Senator plans to ban .gov porn-parodies; new crypto-campaign

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 13:15:35 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Senator plans to ban .gov porn-parodies; new crypto-campaign

More on Gates in NYC and the FBI's antihacker crusade is at
the URL below. --Declan

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http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/afternoon/0,1012,1782,00.html

The Netly News / Afternoon Line
March 4, 1998

Loin-cloth

   One lawmaker who doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor about
   titillating web sites is Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.). When his
   presumably technology-impaired staffer stumbled across whitehouse.com
   and found not Hillary Clinton's child care proposals but a doctored
   photo of Hillary in leather, Faircloth decided to take action. "I plan
   to introduce legislation that would ban the assignment of popular
   government agency names to anyone," he told The Netly News after
   speaking at an Internet child safety seminar this afternoon. "Can you
   imagine how many people have thought they were contacting the White
   House only to see that?" A better question might be which site is the
   more popular one. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington

Might Makes Right

       Congress rarely does the right thing for the right reason.Instead,
   lobbyists vie to make voting the wrong way too politically costly for
   legislators.

       Now a new coalition, called Americans for Computer Privacy, is
   trying out this strategy on encryption legislation. The group of high
   tech firms and nonprofit groups aims to convince lawmakers that
   supporting restrictions on either the domestic use or overseas
   shipment of encryption productions is too politically painful.

       "We would not turn the keys to our front doors over the
   government. Why should we have to turn over the keys to our
   computers?" asked ACP counsel and former White House lawyer Jack
   Quinn.
   
         To convince Americans that ACP's answer is the right one, the
   coalition has gathered together an advisory panel of former spooks and
   law enforcement agents.

       Quinn told the Netly News that his strategy has already won
   results: "Senior officials at the National Security Council and the
   vice president's office" this morning signaled they're willing to sit
   down at the table for a friendly chat about crypto-laws. --By Declan
   McCullagh/Washington