New Crypto Panel

[Jim Bell]

At 12:34 4/24/97 -0400, John Young wrote:
>Federal Register, April 24, 1997:
>
>DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
>
>President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption; 
>Notice of Establishment
>
>    The Secretary of Commerce has determined that the 
>establishment of the President's Export Council
>Subcommittee on Encryption is in the public interest in 
>connection with the performance of duties imposed on the 
>Department by law.
>
>    The Subcommittee will advise the Secretary, through the 
>Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, on
>matters pertinent to the implementation of an encryption 
>policy that will support the growth of commerce while 
>protecting the public safety and national security.
>
>    The Subcommittee will consist of approximately 25 members 
>to be appointed by the Secretary to assure a balanced 
>representation among the exporting community and those 
>Government agencies with a mandate to implement policy 
>regarding encryption.

Notice how the not-so-subtle biases sneak in.  "Balanced representation"?
What about the representation of the citizenry of this country?

And identifying something called "the exporting community" is also biased:
Implicitly, it means those firms which _do_ export crypto, which by
definition means those companies which are COMPLYING with the current crypto
export rules.  Naturally, that is a biased segment of the total potential
membership of that group, and will tend to skew the product of that group to
reinforcing the status quo as defined by government.


Jim Bell
jimbell at pacifier.com