Re: (VTW) BillWatch #48

[Carl Ellison <cme@ACM.ORG>]

> The NRC gets points for putting out a report that will become useful in
> the months to come.  The White House gets an 'F' for their handling of
> encryption policy.  Even in the face of two expert studies on their policy,
> they continue to stick to a failed, unpopular policy.
<<<<

I was at the EPIC conference yesterday (6/3) -- where Whit Diffie, BTW, presented the same argument Steven Cherry gave in this BillWatch  -- but at the end of the EPIC conference we had Scott Charney of DoJ on a panel about what the OECD is doing (pushing Clipper internationally) and we kept going round with him on the administration's pushing of Clipper (N). [One attendee described this as "forum shopping" -- looking for a friendly place to push Clipper.]

There were people battling him over his alleged representation of the USA at the OECD -- claiming he was misrepresenting the country by pushing Clipper.  His response was that the Executive is empowered to do all international meetings/negotiations/....

After the meeting ended it hit me what the problem is and I mentioned it to PRZ.  We're complaining that the Executive has gone rogue -- is disobeying the will of the people.  PRZ likened it to Nixon's war in Cambodia.

So, maybe it's nothing new -- just a new playing field for the same old game.

- Carl




+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Carl M. Ellison   cme@acm.org     http://www.clark.net/pub/cme         |
|PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2|
|  "Officer, officer, arrest that man!  He's whistling a dirty song."   |
+-------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison (aka Mother) -+