[854] in Cypherpunks
Re: Lobbying for Cryptoprivacy, non-U.S.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Mandl)
Fri Jun 4 13:41:05 1993
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 13:20:22 EDT
From: dmandl@lehman.com (David Mandl)
To: jhart@agora.rain.com
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
> From: jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart)
>
> >I have shied away from any "political" action against Clipper because I am
> >unsure how a Canadian can help...
>
> Non-U.S. citizens can lobby hard to get all phones containing
> key-escrow (aka wiretap) chips banned in your country. You have a
> very good argument: do y'all want Yankee spooks listening in on your
> phone calls?
This is a very good point. Apart from the anti-Clipper arguments we all know
so well, outside of the U.S. there is a whole other class of arguments.
The whole idea of Clipper is obnoxiously imperialistic in the grand U.S.
tradition, and even the "law and order" types who would love Clipper if they
were U.S. citizens may have very serious reservations about it if they live
elsewhere. A French businessman who trusts his government unequivocally will
probably be put off by the idea of using a phone that has the U.S. intelligence
agencies living inside it.
--Dave.
