Fight, or Roll Over?

[cman@communities.com (Douglas Barnes)]

Since the Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 might as well
be called the "Anti-Cypherpunk Act of 1995", I'm surprised to see
Tim throw in the towel already, when the bill hasn't even made it
through committee yet.

Not that I place a lot of faith in our elected officials, but this
bill seems to step on so many toes, and to be so plainly idiotic,
that we are bound to get some support from unexpected quarters.
Nothing surprised me more, in fact, than all the mainstream IS
magazines (like Information Week) denouncing the Exon ammendment.

This, though, is a much more subtle and insidious bill, and takes away
something that most people don't even know they want yet.
(The Exon ammendment, on the other hand, could have been dubbed,
"The Cypherpunk Market-Creation Act of 1995.") Nevertheless,
it is certainly possible to fight this bill and win, while at
the same time, preparing to go underground if it passes.

Go underground? Well, as I read it, this bill basically makes
cypherpunks a "corrupt organization", subject to the full
impact of the RICO statutes. With the passage of this bill, we
will have the same status in the US as the neo-Nazis have in
Germany, and will have to adopt similar communications and
organization techniques. Who knows, maybe this is the best thing
that could happen, although I'm real curious about who will
back off to protect their ass-ets and who will actually keep
on chugging towards crypto anarchy.

In the short term, I've renewed or started memberships in the
organizations that are likely to fight this -- but I'm also
fired up to get more easy-to-use software out there, and
do what I can to help build infrastructure that can resist this
sort of nonsense.