Phil Zimmermann/Amnesty International?

[Alan Westrope]

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On Sat, 02 Sep 1995, "Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com> wrote:
> Alan Westrope writes:
      [replying to M. Froomkin about statute of limitations for prz]
> > June '96.  Zimmermann and Dubois appeared on a local talk radio show
> > recently; a friend happened to catch the program, taped it, and played
> > excerpts at a Cypherpunks meeting.  This date was mentioned by Phil Dubois.

> That's not possible. The offense in question took place on or before
> September 8, 1992, and the statute of limitations is, to my knowledge,
> three years. Even if it were four years, it would have to be September
> 8th of that year.  Branko Lankester announced availability of PGP 2.0
> on Mon, 7 Sep 1992 at about 20:22 GMT, so since the allegation is that
> he exported PGP Version 1.0 to the team that developed PGP 2.0
> overseas, any export that Phil performed would have of necessity to
> have taken place before then.

Perry's response and Brian Davis' remarks about prosecutorial "creativity"
prompted me to ask Phil Dubois for clarification.  (I told him I would
probably pass his reply along to the list, so I'm not violating email
confidentiality here.)  Here's the relevant snippet:

========================================================================

I believe that the statute expires in June of '96, because there is a
five-year statute on the export-violation allegation and because PGP was
released in June of '91, and whoever exported it did so shortly after the
release.  It is true, however, that prosecutors have been very creative in
extending the statute when they've felt the need to do so.  We can only
hope that DOJ will not feel the need in this case.

========================================================================

I also feel Phil will be largely off the hook by June.  It would be
damn silly to prolong the matter, especially since the complete source
code has been published internationally in OCR format now.  Also, I
expect the Feds would rather focus their "creative" energies on the
Bernstein/EFF export issue.

But who knows what anti-crime hysteria might be whipped up in an
election year, or who it might become handy to demonize, etc.


Alan Westrope                  <awestrop at nyx10.cs.du.edu>
__________/|-,                 <adwestro at ouray.cudenver.edu>
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