Re: "Time to Walk the Walk down the Gang Plank"

[Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>]

We need the administration to do one thing: lift export controls.

Then it and Congress should forget all about the Net.

-Declan


On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, Tim May wrote:

> 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."
> 
> 
> 
> 
>