Fight, or Roll Over?

Since the Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 might as well
be called the "Anti-Cypherpunk Act of 1995", I'm surprised to see
Tim throw in the towel already, when the bill hasn't even made it
through committee yet.

Not that I place a lot of faith in our elected officials, but this
bill seems to step on so many toes, and to be so plainly idiotic,
that we are bound to get some support from unexpected quarters.
Nothing surprised me more, in fact, than all the mainstream IS
magazines (like Information Week) denouncing the Exon ammendment.

This, though, is a much more subtle and insidious bill, and takes away
something that most people don't even know they want yet.
(The Exon ammendment, on the other hand, could have been dubbed,
"The Cypherpunk Market-Creation Act of 1995.") Nevertheless,
it is certainly possible to fight this bill and win, while at
the same time, preparing to go underground if it passes.

Go underground? Well, as I read it, this bill basically makes
cypherpunks a "corrupt organization", subject to the full
impact of the RICO statutes. With the passage of this bill, we
will have the same status in the US as the neo-Nazis have in
Germany, and will have to adopt similar communications and
organization techniques. Who knows, maybe this is the best thing
that could happen, although I'm real curious about who will
back off to protect their ass-ets and who will actually keep
on chugging towards crypto anarchy.

In the short term, I've renewed or started memberships in the
organizations that are likely to fight this -- but I'm also
fired up to get more easy-to-use software out there, and
do what I can to help build infrastructure that can resist this
sort of nonsense.

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Douglas Barnes wrote:

> Since the Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 might as well
> be called the "Anti-Cypherpunk Act of 1995", I'm surprised to see
> Tim throw in the towel already, when the bill hasn't even made it
> through committee yet.

I don't think Tim threw in the towell on this bill, but has come to 
realize that the overall war on privacy cannot be won by concentrating on 
the individual battles.  We've ALL got to take a deep breath and come up 
with a different plan of attack; a plan that the TLAs and spooks will be 
unable to defend against.  Right now, as long as we're kept busy with 
individual bills and initiatives, they have us just where they want us.


____        Robert A. Hayden      <=> Cthulhu Matata
\  /__          -=-=-=-=-         <=>          -=-=-=-=-
 \/  /  Finger for Geek Code Info <=> hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu
   \/   Finger for PGP Public Key <=> http://att2.cs.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden

"Robert A. Hayden" writes:
> On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Douglas Barnes wrote:
> 
> > Since the Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 might as well
> > be called the "Anti-Cypherpunk Act of 1995", I'm surprised to see
> > Tim throw in the towel already, when the bill hasn't even made it
> > through committee yet.
> 
> I don't think Tim threw in the towell on this bill, but has come to 
> realize that the overall war on privacy cannot be won by concentrating on 
> the individual battles.

Thats true. However, I think that one strategic move would be to get a
PR firm involved that is capable of severly embarassing any politico
who puts his name any of these proposals. After two or three of those
they start getting gunshy.

Folks, this isn't trivial. It isn't an easy thing to do by any
means. However, it is far from impossible.

> We've ALL got to take a deep breath and come up with a different
> plan of attack; a plan that the TLAs and spooks will be unable to
> defend against.

There is no such plan. They can't control the technology in the long
run but they can throw us all in jail in the short run. I have
substantial personal interest in keeping this stuff legal, and I don't
give a flying fig *who* sponsors legislation.

Do you think the agricultural industry lies down every time that
congress proposes to cut subsidies? Do you think that the gun lobby
lies down and plays dead? They get a bad bill proposed virtually every
week. Do you think the health care industry would have been correct to
say "oh, Hillary has us bushwacked -- this is a major
initiative. Guess we'd better give up."

Anyone who is saying that it is impossible to fight the legislative
battles hasn't been thinking. It takes millions of dollars,  but there
is a lot of money out there to be had in my opinion.

Perry

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Anyone who is saying that it is impossible to fight the legislative
> battles hasn't been thinking. It takes millions of dollars,  but there
> is a lot of money out there to be had in my opinion.

Nobody's saying it's impossible, what we're saying is that we don't have 
the resources to DO that on the scale that is needed.  Maybe Microsoft 
does, but we don't.  What we can do, however, is to shape the culture of 
the net.  That culture will have to eventually be listened to by DC.

____        Robert A. Hayden      <=> Cthulhu Matata
\  /__          -=-=-=-=-         <=>          -=-=-=-=-
 \/  /  Finger for Geek Code Info <=> hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu
   \/   Finger for PGP Public Key <=> http://att2.cs.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden

"Robert A. Hayden" writes:
> On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> > Anyone who is saying that it is impossible to fight the legislative
> > battles hasn't been thinking. It takes millions of dollars,  but there
> > is a lot of money out there to be had in my opinion.
> 
> Nobody's saying it's impossible, what we're saying is that we don't have 
> the resources to DO that on the scale that is needed.

Since when?

> Maybe Microsoft does, but we don't.

I must admit to only having an academic knowledge of this process, but
I strongly suspect that you are incorrect -- everything I've read,
watched and learned of indicates to me that there are enough people
and companies with an interest here to raise a few million
dollars. Consider that Netscape alone is a very wealthy company that
would have its marketing plans strongly disrupted by this new piece of
congressional trash.

A few million isn't enough to destroy carreers on the scale of the
NRA, but its enough to make things very messy for people.

> What we can do, however, is to shape the culture of the net.  That
> culture will have to eventually be listened to by DC.

The beltway crowd doesn't log in. They ignored the petitions sent to
Leahy for S.314 because they didn't think of the people who sent the
petitions in as "real". I doubt they will understand the net for many
years to come, whereas we have to stall out the NSA and company now.

Incidently, unlike the NRA, I believe our task is merely to stifle
legislation for about five years, at which point it will be too late
for legislation.

Perry

Perry writes:

| watched and learned of indicates to me that there are enough people
| and companies with an interest here to raise a few million
| dollars. Consider that Netscape alone is a very wealthy company that
| would have its marketing plans strongly disrupted by this new piece of
| congressional trash.

	Sun is also a probable ally.  John Gage (Sun's chief technical
officer?) regularly slams the ITARs, as does CEO Scott McNealy.

	It would seem that those who don't write code should be out
advocating the positive uses of cryptography, and looking for groups
who can effectively fight this the way people normally fight bad
legistlation in Congress.  Petitions don't work.  Spending piles of
cash does.  Writing code works even better.

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty          I Support The Phil
of any kind is lost all at     Zimmermann legal defense fund
once."               -Hume    http://www.netresponse.com/zldf

------------------ PGP.ZIP Part [001/713] -------------------
M4$L#!!0````(`">9ZQX3(*,_DG8!`-JF`P`'````4$=0+D581>S;=UQ3U__X
M\9M!$E8,TT@PJ$10$1=*41%WW`KX$=Q[M5KK`&R%(HH+(T.M"S>NME8K=31N
M:A$[K+5(K:O5BE405ZE:1"3?UTW`:K_]\/G\?O_^?CX>3^_-S;GGO,^\`^@W
-------------------------------------------------------------
for next chunk to export --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/export/