Re: Markoff on Clipper III

At 02:33 PM 7/14/96 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
>On the Friday "Clipper III" rehash by the Admin:
>
>Balancing Privacy and Official Eavesdropping
>
>          By JOHN MARKOFF
>
>          "The president and vice president took an oath to protect our
>national security," Simon said. "They feel they have to err on the side of
>protecting national security." 
>
>          The government also said that it did not see an immediate
>technical solution to the problems that would result from the global
>proliferation of "strong cryptography." 
>
>**************
>
>Last time I looked, the oath they took was to protect the Constitution --
>not the nation or national security.

It's called "mission creep."  And they didn't quite tell the truth:  Their 
main loyalty is to "government security" or even "job security."


>I don't see an "immediate technical solution" to strong crypto either.  Or,
>indeed, a long-term solution.

Thank heavens for that!
Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com

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At 4:57 PM -0700 7/14/96, jim bell wrote:
>At 02:33 PM 7/14/96 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
>>On the Friday "Clipper III" rehash by the Admin:
>>
>>Balancing Privacy and Official Eavesdropping
>>
>>          By JOHN MARKOFF
>>
>>          "The president and vice president took an oath to protect our
>>national security," Simon said. "They feel they have to err on the side of
>>protecting national security."
>>
>>          The government also said that it did not see an immediate
>>technical solution to the problems that would result from the global
>>proliferation of "strong cryptography."
>>
>>**************
>>
>>Last time I looked, the oath they took was to protect the Constitution --
>>not the nation or national security.

Did you miss the part in the Constitution about "provide for the common
defence" and about the President's associated responsibility to "take care
that the laws be faithfully executed"?

And what oath do you suppose binds him because "The President shall be
commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States"?

David



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On Sun, 14 Jul 1996, David Sternlight wrote:

> Did you miss the part in the Constitution about "provide for the common
> defence" and about the President's associated responsibility to "take care
> that the laws be faithfully executed"?
> 
> And what oath do you suppose binds him because "The President shall be
> commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States"?

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that firearms (or crypto in this case)
are a threat to national security.  In fact, the second amendment explicitly
dictates that people have the right to own firearms.  The term "national
security" has been used too often to justify the government's actions.
National security means making sure that terrorists don't find out the ICBM
lauch codes, not making it illegal for people to use unescrowed encryption.

- -- Mark

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
markm@voicenet.com              | finger -l for PGP key 0xe3bf2169
http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/ | d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.  If that
is granted, all else follows."  --George Orwell, _1984_


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