Laws Outside the U.S.

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

> At 01:43 PM 9/20/94 +0200, Alex de Joode wrote:
> 
> >Please keep in mind that the US jurisdiction doen't cover the whole earth.
> >
> >(There is life outside the US)
> 
> I am well aware of that and, in fact, intend to expat myself.  I was merely
> responding to Tim and others who were writing about the legal risks
> remailers face in the US under RICO, The Crime Bill, etc.  I know foreign
> laws differ.
> 
> It would be interesting for those in other jurisdictions to comment about
> how *their* rulers might view anonymous communications and strong crypto.

I heartily agree with Duncan here! There has been very little said by
the good residents of France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Italy, etc.
about just what the crypto-related laws of their countries are.

Lots of clucking about U.S. policy, followed by "And the U.S. is not
the whole world" comments, but very little about, for example, the
Dutch Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (BVD) is targetting crypto
users, or how, for example, the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)
is pushing for constitutional limits on speech in Germany.

I for one would like to hear the discussion about what _other_
countries are doing. Rishab Ghosh has written some about what India is
doing, but not too much.

My hunch is that most of the Western nations are looking for policy
guidance to Washington, and that whatever laws the U.S. adopts as part
of Clipper-Key Escrow-Digital Telephony-Antiterrorism-Tracking will be
adopted in a similar form by the EC and other countries. (The recent
or upcoming conference on international issues in key escrow, whose
agenda was posted a while back, is indicative of this.)

So, I appreciate that some of our European readers may be tired of
hearing about U.S. policy or proposed laws, but the proper solution is
_competing speech_. That is, give us something new to talk about. Tell
us about what *your* country is doing. Tell us about any laws limiting
what kind of modems can be hooked up to your PTTs, as a concrete
example. Tell us about the raids on BBSs in Italy. Tell us about the
rumor that the Netherlands plans to ban unapproved crypto. Tell us
about Chobetsu, the Japanese NSA.

We and the NSA are all ears.


--Tim May


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