I have shied away from any "political" action against Clipper because I am unsure how a Canadian can help...
Non-U.S. citizens can lobby hard to get all phones containing key-escrow (aka wiretap) chips banned in your country. You have a very good argument: do y'all want Yankee spooks listening in on your phone calls? Make sure the following specifics are included in the legislation: * Try to get key escrow banned *in general*, instead of just from foreign countries. In smaller countries this will be easier since its doubtful small governments can set up a spook/chip-maker axis to rival the NSA/Mykotronx/VLSI axis in the U.S. In fact probably only the U.S., cooperating major European countries and Japan have such a capability. * Be careful with the wording of the legislation; be sure to specify *key-escrow* and not any other forms of cryptography. * If political feasible the legislation should specifically encourage private, commercial forms of cryptography. Jim Hart jhart@agora.rain.com
* Try to get key escrow banned *in general*, instead of just from foreign countries. In smaller countries this will be easier since its doubtful small governments can set up a spook/chip-maker axis to rival the NSA/Mykotronx/VLSI axis in the U.S. In fact probably only the U.S., cooperating major European countries and Japan have such a capability. * Be careful with the wording of the legislation; be sure to specify *key-escrow* and not any other forms of cryptography. This is extremely dangerous. Much of legislation is compromise. Any such bill is probably so close to a bill that outlaws cryptography (or could be interpreted as a precedent for such a bill) that the risks are probably far greater than the rewards. The strategy the Eric Hughes proposed sounds much better.
* Be careful with the wording of the legislation; be sure to specify *key-escrow* and not any other forms of cryptography.
This is extremely dangerous. Much of legislation is compromise. Any such bill is probably so close to a bill that outlaws cryptography (or could be interpreted as a precedent for such a bill)
The point Dean makes is important. You want a positive right for individuals to use cryptography in any form, not just a 'negative right' which restricts government from creating key registration requirements. Such a positive right will _a fortiori_ exclude key escrow systems, and that's what you want. You want to make sure that all _restrictions_ on cryptography are disallowed, that there are no _restricted_ forms of cryptography. The point is subtle, but profound. Both techniques get rid of key registration, but one is a restriction on cryptography and the other is not. There is another point to remember about constitutional democracies. That which the legislature may do, the legislature may also undo. The level at which the prohibition against cryptography restrictions is appropriate is at the constitutional level. A constitutional provision binds the government; lesser solutions are less effective, even when they should be sought out as intermediaries. At the first CFP conference, Lawrence Tribe made this point extremely well, that the fundamental right of citizens should be invariant to technology. Eric
At the first CFP conference, Lawrence Tribe made this point extremely well, that the fundamental right of citizens should be invariant to technology.
That's surprising. Tribe publicly peddles the leftist arguments for gun control, including the one that the Founding Fathers never intended the Second Amendment for weapons of today's lethality. I wonder why he doesn't see the parallel. -- Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
Eric S. Raymond says:
At the first CFP conference, Lawrence Tribe made this point extremely well, that the fundamental right of citizens should be invariant to technology.
That's surprising. Tribe publicly peddles the leftist arguments for gun control, including the one that the Founding Fathers never intended the Second Amendment for weapons of today's lethality. I wonder why he doesn't see the parallel.
Because he's a liberal, not a libertarian. Perry
participants (5)
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Eric Hughes -
esr＠snark.thyrsus.com -
jhart＠agora.rain.com -
Perry E. Metzger -
tribble＠memex.com