[6237] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: US law makes it a crime to disclose crypto-secrets
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joe Francis)
Fri Dec 10 19:17:53 1999
Message-ID: <38518D63.84A238E5@netscape.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 15:54:24 -0800
From: jfrancis@netscape.com (Joe Francis)
Reply-To: jfrancis@netscape.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net,
fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I beleive Justice Douglas made mention of this law in the Pentagon
Papers case as well, though the US did not bring this up in their case
agaisnt the Times & Post.
Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
> It would be one thing if this law (enacted in 1950) restricted government
> employees or contractors from disclosing cryptographic or COMINT info they
> agreed to keep secret. But it seems to apply to anyone, including
> journalists or cypherpunks, no matter how they obtained the data. That
> raises First Amendment issues.
>
> This was discussed during the Church committee hearings in 1975 (p7 of the
> transcript) but I don't know if it's come up in court cases.
>
> -Declan
>
> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/798.html
>
> Sec. 798. Disclosure of classified information [...]
