Our basic rights are not to be traded away for exports

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 6:43 PM -0700 7/17/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>We need the administration to do one thing: lift export controls.
>
>Then it and Congress should forget all about the Net.
>
>-Declan

I don't think it is going to do that. Unless it gets something _major_ in
return, as part of a deal.

And given the choice between liberty and a lifting of export restrictions,
I know which side I support. No doubt about it.

If export restrictions remain in place, the world will still have
arbitrarily strong crypto. After all, implementations of RSA and other
public key systems are widely available in Europe and Asia. Stronghold
comes from overseas, Israel is a major center, Switzerland has long been a
point of development (though perhaps with NSA involvement, it is rumored),
and so on.

And an export ban might actually _help_ us all, by incentivizing world-wide
development, by "breaking the monopoly" the U.S. has held. (I'd rather that
Big Brother stay the hell out of the whole issue, especially as export
controls are worthless anyway.)

In any case, we as American citizens (and others) cannot accept limitations
on our basic freedoms to hold our own keys, to speak in whatever languages
we wish, to whisper and write in private languages, to sign whichever keys
we wish (in whichever ways we wish), and to write and speak without
"labeling" requirements...we cannot accept limits on these basic rights
just so that Netscape and Microsoft can export their patent-entangled
products!

I wish Netscape, Microsoft, and others well, but not if it means Big
Brother gains new powers. I'd rather see them lose billions to the foreign
equivalents, even face eventual loss of all of their markets, than see my
freedoms compromised.

And it's reprehensible that civil liberties groups are even _talking_ to
these statist creeps. What part of "Congress shall make no law" is unclear
to them?

Has it ever been the case that one basic right is compromised so that some
company can get an export license? That the right to keep and bear arms is
restricted so that Colt can export M-16s to Iraq? That the right to publish
is limited so that the New York Times can get the lucrative overseas
publishing franchise for Americans stationed in Europe? And so on.

Our basic rights are not to be traded away for export licenses.

--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."