NSA Lawyers Believe ITARs Would be Overturned if Tested in Court

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:23 PM 7/21/96, James A. Donald wrote:
>At 03:27 PM 7/20/96 -0700, Tom Weinstein wrote:
>> Why not consider what the consequences will be?  Do you seriously
>> believe that this will make the government stop enforcing ITAR?
>
>Yes:
>
>Widespread politically motivated disobedience forces
>the state to either demonize the disobedient, (as with drug users)
>or give up enforcement.  This is a standard and effective method
>of forcing the repeal of laws, a method which has had a long record
>of success for several hundred years.

Further, I know someone who saw internal NSA memoranda from their legal
folks that court challenges of the ITARs should be avoided if at all
possible, as the ITARs would likely be overturned on constitutional
grounds.

(Not all of them, presumably. Shipment of hardware ("arms") would likely
not be affected. But the ITARs that stop the spread of knowledge, published
papers, and speech (such as speaking where a foreigner can hear!) would
likely be overturned.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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