Response to "SAFE bill and cutting crypto-deals"

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

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:00:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Response to "SAFE bill and cutting crypto-deals"


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Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 01:56:20 -0400
From: Jason Gull <jgull@UMICH.EDU>

While I don't particularly like this segment of the proposed bill either,
I think Declan is engaging in some minor hyperbole when he says "this
language has no business becoming law."  We already have federal laws
which make the use of a telephone or the mails to commit a felony into an
additional offense, so this provision -- quite similar to obstruction of
evidence, from the look of it -- doesn't seem at odds with precedent. 
With so many "hurdles," as Declan puts it, the language seems tailored to
the specific case where incriminating information is encrypted solely to
evade law enforcement and (like the passing of incriminating information
to one's attorney in an attempt to make it "privileged") it doesn't seem
outlandish to think that such conduct ought to be criminalized.  Granted,
there's the danger of the "slippery slope" -- that allowing any
restrictions on crypto will lead to a gradual encroachment of government
into other uses of cryptography.  However, whether or not it is a good
idea or not, politics and previosu law seem to firmly support such a
provision. 

-Jason Gull
jgull@umich.edu