Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 10:41 PM 9/3/96 -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote:
>The terms "responsibility" and "accountability" are misused, which is
>unfortunate, since I think we'd all argue in favor of taking responsibility
>for our speech/actions in a positive sense. The negative is in asking me to
>sacrifice my freedom because some few behave irresponsibly. This is like
>setting an illogical default, assuming that it's a preventive, but it
>prevents nothing.
>
>Getting beyond this discussion of EFF, has any global entity discussed
>making remailers illegal?

The Leahy crypto bill introduced early this year made (paraphrasing) "the 
use of encryption to thwart a law-enforcement investigation illegal."  I 
immediately pointed out that while this wouldn't make _encrypted_ remailers 
illegal, per se,  effectively it would because the moment an investigation 
(even a phony or trumped-up one) is started and is "thwarted" by the 
encryption used, the remailer operator became guilty of a crime.  

True, the USG isn't quite a "global entity" (even though it has a nasty 
habit of behaving like it!), but along with Europe (which would presumably 
treaty with USG any such restrictions) it's the next closest thing.




Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com