Re: Andy Grove on Clipper

[charles lewton <clewton@netcom.com>]

If you substitute the word "gun" for "crypto" most all of this applies to
your second amendment rights as well.

The plan seems to be to demonize and then ridicule the target group until 
the masses are convinced they are not worthy of rights.  The best known 
case:  Germany in the 30s and 40s.  The new Jew=crypto user.

Mike is exactly right when he states that every story in print or video or
radio highlights the miniscule misuse of crypto and, of course, the
Oprah generation eats it up.  Now, they do not give the relative misuse of
crypto, it must be huge or why would they report it as a problem, right?
About like the horrendous number of crimes committed with so-called
assault weapons, which on a bad day might approach 1%.

Let us not forget RICO while we're at it, talking about seizing.

                                             clewton@netcom.com
					     E-mail for PGP 2.x
                                             public key               

On Sat, 18 Jun 1994, Mike Duvos wrote:

> Tim writes:
> 
>  > With egg all over their face on Clipper, I see the
>  > Administration now launching a new campaign, a campaign
>  > being led by Donn Parker, Dorothy Denning, Andy Grove, and
>  > others. In this campaign, the second approach mentioned
>  > above will be dominant: a focus on pedophiles who "encrypt
>  > their list of victims," a focus on "terrorists who form
>  > virtual networks around the world," and a focus on "money
>  > launderers who use crypto anarchy to spread their poison."
> 
> This is beginning already.  I haven't seen anything in the
> mainstream press lately on Cyberspace in which the word
> "pedophile" wasn't mentioned prominently.  The enemy learned long
> ago that you can get the public up in arms about almost anything,
> as long as you package it as either a public safety or child
> protection issue.
> 
> I don't think we have very much time left to save our precious
> encryption rights from Big Brother.  Revoking rights is like frog
> boiling.  As long as it is done slowly enough, it goes relatively
> unnoticed.
> 
> Bill Clinton was talking yesterday about how no one complains any
> more about tight airport security and accepts it as a fact of
> life.  Contrast this with the screams of outrage from the first
> few people forced to walk through metal detectors and have their
> baggage searched.
> 
> Remember when civil forfeiture started?  First only profits from
> illegal activities were seized.  They quickly moved to seizing
> all of a suspects assets.  Now cops can stop you on the road,
> empty your pockets, and take your money using only the
> justification that possession of more than a certain amount is
> evidence of wrongdoing.
> 
> Look at the engineering of public attitudes on marijuana,
> underage erotica, and even smoking that have taken place over the
> last decade.
> 
> Pretty soon the public will accept the notion that they must give
> up all their personal privacy in order to protect us from
> terrorists, drug dealers, and people with rarified sexual
> interests.  Only incompetent opposing points of view on this
> issue are ever presented by the mainstream media.  Give these
> people another year or two, and they will be telling us that mere
> possession of PGP abuses children in some ficticious and
> vicarious manner.
> 
> Because the government is so powerful, and we are not, we have to
> avoid the pitfall of harping frivilous issues in a last desperate
> attempt to thwart the federal agenda.  Attacks on Denning's
> character, the Clipper algorithm, and the LEAF field, while
> interesting, do nothing to help our cause.  What will we do when
> the government presents us with an escrowed, publicly reviewed,
> unbreakable strong encryption algorithm which is mandatory?  We
> need to concentrate on the basic issues here and state them
> clearly many times in language the public can understand.
> 
> The public slap in the face our agenda received the other day on
> the crypto export issue should be proof enough that our enemies
> will accept nothing less than the total surrender of our right to
> personal privacy.  It's time to stop being nice.  When you go after 
> the King, you shoot to kill.
> 
> -- 
>      Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
>      mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $
> 
>