Re: AT&T, Clipper, & Saudi Arabia

[paul@poboy.b17c.ingr.com (Paul Robichaux)]

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> Can we please confine paranoia to reasonable areas -- like AT&T's sales
> of secure phones to the government?  The U.S. government has a very long
> record of pushing American products against foreign competitors, such as
> Boeing versus Airbus.

I have great respect for you, Steve, but in this case I must humbly
disagree with you. The US government does have a very long record of
promoting US products for foreign sales, but it is certainly rare for
the President himself to get involved so publically.

Do you really think that selling 50,000 secure phones would be _that_
attractive to AT&T? It would certainly be attractive to the particular
business unit in charge of selling them, but not nearly as attractive
as the promise of help in the future.

> Of course, there is a quid pro quo here -- but it's Clinton reminding the
> Saudis about Desert Storm.

Considering that the Saudis paid for a large fraction of the monetary
cost of Desert <foo>, and that they have made or attempted to make
substantial FMS and civilian purchases from the US, they very well may
feel that they have discharged their debt.

I think it's reasonable to visualize a conversation in which the
administration promised to "help AT&T in the future" in exchange for
AT&T's adoption of Clipper. It certainly may not have been as blatant
as my satirical letter, but that doesn't make it less plausible.

- -Paul

- -- 
Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG      | Out the 10Base-T port, through the router, 
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