Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 07:26:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: "Shabbir J. Safdar" <shabbir@vtw.org>
Cc: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary

Shabbir,

You're mistaken. I'm not "slighting their work" -- I called it a "solid
improvement."

Yeah, I know who shopped this around. I spoke with David and Don about
this last week, and didn't write about it then for fear of jeopardizing
their negotiations.

And come on, you're "more than a little surprised" by my take? Give me a
break. My position now is consistent with my position before -- and comes
as no surprise. Reread my previous posts. 

But you're missing the point: this whole "crypto in a crime" section
should not be in this bill in the first place. The new portion is much
better than the old, but it still has no business being law.

-Declan


On Thu, 15 May 1997, Shabbir J. Safdar wrote:

> At 9:11 PM -0700 5/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> 
> >* The heinous section of the law that would create
> >  broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was
> >  replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt
> >  and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles:
> >
> >	"Any person who, in the commission of a felony under
> >	a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly
> >	and willfully encrypts incriminating information
> >	relating to that felony with the intent to conceal
> >	such information for the purposes of avoiding
> >	detection by law enforcement agencies or
> >	prosecution..."
> >
> >  It's a solid improvement, but this language still has
> >  no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to
> >  have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt,
> >  the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the
> >  amendment "could have a chilling effect on the
> >  development and use of encryption." He added: "I
> >  recognize that some supporters of this amendment would
> >  like that this section be removed altogether." But it
> >  doesn't seem likely.
> 
> I'm more than a little surprised at your take on this amendment.  This
> exact language wasn't created by Representatives who don't know better, it
> was created, shopped, and marketed to the hill by the folks at the ACLU
> (Don Haines) and EPIC.  In response to concerns from the net, they
> coordinated the letter from many groups to Goodlatte about the criminal
> provision which just about everyone signed onto.
> 
> Then, EPIC and the ACLU worked out the language above, and got it passed
> verbatim in response to the concerns of the net community.  They did a
> great job here and really deserve a lot of kudos.  Why are you slighting
> their work?
> 
> -S