Re: Fight, or Roll Over?

[tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 10:41 AM 7/13/95, Douglas Barnes wrote:

>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.

I'd hardly call my view "throwing in the towel." What I said clearly enough
was that the Washingtonians can throw out repressive legislation much
faster than we can--and I speak in terms of "we" as being the EFF, EPIC,
NRA, ACLU, etc., and _not_ the Cyherpunks, who have no lobbying activities
to speak of.


>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

Indeed, this law makes the Cypherpunks group a co-conspirator. (In the same
way that the recent Omnibus Anti-Terrorism (or whatever it's callled)
criminalizes groups which support This Year's Enemies. (Like the War with
Oceania--or was it Eurasia?--the friend of today was yesterday's criminal
organization. For example, the Omnibus bill makes support of anti-PLO
groups a crime, for foreigners, as the PLO is now, this year, our "Partner
for Peace.")

>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.

This is all I'm suggesting, that yet another round of trying to persuade
Congress people is a waste, and that the _traditional_ focus on technology
is a better use of our time and effort.

Others are welcome to do as they wish. I'm just expressing my view that
Washington can spin out legislation faster than we can respond....they are,
after all, using our tax dollars to generate new laws, and have
intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies on their side with
armies of lawyers and lobbyists to help. Multi-billion dollar budgets are
also at stake.

The lobbyists for preserving liberty are few and far between.

Some would say this means Cypherpunks should step into the fray and become
a lobbying group. I don't see us as having the structure or organization to
become such a group. Those who wish to should probably form a real group to
do this, with bylaws and elected officials.

Anarchies are great, but there's no way an anarchy can have a "spokesman,"
or a budget for travel and lobbying, or a hundred other things that a
lobbying group needs. Cypherpunks--this list--is just not in a position to
be this group.


--Tim May

..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@sensemedia.net   | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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