"Time to Walk the Walk down the Gang Plank"

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 4:25 PM -0700 7/17/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>---------
>
>July 2,1997
>
>Time to Walk the Walk on Telecom Policy
>
>by Jeffrey A. Eisenach
>The Progress & Freedom Foundation
>
>Thanks to Ira Magaziner -- of all people -- the
>Clinton Administration has finally learned to talk the
>free market talk that brings joy to denizens of the
>Internet. Now, as always with this Administration, the
>question is whether it will also walk the walk.

To use their own Yuppie expression, "will it 'walk the walk' down the gang
plank"?

The only thing the Administration can do is to do _nothing_. Gibberish
about the freedom of the Net while other departments speak of key escrow
and content control is a meaningless gesture.


>easy-to-use technical solutions." And last month,
>Treasury Undersecretary Larry Summers, reportedly at
>Magaziner's urging, had very positive things to say
>about the "no new taxes on the Internet" legislation
>sponsored by Congressman Chris Cox and Senator Ron
>Wyden.

Taxes are already essentially uncollectable, even in interstate
transactions, so the moves by Summers and Magaziner are truly token
gestures.

Their continuing support for GAK and content control are what has earned
them only our vicious enmity.


>Telecommunications is not the only problem area with
>respect to policy. Most notable among the others:
>Encryption, where the Administration stubbornly
>adheres to its unworkable, privacy-invading notion of
>"key escrow" for encryption software -- i.e., giving
>the police the key to your house in advance in case
>they decide later they want to conduct a search.

Oh, yeah, this minor issue of their demanding access to diaries, phone
calls, e-mail, and other computer-mediated communications without so much
as a search warrant.

They all deserve to be hung for treason, or dispatched the old-fashoned way
(a la Guy Fawkes).

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."