VTW on crypto bills

Thu Mar 7 10:30:10 PST 1996

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From: shabbir at vtw.org (Shabbir J. Safdar)
To: Stanton McCandlish <mech at eff.org>
cc: declan+ at cmu.edu (Declan B. McCullagh), fight-censorship+ at andrew.cmu.edu,
        jim at rsa.com
Subject: Re: NYT: Encryption compromise bill introduced 
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 15:14:01 -0500
Sender: shabbir at panix.com

The Leahy bill is actually much better than Stanton lets on.  Take a
look at it, it affirms Americans' right to choose whatever algorithm or
technique they'd like, as well as takes great pains to go on record to
say that Congress treaded very carefully to preserve Americans' right
to not use key escrow algorithms, and if they did, not to use escrow
agents.  You don't get much more of a guarantee than that.

Regardless of the ulterior motives of the White House, key escrow
programs are still voluntary as read on the books.  The best we can
write into a law is to have our rights reaffirmed.  Leahy has given
this to us in spades.

Let's not soft-pedal this legislation.  Leahy and Goodlatte are going
head to head with the White House to undermine the strongarm export
tactics of Clipper and Son of Clipper.  They've stuck their necks out for
us, we need to back them up.

Just wait until the White House starts to act in reaction to this.  It's
not going to be pretty....

-Shabbir J. Safdar * Online Representative * Voters Telecomm. Watch (VTW)
 http://www.vtw.org/ * Defending Your Rights In Cyberspace

Stanton McCandlish writes:
>> Date: Tue, 5 Mar 96 13:26:39 PST
>> From: jim at RSA.COM (Jim Bidzos)
>> Message-Id: <9603052126.AA19534 at RSA.COM>
>> Cc: cypherpunks at toad.com
>> 
>> 
>> I'm in favor of the Bill because it specifically prevents, by law, the
>> US Govt from mandating key escrow. 
>
>This is only true of the Goodlatte bill. The Leahy bill just explicitly 
>does not mandate GAK.  Goodlattes does this, and goes further, preventing 
>the Administration from doing so.
>
>Needless to say, we'd like to see the two bills merged, and the better
>features of each kept.
>
>> I anticipate that the Administration, led by the intelligence and law
>> enforcement interests, will vigorously lobby against this bill...
>
>Right. We don't expect it to pass, but it could be an important step in 
>raising the issues.
>
>
>--
><HTML><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/">    Stanton McCandlish
></A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech at eff.org">        mech at eff.org
></A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/">         Electronic Frontier Foundation
></A><P>        Online Activist    </HTML>