Re: Crypto export legislation defeated in House Intelligence Cmte.

: I recommend that we give up the battle and go fight the real war. We are
: totally outgunned if we stick to this approach and are wasting our time.

: What the entire net community should do is focus it's energies on chopping
: NSA's budget, period. That's what these guys really care about after all. 

There was quite an interesting quotation in one of the British papers
recently from Ames, the CIA spy who was caught - he said that the intelligence
infrastructure in the US was a self-serving bureaucracy. I forget the exact
wording, but it was the sort of thing you'd imagine the head of any big
organisation like that would want to say but was never in a position to
be able to - of course, now Ames can say what he likes :-)  I wonder if
he's available for interviews by the Cypherpunk Press ;-)

G

Graham Toal wrote:
> There was quite an interesting quotation in one of the British papers
> recently from Ames, the CIA spy who was caught - he said that the intelligence
> infrastructure in the US was a self-serving bureaucracy.

This is a truth not limited to the US. The English spy analyst Phillip 
Knightley has dwelled a lot on this subject in his books, especially
in 'The Second Oldest Profession' (from the early-mid 80's) which, in
my opinion, gives an excellent historical background to the rise of
government intelligence agencies as the means of livelihood for hordes
of slightly odd academic personalities that otherwise might have had a
hard time finding employment.

Mats B.