Zimmermann charges dropped?

Apologies if this has been discussed and I somehow missed it. I just
got back from Monte Carlo last night and have briefly scanned the 500+
accumulated messages, not seeing this item mentioned.

Drew Taubman (sp?), the new Executive Director of the EFF, told me
that in recent days the grand jury meeting in the PRZ case did in fact
decide to go forward with the indictment.

However, says Drew, the judge in the case dismissed the charges after
looking at them, apparently in about an hour or so. He cited the
absence of relevant law in the case (as I understand it, the argument
being that there is no law against what PRZ did, i.e., "make code
available" in such a way that _others_ might then access it and
perhaps then illegally export it (assuming such export might be later
proved to be illegal).

Drew went on to tell me that the judge said there would need to be a
relevant law on this, and that Senator Leahy and his staff (recall
their involvement in the Digital Telephony Bill) are already at work
drafting such legislation.

I haven't seen mention of this, so I thought I'd mention it here. I
could of course try to get confirmation first from Phil, but he is
notoriously hard to reach in e-mail, ironically, and this seems
sufficiently important to mention to the list.

And if you can't trust the EFF, who _can_ you trust? (Don't answer
that.)

--Tim May

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..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
                       | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
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Charges against Phil Zimmermann have apparently NOT been dropped, and
Zimmermann's legal team is still in high gear.

Proving once more that things said or asked on this list often--even
usually--find their way to the persons mentioned, Phil called me today
to ask further about what I'd heard from Drew Taubman and to explain
that as of Friday, when Phil Dubois, Phil's lawyer, spoke to the
prosecutor in the case, the case had not been dropped. Or if it was,
the lead attorney and his client were not told.

(My discussion with Drew was at 10 p.m., Wednesday, Monte Carlo time.)

So, it appears that my source was either incorrect, or wires got
crossed in some way. (Or that EFF has access of a kind that seems
farfetched.)

Phil speculated that Drew was speaking about the LaMacchia case, of
several weeks back. This is unlikely, as the LaM. case was a separate
discussion we had, specific mention was made that the news was very
recent, happening within a few days of our conversation, and that
Senator Leahy would be incorporating changes based on the PRZ case
situation into legislation on telephony and expert being planned.

In any case, it seemingly is just not the case that charges have been
dropped (or that plans to file them have been dropped).

Anyway, my apologies. I sometimes think I am talking to the 20-30 of
you who post regularly, and can thus feel free to ask about a report
I've heard. But, as Hal Finney and others have also discovered, this
is not the case...boundaries are changing in cyberspace.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
                       | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay