RE: Questions for Magaziner?

["Phillip Hallam-Baker" <hallam@ai.mit.edu>]

> Okay, so the short precis on Magaziner's answer to my question about
> encryption controls, foriegn or domestic, is he's agin it.
>
> He says that controlling foriegn encryption is impossible, and controlling
> domestic encryption is, at the very least, unconstitutional.

This is way beyond what I expected. If I had expected him to go
beyond what he said at the MIT Media in Transition forum earlier this
year I would have made every effort to attend.

Essentially at MIT I tried to put words in his mouth by stating what
I knew he had said in private and adding that if he agreed then
Freeh would insist that one or the other of them go. He was not
at that time able to say anything more, although he did not leap
to the opportunity to push the Freeh line.


> He says that the reason the administration's encryption policy is so
> convoluted is that the law enforcement and the "economic"
> encryption camps,
> anti, and pro, evidently, is that the two sides are at loggerheads.

This statement in and of itself is not the type of thing I would
expect unless either Magaziner is planning to jump ship or he
knows that he can get away with it without retribution. If it
is the latter it would indicate that Freeh has very much less
influence than he did 6 months ago.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of our position but something
that can be used against spokesmen for the FBI party line.

All in all I would prefer allowing the crypto export laws to
time out, becomming progressively less relevant until they
disappear than have bills appear in Congress. However good
the bill that goes into congress the result will be at best
a compromise.


		Phill