An Attempt to Hobble SAFE Crypto Bill

[Peter D. Junger]

: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/5492.html
: 
: 
: An Attempt to Hobble House Crypto Bill
: 
:  by Rebecca Vesely
: 
:  9:08am  25.Jul.97.PDT A Republican opponent of a House
:  bill that would loosen controls on the use and export of
:  encryption is circulating an amendment that would
:  effectively cripple the legislation.
: 
:  The amendment, by Representative Benjamin Gilman
:  (R-New York), who chairs the International Relations
:  Committee, would make it unlawful to "manufacture,
:  distribute, sell, or import any product within the United
:  States that can be used to encrypt communications or
:  information if the product does not permit the real-time
:  decryption of such encrypted communications or
:  information."

Besides the first amendment issues that I raised earlier, there are 
certain other problems with this amendment.  

Say it takes 2,000 years to decrypt a message, now that is what I
would really call ``real time''.  And there could also be a message
that could be decrypted in ten seconds, but only by someone who has
the key.

Obviously this draft of an amendment is very rough, incomplete,
mistranscribed, or some or all of the above.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger at samsara.law.cwru.edu    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu   
     NOTE: junger at pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists