Re: Bad news from Judge Richey

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 11:33 PM 3/25/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:
>At 3:28 AM 3/26/96, jim bell wrote:
>
>>I realize that this may appear to be a rather disrespectful tactic, but have
>>you considered reminding the judge that if you are not allowed to profit by
>>exporting encryption that the government doesn't want to see exported,
>>you'll just have to make money in some other way, and this may lead you to
>>talk to Jim Bell about implementing a program using encryption that doesn't
>>_need_ to be exported...legally anyway.
>
>Whoahh! Hold on there, Jimbo! You're crossing the line.
>
>You're coming perilously close to actually calling for the killing of a
>federal judge. My recollection is that a couple of folks have been arrested
>and charged for calling for the killing of judges.

Now now, Tim.  You know me better than that.  You know that I would never be 
so restrained as to call for the killing of ONLY ONE federal judge.

Seriously, however, I think you slightly mis-read my letter.  The implied 
"threat", if you are inclined to call it that, would simply be that if domestic 
software writers are prohibited from exporting encryption software, they 
might be inclined (and have time for) writing the entire AsPol system into 
software.  Once that happens, we won't have to worry about ITARs or any 
other governmental impediment.  At that point, the danger is not to one 
specific federal judge, and not even just to all of them, but every 
government employee at every level, working for every jurisdiction.

Judges, I presume, are quite familiar with accepting a sense of personal 
danger for the consequences of their bad decisions.  It would be an entirely 
different situation, I suggest, if it were made clear to them that the 
fallout from their misbehavior would ultimately be visited on a few million 
people.  And it would shock them to the core if it were 
explained that this could be done entirely legally, with the obvious 
exception of a few unidentifiable people who actually do the anonymous work.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com