John Gilmore may be right, but remember folks that in Europe we have this thing the Greeks invented called democracy. One of the ideas of democracy is that decisions are not made in secret closed meetings. Would you really call the EU protocols a democracy? rule by the unelected technocrats? And Europes history of not making decisions in secret closed meetings is hardly commendable. Excepting perhaps the swiss.

The interpretation of the US ambassador appears to be based on the assumption that the governmental proceedures of democratic countries are like those of his home country. In fact European governments cannot make law simply by telling the national police force to >arrest folk who engage in particular behaviour. Now my understanding of european law is, of course, limited. But in France wasn't there that case of some rapper been arrested for insulting the police? And in Germany you can strip the constitutional rights of citizens who engage in treasonous behaviour ( could this include cryptography? if connected with neo-nazis almost certainly right? )

The system of checks and balances may be described in the US constitution but it is entrenched in the European polity. The UK >does not have a national police force precisely to stop Hooverism.

Even directives of the European Commission do not have legal force until the national parliaments enact legislation to implement the directive. What about those airline accords where the EU took its member states to court over cabotage agreements. I'm sure there are ways to sneak these things through.

One should also remember that the government of the Netherlands has agreed to control the sale and use of narcotics. If their efforts to control cryptography are as dilligent we have nothing to worry about.

In addition under the single European act the entire country of Europe is one export zone for crypto control purposes. I fail to see that stopping Brits from exporting crypto to the US changes the equation a great deal.

There once was an English king called Canute who attempted to demonstrate to his courtiers that he was fallible and could not order the tide to turn. Perhaps Clinton's courtiers need to learn that they suffer the same limmitation.

I'm afraid that that may not be the point. The primary objective of the arms control laws ( which are the ones being used as references in this case ) is to prevent advanced weapons technology from spreading to the third world. Now Europe, America, Japan, and other first world countries are all capable of developing high level crypto indiginously. The less advanced countries on the earth are forced to import it from these countries. What the passage of this law will do is prevent this export ( example: the Netherlands, as you pointed out has not cracked down on its internal narcotics trade. However it doesn't permit exporting narcotics. Similarly this agreement will probably freeze exports of high level crypto by all the signatory countries, in the same way that america no longer permits high level crypto exports. ) The end result being the NSA should able to read India and Chinas communications without irritations. Vivek Vaidya ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com