IP: Crypto Controls Threaten Human Rights

["Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>]

From: believer@telepath.com
Subject: IP: Crypto Controls Threaten Human Rights
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 17:06:43 -0500
To: believer@telepath.com

Source:  OneWorld Magazine
http://www.oneworld.org/news/today/index.html

Crypto Controls Threaten Human Rights 
 Vienna conference warned against restricting free expression 

 (New York, September 18, 1998) -- Human Rights Watch today urged an
international conference on technology, now meeting in Vienna, not to
expand controls on encryption technologies. The organization said that
cryptographic products are critical to the ability of human rights
defenders around the world to transmit sensitive information without
detection by repressive governments. 

The conference is reviewing the 1996 Wassenaar Arrangement, an
international agreement signed by 30 countries to govern the proliferation
of military technology. 

Dissidents and human rights organizations under repressive regimes
frequently use encryption technologies to share information. Encryption has
the power to authenticate the identity of these authors to their partners
abroad, while protecting their identity from despots at home.  

The United States has adopted relatively restrictive encryption policies,
which prohibit the global dsitribution of software used to encrypt text. In
particular, Washington has outlawed the export of the most popular software
among human rights activists, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), although the
Wassenaar Arrangement explicitly exempts crypto-software, like PGP, that is
widely available in the public domain. 

Human Rights Watch warned the other participants in the Vienna conference
not to incorporate such restrictive policies into the Wassenaar
Arrangement, or to further limit the global distribution, development, or
use of strong encryption hardware or software. 

"Encryption is more than a shield for human rights activists," said Jagdish
Parikh, associate online researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Coded language
is still language, and it must be protected as a basic human right to free
expression." Parikh noted that the right to free expression is set forth in
Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to
which most members of Wassenaar Arrangement are party. 

Human Rights Watch said that encryption is also an important bulwark
against violations of privacy in an age where computerization and data
banks enable the collection of huge amounts of personal information about
individuals. Moreover, international law requires states not only to
refrain from arbitrary interference with privacy, but to affirmatively
protect its citizens from such attacks.  

"The sorts of countries most eager to ban the use of encryption, such as
China and Iran, are not known for respecting freedom of speech," said
Parikh. "Using encryption should not subject an individual to criminal
sanction, any more than using Pig Latin or Swahili does." 

Many human rights activists around the world would be spared retaliation
and abuse if crypto-software were more widely available, Parikh said. 
-----------------------
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-----------------------




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