Re: SAFE Bill discussion

[Declan McCullagh <declan@vorlon.mit.edu>]

Two quick points:

* I think the discussion centered around CDT since they put out a policy
post a few hours after the SAFE markup earlier this week, and that policy
post was well-circulated online.

* Didn't CDT, unlike the other groups like EPIC/ACLU/EFF/ATR, send a
letter to the House subcommittee on April 29 urging that SAFE be approved
without any changes? (I'm in Oklahoma right now and I have a copy of that
letter in my office in DC, but that's what I remember.) 

-Declan


On Thu, 1 May 1997, Shabbir J. Safdar wrote:

> The Administration hates this bill, because it threatens their ability to
> roll out Key Recovery.  They've said as much in the letter Declan forwarded:
> 
>    "The bill could be read as prohibiting the United States government
>     from using appropriate incentives to support a key management
>     infrastructure and KEY RECOVERY." [emphasis added]
> 
> Do you think that if this bill helped the Administration, that they'd be
> out there urging the subcommittee chairman to stop it?  I think not.
> 
> I'm also puzzled by the fact that CDT is being criticized pretty much
> solely, even though the entire Internet Privacy Coalition, and several
> other groups all wrote a letter of support of the bill with only a
> criticism of one provision.  However the overall statement was of support.
> (see http://www.privacy.org/ipc/safe_letter.html)
> 
> As far as I can tell, everyone criticizing the bill either thinks that:
> 
> 	a) CDT actually runs all these groups behind the scenes, or
> 	b) pretty much all of the Internet advocates believe that this bill
>            is needed and are doing the best they can with what Congress has
>            written.
> 
> You're pretty hard on CDT, but EFF, EPIC, the ACLU, VTW, Americans for Tax
> Reform, the Association for Computing Machinery, Computer Professionals for
> Social Responsiblity, Eagle Forum, the National Association for Criminal
> Defense Lawyers, and PGP Inc all signed this letter.
> 
> Can you consider, perhaps, for a second, that critics of SAFE are being
> unreasonable?  I would think so, as critics of SAFE include the Clinton
> Administration.  Is that the kind of company that cypherpunks keep?
> 
> Here's a great excerpt from the Internet Privacy Coalition letter:
> 
>   The pending bill provides a positive framework for the reforms that are
>   long overdue in this critical area. It makes clear that the sale or use
> of
>   encryption, a vital technique to promote network security and individual
>   privacy, should not be restricted in the United States. This is the view
>   widely shared by users of the Internet and the computer and communications
>   industry. It was also a central recommendation of the
>   report of the National Research Council last year.
> 
> Looks like widespread support from people who study this issue for living.
> I'm glad to be counted among them.
> 
> -S
> 
> -Shabbir
> 
>