Re: BXA Meet in Portland OR

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

John Young wrote to Alan Olsen:
>
>>I am going to try very hard to be there.  It claims that statements will
>>be taken on the EAR.  Anyone want to help write a statement to be read to
>>the commitee?
>
>An excellent start would be Adam Shostack's questioning of the
>legal authority for the feds to restrict publishing. See his Tom Paine
>taunt in Peter Wayner's NYT report yesterday, and as posted here.
>
>Declaring yourself to be a cpunk, well, can you get a hearing at a
>hearing of closed EARs any better way?

There's a small mountain of info available on the EAR, Wassenaar, and
the unfolding crypto regs, providing anyone wants to consult it.

Michael Foomkin has reviewed the legal gounds for continuing the
"national emergency" undergirding the repeatedly extended period
for not legislating up-to-date export regulations. To put off the fight
to pass a new law, every August, as done a few days ago
(http://jya.com/eo081997.txt), the presiding president issues an 
executive order under the International Emergency Economic Power Act
(IEEPA) extending the national emergency initially declared 
during what appeared to be a genuine national threat decades ago.

It is these series of orders that legalize the EARs, and a lot more,
so I read, beyond our decryption of the state/mil/com multi-level DMS.

See Michael's site for more on IEEPA and much more A-1 crypto-legal 
stuff at:

   http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/froomkin.html

We've documented some of the more recent EAR shenanigans on 
our site at:

   http://jya.com/eartoc.htm

Similarly, background and foreground on the status of BXA 
implementation of the Wassenaar Arrangement, to be discussed 
at the Portland meet, is available on Greg Broiles site at:

   http://www.parrhesia.com

And at our site at:

   http://jya.com/wa/watoc.htm

BXA has written me that the bureau expects to issue regulations
implementing Wassenaar "this summer," international-oriented 
regs which will cover the full spectrum of dual-use and militarily 
critical technologies.The current draft CCL regs circulating for 
domestic applications seems to part of an orchestrated campaign
to address all export issues -- domestic and international -- at 
once, using one to leverage the other.

Something similar appears to be taking place worldwide. See
Bert-Jaap Koop's ever-changing survey of world crypto law at:

   http://cwis.kub.nl/~frw/people/koops/jenc8bjk.htm

Even so, it'll be hard to wade through all this e-paper pile before 
the meet, and probably would not be effective anyway, for the
meet's sponsors know all that and couldn't give a shit. A heavy-metal 
instrument is needed to turn their attention away from impenetrable
legal and military  and NDA-commercial protection. 

Now we turn the target-finder over to Mr. Tim May and those 
anonymees worldwide who wish to ... lock and load, wait, not guns,
even more powerful munitions to penetrate through thick skulls
who are convinced they're the smartest bastards on earth with
the biggest CPUs run by tiniest algos to prove it.