Re: Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 (fwd)

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>]

"Brian A. LaMacchia" writes:
> What worries me is the first sentence: "each act of distributing
> software is considered a predicate act."

This breakup into seperate counts business is a common means of
striking terror into people. Its what gets done in the securities
industry, where if you mail a letter with an error in it to fifty
people it becomes fifty seperate counts of fraud and you can go to
jail for several hundred years even with parole. I'm not making this
up.

This law would also criminalize selling crypto software -- even
emasculated crypto software -- at Egghead, by the way. Remember, even
*if the crypto software is exportable* its a crime. It also would
criminalize the distribution of ROT-13. I'm not making either of these
things up.

I'll invoke Godwin's rule right now. The person who thought this up is
a Nazi. Its obviously not the Senator, who must be a dupe for some
national security types -- the Senator probably wouldn't know a crypto
program if it hit him on the head with a sledgehammer.  Its also
obvious that they don't think the whole thing will pass -- this is a
way of getting a "compromise" that merely outlaws all useful
encryption. "Compromise" in Washington-speak means "take down your
pants and prepare to be buggered."

Perry