Re: Netscape does the right thing (fwd)

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 9:32 AM -0400 10/10/96, David Lesher / hated by RBOC's in 5 states wrote:
>Lucky Green sez:
>> Egghead has 128 bit Navigator 3.0 on sale for $29. You heard me right. The
>> clerk at Egghead, speaking broken English, failed to ask me for my passport.
>
>Good Point. If Peter Junger is supposed to maintain a chain of
>custody in his class; must not the bookstores, ComputerLands, you
>name it, ALSO do the same -- restricting not just customers, but
>non-AmCit employees' access...?

"No dogs and foreigners allowed"?

If the ITAR/Bernstein/Junger set of cases gets interpreted in a certain way
(exposure of non-U.S. persons to "U.S. strategic information" is a felony),
then Barnes and Noble and Supercrown may have to post signs forbidding
foreigners from entering certain areas, or the entire store, or checking
official papers before the computer science section may be entered.

("Pappieren, bitte?")

As Cindy Cohn pointed out at the Bernstein hearing, the Junger case may
raise some substantial "Title 14" (I think it is) issues. If a university
or bookstore  excludes foreign-looking persons, other laws say this is
discrimination. And yet the ITARs may make it a crime to let a damned
furriner into a public library that has a copy of--gasp--"Applied
Cryptography."

Realistically, no one has been prosecuted for such a thing. But the ITARs
are worded in such a way that prosecution _could_ happen. Hence the
Bernstein and Junger cases.

--Tim May


"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."