Moral Crypto

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, September 4, 2001, at 10:21 AM, Eric Murray wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 12:38:52PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>> On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 12:34:31PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>>> The other remailers can theoretically band together as some kind of
>>> guild and reject packets from "rogue" remailers, but there are 
>>> numerous
>>> practical problems. Identifying a "rogue" remailer which "allows"
>>> packets from "baddies" (e.g, from Mormons, or free speech advocates)
>>
>> In the next five years or so, I would not be suprised to see a call
>> for federal licensing of remailers.
>
> I don't think that there is enough remailer traffic or remailers
> to require the feds to go throught the work of getting a law passed
> and setting up a licensing program.  It's be nice if there was!
>
> It's more likely that remailers will get closed outright.

Either one runs seriously afoul of the First Amendment.

Remailers are publishers. Publishers cannot be "licensed," nor can they 
simply be closed down.

There is no issue of the "public airwaves," which is what allowed the 
FCC to license broadcasters and to yank the licenses of those who ran 
afoul of various rules.

One who takes in submissions, processes them according to his own 
proecedures, and then sends some output to other sites is a publisher.

Further, it is doubtful than any of the oft-discussed "all packets must 
be traceable to a meatspace" person are constitutional. The little 
matter of "unsigned political fliers" comes to mind (though fascists 
like McCain, Feingold, Feinstein, and others are attempting to use 
"campaign finance reform" to require meatspace identities).

And there are various practical enforceability issues, discussed here so 
often:

-- the vast number of "degrees of freedom" in networks, intranets, mixes 
inside warehouses, wireless, transnational, regulatory arbitrage, stego, 
etc.

I could write more on this, but I gotta go.


--Tim May