Another bad idea

[Peter D. Junger]

Arun Mehta writes:

: As  I see it, the Chinese communist government will not live to see more
: than a few years (if any) of the 21st Century. We are all aware of the
: devastating impact of telecommunications, TV and computers on  authoritarian
: regimes.  E.g. in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Easterners watching West
: German TV was a significant contributory factor.
: 
: Satellite TV is available all over China.The government may, for a while, be
: able to ban satellite dishes, but soon their size will reduce to that of a
: wok (might even double as one). The Internet will soon be widespread. The
: real crunch will come when Hongkong becomes part of China. Inevitably, other
: parts of the country will want to know why the special status of Hongkong
: cannot be extended to them. There is a chance that instead of China taking
: over Hongkong, the reverse might happen.
: 
: In cyberspace, the students have the more powerful tanks. Can you imagine
: how different a massacre a la Tiananmen Square would look in a couple of
: years? Images captured on camcorders would be beamed back to the Chinese via
: satellite, all the information would flow both ways on the net, the Hongkong
: stock market would take a dive, ... I would suggest that tacitly or at least
: implicitly, the Chinese goverment has conceded that it will never try a
: major violent suppression of political unrest again. That, or it will decide
: that the Internet is a bad influence, and should be abolished.
: 
: What that does is give us a window of opportunity. Hongkong has one
: remaining  year of guaranteed unfettered flow of information. China still
: has the Internet. What can we do?
: 
: 1) Collect the e-mail addresses as Allen suggested (including those in
: Hongkong), and send them a single, short message offering to teach them free
: of cost how to use pgp and all the goodies at
: http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/cbsw.html

Unfortunately for those of us in the United States or who are
otherwise subject to its jurisdiction such an offer would require a
license or a waiver of jurisdiction under the International Traffic in
Arms Regulations before it could safely be carried out.  That
particular highly worthwhile project would seem to fall under the
definition of performing defense services as well as involving the
disclosure of technical data relating to an item on the United States
Munitions List.

: . . . . 
:
: Thoughts?

Obscene isn't it?

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger at pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger at samsara.law.cwru.edu