At 05:16 AM 2/5/97 +0000, Robert Rothenburg 'Walking-Owl' wrote:

My letter to Long Island Newsday regarding David Kahn's pro-GAK editorial was published today. You can read it at

http://www.newsday.com/mainnews/rnmi052u.htm

What's odd (?) is how they editied it. I directed my comments toward Mr. Kahn's views, which they changed to "Newsday" (odd, since I've never seen them print an editorial one way or another on GAK; does this mean they are taking a stand? -- Kahn is an editor at Newsday).

I wrote "The greatest flaw in the argument is it's very reason, 'criminals... are increasingly using encryption to conceal their plans and activities'" which they changed to "It reports...". I never considered an op-ed piece as "reporting", even if it states a fact.

But which "criminals," exactly, are "increasingly using encryption to conceal their plans and activities"? Let's not concede this unless it's really true. It would be far more accurate to say that it's likely that many people who are politically hostile to their government are using encryption in anticipation of persecution by the government, persecution that could easily come in the form of criminal charges. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com