[117229] in Cypherpunks
Re: ACTION ALERT: Crypto Legislation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William H. Geiger III)
Sun Aug 29 05:53:26 1999
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 05:32:14 -0400
Message-Id: <199908290931.FAA03534@domains.invweb.net>
From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@openpgp.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <cypherpunks@openpgp.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Reply-To: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@openpgp.net>
In <19990829065640.EBEF32CB04@panix.com>, on 08/29/99
at 02:56 AM, nobody@replay.com said:
>WHAT'S HAPPENING
>Congress is about to vote on the SAFE bill (HR 850) which will impact
>your right to privacy and security online. A vote in favor of SAFE means
>more security and privacy online. A vote against it means less security
>and privacy for you in the Information Age!
>___________________________________________________________________________
>WHAT CAN I DO?
>Please take a moment to click on this link:
> http://www.cdt.org/action/
>and learn about the bill and send a free Western Union telegram to your
>member of Congress urging them to vote in favor of the bill when it gets
>to the House floor!
Perhaps the CDT should get things right. This should be called the un-SAFE
bill. All it does is help big dollar contributors to congress (can we say
Micky$loth, $un, IBM, ...ect) while fucking the average user of
encryption. Beware of lawyers bearing gifts!! Below is the damming section
of the un-SAFE bill:
H.L.C.
õ 2805. Unlawful use of encryption in furtherance of
a criminal act
(a) ENCRYPTION OF INCRIMINATING COMMUNICA-
TIONS OR INFORMATION UNLAWFUL. Any person who,
in the commission of a felony under a criminal statute of
the United States, knowingly and willfully encrypts in-
criminating communications or information relating to
that felony with the intent to conceal such communications
or information for the purpose of avoiding detection by
law enforcement agencies or prosecution
(1) in the case of a first offense under this
section, shall be imprisoned for not more than 5
years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title,
or both; and
(2) in the case of a second or subsequent of-
fense under this section, shall be imprisoned for not
more than 10 years, or fined in the amount set forth
in this title, or both.
(b) USE OF ENCRYPTION NOT A BASIS FOR PROB-
ABLE CAUSE. The use of encryption by any person shall
not be the sole basis for establishing probable cause with
respect to a criminal offense or a search warrant. .
It was not that long ago Jeff Gordon was passing out supoena's to a large
number of list members here. I have no doubt that had this bill been law a
majority of us would have received invitations to Clubfed. With Ipsec &
the Freewan project anyone using the Internet will be guilty under this
provision wether they know it or not. The FED's know that they lost the
key escrow battle and they know that sooner or latter the export
restrictions will be dropped. They are giving us NOTHING in exchange for
being able to punish anyone they want for using encryption! We are getting
fucked and the CDT is willing to go right along with it.
DO NOT use the CDT form letter, tell your congress critter that the (a)
ENCRYPTION OF INCRIMINATING COMMUNICATIONS OR INFORMATION UNLAWFUL is
unacceptable and that the (b) USE OF ENCRYPTION NOT A BASIS FOR PROBABLE
CAUSE must be changed to read:
"The use of encryption by any person shall not be used in the
establishment of probable cause with respect to a criminal offense or a
search warrant."
The wording of the original paragraph makes it worthless and allows the
use of encryption as probable cause so long as additional information is
provided no matter how minor.
It is also worth noting the section on encryption exports still gives the
Secretary of State broad powers in preventing the export of encryption
products. There is still a mandatory review process, there is no mention
of an appeal process if an application is denied. Basically if you have
enough money & clout you can fight the bastards (read if you are M$, $un,
IBM, ...ect) otherwise they can fuck you as long as they want.
There is a very telling paragraph at the end of the bill:
SEC. 4. EFFECT ON LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES.
(a) COLLECTION OF INFORMATION BY ATTORNEY
GENERAL. The Attorney General shall compile, and
maintain in classified form, data on the instances in which
encryption (as defined in section 2801 of title 18, United
States Code) has interfered with, impeded, or obstructed
the ability of the Department of Justice to enforce the
criminal laws of the United States.
Anyone want to guess what these reports will say?
We all know what a Trojan Horse is right? And I am sure most of you know
the principle of divide & conquer. This is what we have here. We have the
FED's "giving" those who have the money and influence to fight against
export controls a carrot in exchange for the beginning of what is sure to
be ever more oppressive laws against those who use encryption
domestically. And then we have the CDT which is happy to go along so they
can claim a "victory". If you don't know what a pyrrhic victory is I
suggest you look it up.
--
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William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net
Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0
Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html
Talk About PGP on IRC EFNet Channel: #pgp Nick: whgiii
Hi Jeff!! :)
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