Perspectives

[Dr. Cat <cat@wixer.bga.com>]

   The letters John Gilmore received through FOIA are interesting.  So are
the reactions of the cypherpunks.
   I think it's valuable for society to have a group of people examine such
information in an extremely skeptical manner, even bordering on paranoia.
The notion that these documents are a ploy to fool people into thinking the
government is aware of the problems with their proposal and has weighed them
carefully is worthy of speculation.  Such thoughts lead to potential avenues
of investigation that may turn up useful information.
   But there seems to be an overabundance of such views...  I think the
cypherpunks can better serve society by considering ALL possibilities and
investigating the more plausible ones.  Including the possibilities that some
of the bad guys aren't maximally devious, competent, or even bad guys.  I see
a lot of use of the word "they", as if the Department of Defense was part of
the same group of people as NIST, NSA, the president, etc. etc. and they all
are working together with the exact same set of goals and motivations.  I
think the situation in Washington is more complex than that.  And DoD is one
player I haven't heard anything previous about with regard to their stance on
and involvement with Clipper.  In addition to the notion that they totally
support Clipper, it should be considered whether they might totally oppose it
(unlikely), whether they've chosen not to be involved in the struggle over
it and are simply trying to analyze its potential effects on them and
disseminate the information internally to be better prepared, or whether
perhaps there are differences of opinion between varying individuals in the
DoD power structure.  And of course, even if you label them bad guys, there's
the possibility that someone wanted a summary of valid opposition arguments
in order to be able to combat them more effectively, and naively failed to
adequately protect them from being revealed to the opposition through the
FOIA.
   I don't have any particular opinion as to what's going on here.  I just
feel I ought to say something any time I only see one point of view
represented in a discussion of such a complicated issue.  Particularly when
such a small portion of the relevant information is, thus far, available.

                Dr. Cat