SAFE forum -- remarks of Herb Lin

Folks -- I object to the characterization of my remarks about crime prevention
being made with sarcasm.  The complete remark was "Crime prevention ought
to be part of the FBI's mission, ... and it is -- ask them, and they acknowledge
 that."

No sarcasm was intended; the basic point was, and is, that encryption has costs
from
the perspective of the authorized information collection efforts of law
enforcement, and benefits
from the perspective of preventing information crimes such as the compromise of
proprietary
business information.

I am not on the cypherpunks list, so if you want me to respond, pls copy me at
hlin@nas.edu.

herb
===
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 10:57:30 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: SAFE Forum

On Mon, 1 Jul 1996, Bill Frantz wrote:

> "Crime prevention ought to be part of the FBI's mission. [Herbert Lin,
> National Research Council]

In case it's not clear, this was said with much sarcasm... i.e., today's
FBI is too often engaged in other pursuits.. This in the context of
explaining that ubiquitous strong crypto is the best defense against
computer crime.

-rich

On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, Herb Lin wrote:

> Folks -- I object to the characterization of my remarks about crime prevention
> being made with sarcasm.  The complete remark was "Crime prevention ought
> to be part of the FBI's mission, ... and it is -- ask them, and they acknowledge
>  that."

OK, sorry, my reading.  I'd certainly hate to jeopardize any professional
relationships by implying that you'd been poking fun at them on purpose. 
There's already far too much distrust to go around. 

As I recall, the sequence went "Crime prevention ought to be part of the
FBI's mission [audience snickers, Herb realizes what he just said and
smiles]... and it is -- ask them, and they acknowledge that." 

The best standup comics are the genuine straight men, I guess. To avoid any
trouble, I'll be using that line *without* specific attribution from now on. 

-rich