From the joint alert that Sameer reposted:

...

Other amendments may be proposed. Please urge the Congressman to pass SAFE "as is" and oppose any amendments.

But wait... The version of SAFE "as is" contains the ***FIRST EVER*** domestic restrictions on encryption! Why should it be passed intact? For the sake of Beltway politicking and deal-cutting? It includes very, very troubling severe criminal penalties for the use of encryption in a crime. When encryption is in everything from light switches to door knobs, any crime will include crypto, no? It would be like criminalizing "breathing air in the commission of a crime..." Why not just say "stop SAFE altogether?" No new laws are better than bad new laws. And even if the crypto-in-a-crime provisions are yanked, SAFE may be a bad bill. I wrote about this in June: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1022,00.html "Please, do no harm here. Let's keep what we won," says Cindy Cohn, one of the lawyers mounting an EFF-sponsored court challenge to the White House's export rules. So far that effort has been successful: A federal judge ruled last December that the line-by-line instructions in a computer program are "speech" and restrictions on overseas shipments violate the First Amendment. Cohn argues that both Rep. Bob Goodlatte's (R-Va.) SAFE bill and Sen. Conrad Burns' (R-Mont.) ProCODE bill could do more harm than good. She says they might not even help her client, a university professor who wants to discuss encryption without going to jail. "What effect would SAFE or ProCODE have? Either none or a detrimental one," Cohn said on Monday at a conference organized by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Why are these organizations -- CDT, VTW, Wired, EFF, ATR -- urging it be passed intact, as is? Why should Americans give up their rights so business can make more money on encryption exports? -Declan (Not speaking for anyone but myself, of course.)