Reply From: Chris Wilson <cmw32@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
[...snip...]
> Raising no complaints were representatives from the House and Senate
> Intelligence committees, who showed up yesterday to argue for strict
> crypto restrictions. "We cannot subject national security and public
> safety to the whims of the marketplace," said Patrick Murray, chief
> counsel to House Intelligence. "Without access to plaintext, that
> information will remain unavailable to law enforcement. Investigations
> will cease. Criminals will remain on the street." Pedophiles, he
> complained, could hide their "child pornography" with impunity.
I think most of us have heard this argument before. What does child
pornography have to do with encryption anyway? There's nobody out there
(that we know of) reading every single picture sent over the Net to check
whether or not it's child pornography. What does matter is the First
Amendment and the fact that whatever these "paedophiles" are doing with
their Internet connections is about as much business of ours as what
Patrick Murray does with his, i.e. none at all. I don't support
paedophilia but I believe that paedophiles are as much human beings and
have as much right to enjoy themselves without hurting others as every
one of us.
However, that is not the point. The point is that yet again, the
Government is trying to use emotional blackmail to cloud a technical
issue, just as they did two weeks ago when they claimed that strong
cryptography would result in loss of life (and, curiously, that banning
strong cryptography would somehow alleviate the situation, as if
terrorists could care less about encryption laws).
Incidentally, I wonder if the thought occurred to Mr Murray that it might
be better to allow paedophiles to satisfy themselves with their
pornography than to make them desparate enough to go out and find some
child to satisfy themselves?
___ __ _
/'__// / ,__(_)_ Wilson <Chris.Wilson@fitz.cam.ac.uk>
/ (_ / ,\/ _/ /_ \ Webmaster/SysAdmin/Timelord/BOFH/Programmer
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Received on Mon Jun 29 10:25:06 1998