From declan@well.comMon Dec 9 08:51:36 1996 Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 18:15:58 -0500 (EST) From: Declan McCullagh To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Drugs, turkeys, and crypto-briefings, from The Netly News [As usual, Brock and I are on Meeks Unfiltered tonight on ISP-TV at 8 pm. I expect we'll be talking about Net-taxes, crypto, and drugs. http://www.digex.net/isptv/ --Declan] --- The Netly News http://netlynews.com/ Just say NO to Turkeys November 27, 1996 By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) My friends tell me that turkey meat contains a morphine-like substance called tryptophan -- I don't quite believe them, even given the soporific quality of holiday gatherings at the McCullagh family homestead -- but during this holiday season the European Union is concerned with an entirely different kind of narcotic. Roaches, not roasters, are what the Europeans had in mind when drafting a treaty to stop people from endorsing the illicit use of drugs. European justice ministers will meet tomorrow in Brussels to discuss the measure, which is slated to be signed at a European Union summit next month in Dublin. The drafters made clear their intention to censor illegal drug information on the Net as well. Article 8 of the draft European Union treaty says "a particular vigilance is necessary concerning the use of information servers and especially the Internet." This proposal is bad for the reason that government restrictions on consensual speech are bad. Even if you don't think that currently illicit drugs should be legalized, consider the problems inherent in speech codes that are based on majority rule. What if the opinions of most voters change? Then a majority could pass a similar restriction that could ban anti-drug opinions. In other words, it gives the government too much power and discretion. Not to mention the threat to memorable classics such as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and that ultimate stoner anthem, "Puff the Magic Dragon." Songs like these can be found not only on the Net, but on the jukeboxes of Amsterdam hash-cafis, which have long been a welcome refuge for repressed potheads (mostly from outside the Netherlands). But the French government is determined to block its citizens from heading north in search of some Mary Jane. Mario Lap from the Netherlands-based Foundation for Drug Policy and Human Rights calls it "clearly a French effort to make drug policy solely a justice/police issue." One fellow who isn't surprised by the EU's actions is Allen St. Pierre, the deputy director of NORML. He's seen similar moves in the U.S. "People who don't give a rat's ass about marijuana should care about stopping free discourse and gutting our First Amendment over the drug war," he says. "Those things should concern any freedom-loving American." Does St. Pierre toke up? "Indeed I do," he says proudly, as if he were taunting agents in the J. Edgar Hoover building a few blocks away. He says that his source of fine weed comes from "my peer group that's made up of legislative aides, lobbyists and government officials." St. Pierre adds that the U.S. has encountered similar bans: "Gerald Solomon [a Republican congressman from New York] in the last calendar year tried to ban discussions of drugs on the Internet." I suspect that many of the drug-addled legislative aides and government officials that St. Pierre scores from were at yesterday's House Science subcommittee briefing on the administration's encryption policies. There William Reinsch, undersecretary of commerce for export administration, and Dorothy Denning, professor of computer science at Georgetown University and sometime Clipper Chick, teamed up to defend the crypto export embargo. Reinsch said the Commerce Department is "on-track" to issue regulations by January 1 that will tell U.S. firms how to export crypto products under new rules announced earlier this month. "We hope to begin the consultation process with industry tomorrow," he said. The regulations are the next step after President Clinton signed an executive order on November 15 permitting companies to export slightly more advanced encryption products -- as long as the feds have access to the secret keys used to scramble files and communications. To justify this "key recovery" technology, Reinsch laid it on thick: "We're talking about terrorists, international drug smugglers and the like." That's why, he said, the U.S. is stepping up international efforts to persuade other countries to change their laws and move toward a key recovery framework. If that happens, Reinsch said, "we'll have a world where [key] recovery products are the rule rather than the exception." In truth, Reinsch's comments -- ably rebutted by fellow panelist Phil Zimmermann of PGP Inc. -- are nothing new. Administration spokesmen have used similar arguments for years to justify a parade of key escrow policies and products. This time, however, Congress is paying attention. Yesterday's briefing room swelled with congressional aides. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) has pledged to reintroduce his Pro-CODE bill in the 105th Congress. Even Bob Dole got crypto-religion, however briefly, earlier this year. After the briefing, I shared a taxi with Alan Davidson from the Center for Democracy and Technology. He told me that public events like this one are an "inoculation" against a worst-case scenario: a terrorist attack that involves encrypted communications. He's right. I can imagine FBI director Louis Freeh on the Hill now, calling for a ban on all non-escrowed crypto. Educating Congress on the very real benefits of encryption is a tedious process, but an absolutely vital one -- and perhaps best surmounted after a sedative serving of Thanksgiving turkey. ###