, if it weren't so sinister. I mean, it's only a FAX machine ... for goodness sake's. Here I am as a Canadian citizen, a citizen of a sovereign State, a state which has historically been a friend of the American people. A State which has actually sacrificed its own international stature and the security of its citizens, to benefit Americans. (Most notably, when Canada rescued the hostages in Iran) and America repays the citizens of Ambassador Ken Taylor's home town how?? With an implied threat of making them subject to US law because its administratively convenient? Indeed. Can't anyone find acts of treason, a little closer to home?? Domestically maybe ... possibly even right under your nose ...

It's too far off topic to pursue any further, but I must take exception to the suggestion that we are well served by separation of powers intruding into other legal domains. Bowsher tells us that causation principles go out the window in SOP cases. That alone makes it radioactive.

You ain't whistling Dixie.

I must admit that I don't know what it is that he is refering to.

Alice de 'nonymous ... ...just another one of those... P.S. This post is in the public domain. C. S. U. M. O. C. L. U. N. E.