[3704] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
my two cents
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Fri Dec 4 19:29:42 1998
To: cryptography@c2.net
Reply-To: perry@piermont.com
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: 04 Dec 1998 19:27:44 -0500
The new Wassenar abomination has to be the end of this, one way or
another.
Supposedly, the United States is a democracy. Supposedly, elected
officials are supposed to respond to the desires of the electorate,
not the desires of the National Security Agency.
It is time that we explained, clearly and distinctly, to the
legislative branch that this is *not* a joke, that "balancing the
interests of law enforcement" is not what the electorate wants, that
the law enforcement officials have no interests of their own and are
ALSO the employees of the people.
Either we find out that the U.S. Government is government of the
bureaucrats, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats, or we get our
way -- but either way, it is finally, in my opinion, the time for us
to quit pussyfooting around, quit trying to appease people, and to
just come out and say "cryptography controls are stupid, and we, the
people, do not want them, and we don't CARE what the NSA wants, they
work for *us*, not the other way around."
Perry
