At 1:47 AM -0700 7/19/96, Cerridwyn Llewyellyn wrote:

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I'd bet on the first. Why screw with this? We worked hard to make this possible and you want to ruin it. Sheesh.

Because freedom doesn't come in degrees, it's all or nothing.

Wrong. Society has long made a distinction between liberty and license, and "freedom" is a definitional and even societal-situational thing that keeps advancing. Check out history. Read some Supreme Court decisions of the more thoughtful kind.

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"I hate the government so I'll blow up a federal building and then the FBI will get more money and attention and power and, um, that'll show 'em, er, ah....."

Exporting crypto-systems and killing people is comparing apples and hand grenades. Please come up with a relevant analogy.

It IS relevant in the underlying principles it illustrates. That the details aren't of the same magnitude is irrelevant. Didn't you learn "reductio ad absurdum" in school?

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1) Please don't chastise individuals who take direct action and use civil disobediance as a measure to change bad laws and policies (ie by making your companies software available internationally). When done on a mass scale, the long-term benefits FAR outweigh the short term consequences. While you as a corporation find it much more difficult to take such actions, as they would most likely ruin your corporation, individuals acting in this capacity cannot be ruined quite so readily.

It is ludicrous for some cypherpunks to try to compare their "cause" with freeing the slaves or overthrowing a tyrannical and abusive dictator. In fact it is romantic fantasy. Not every prosecution is of Jean Valjean; not every arrest for speeding is the destruction of freedom as we know it. Not every theoretical consequence is a current abuse. "Trust everyone, but always cut the cards" is a better guide for living in a democratic society than "distrust everyone and insist on all or nothing".

Essentially, one who opposes or deliberately sabotages Netscape's compromise with full ITAR deregulation is a fascist in that he is trying to force his will on those of his fellow citizens who want to download the secure US version in the US, and deny _them_ _their_ rights. David