Re: Sen. Leahy's "impeccable cyberspace credentials"

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 09:50 AM 8/26/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 12:23:57 -0400
>From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org>
>To: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org>
>Cc: shabbir@vtw.org, fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu, brock@well.com,
>    telstar@wired.com
>Subject: Re: INFO: Democratic convention chats online! Be there! (8/25/96)
>Declan:
>In a world where we have very few real friends, I simply don't understand
>what you are trying to accomplish. It's fine (and healthy) to raise
>concerns about the particular positions a member of Congress takes (hell, I
>don't agree with everything Leahy does), but to simply dismiss Leahy as a
>'no friend of the Net'  is naive and counterproductive.
>
>Look at the record. Leahy is hands down the strongest supporter of the Net
>in Congress. Period. No other Member (including our small but growing
>handful of other friends like Burns, White, Wyden, Cox, Eshoo, etc) has
>been a more forceful or consistent advocate for your causes for as long as
>Leahy has. What exactly do you want? Perhaps we should elect you to
>Congress and see how well you can do.

Leahy's crypto bill sucked, bigtime.  The portion of the bill criminalizing 
the use of encryption that had the effect of thwarting a government 
investigation is classic, "foot in the door" creeping government 
manipulation.  I was particularly disgusted to notice that a number of the 
traditional net-freedom organizations rushed to announce that they were in 
favor of that bill, without even a few days of analysis, and did not retract 
or even restrict that support when a more careful study (specifically, that 
of Peter Junger) showed how seriously flawed it was.  Indeed, I never saw 
another analysis that purported to defend Leahy's bill, despite the fact 
that it would have been the responsibility of any organization which claimed 
support of it to prepare one.

I believe that it is particularly suspicious that these bills come into 
existance without even cursory "vetting" on the Internet.  Both the Leahy 
bill and even the Burns crypto bill popped into public view without any 
indication of how they were written, or any public input on their intent and 
scope.  Perhaps this "take it or leave it" practice is old hat to 
politicians, but frankly I'm disgusted at politicians' presumption that they 
can prepare a law with no identifiable input from the public.

I am similarly disgusted at any organization (even if, ostensibly, acting in 
support of "net freedom") that assisted in the development of the Leahy 
crypto bill (and to some extent, even the Burns bill) because they clearly 
failed to solicit the kind of public input that such bills should 
automatically get.

And in a sense, "the Net" doesn't NEED "strong supporters": what we need are 
politicians who are willing to LEAVE US ALONE!  It should come as no 
surprise that the call you frequently see among net-freedom- supporters for 
new legislation is that which repeals existing restrictive laws, such as 
ITAR and censorship laws.  

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com