Agreed. It's the Republicans who are the most adamantly pro-crypto. They'd love to use it as a noose to hang Gore in 2000. If Gore switches positions -- which I think unlikely -- it'll just be another area where both parties agree. A minor point: since Gore has been the chief crypto-critic of this administration, if he switched he'd leave himself open to charges of waffling. Then again, some administration officials tell me they expect this debate to be resolved within a year, so go figure. -Declan On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Greg Broiles wrote:

At 09:44 PM 1/29/97 -0800, Rick Hornbeck wrote:

...

Is it possible the unreasonable crypto export restrictions are simply being imposed at this time for the purpose of making Al Gore look good when he runs for President in 2000?

I suppose it's plausible, but it's an opportunity open to both candidates, and more plausibly (because of lack of collaboration) to the Republicans - e.g., Dan Quayle and the "Crypto Freedom For Americans" platform, promising to rescue Silicon Valley from those evil regulatory Democrats.

If I were an evil politician trying to set up a trick like you suggest, I think I'd want a scheme that my opponent(s) couldn't hijack and use against me.

-- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles@netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |