Re: A word on "emergencies" [WAS Re: Final Solution to the Crypto ]

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Michael Froomkin wrote:

>Rather, my point is a simple one.  The fact that the President has
>declared an emergency here is primarily a technical legal event.  It is
>not a sign that martial law is about to be declared, that they are coming
>to take you or your [fill in blank] away, or that anything fundamental has
>changed.  Multi-year emergencies in which the executive uses one statute
>to compensate for the Congressional decision/failure to pass another
>statute is not, I submit, a particularly telling sign of a mature and
>healthy democracy.  But this goes to large and gradual processes, not to
>anything that suddenly happened. 

Thanks for the steady-hand reassurance. Your papers are balm.

Was it not Hal's original ironic lament about the current charade -- that
it's business as usual among the jaded insiders who are confident that 
they know how power really works.

The disdain for public accountability -- cynical extension of declared 
emegencies well past their time -- is what breeds the desire of outsiders
to protect themselves from insiders. Hence, the desire for crypto, 
especially the cryptanalytic kind that ventilates those privileged inside
communications.

The battle may be between cryptogologists and lawyers, it seems to me,
the struggle for supremacy between privacy-protecting code and 
privilege-protecting secrecy.

Hoary national security proclamations have become much more lethal 
munitions than cryptography, and it is these incitements that need ... what, 
X-rating? What can be done to supplant these thrilling, crowd-
rousing proclamations of national threats -- ancient, vulgar strategems 
around the globe?