LYNX-DEV SSL, Lynx & US Law

[Philip Webb]

looks like i've started something again
(like  browser.org  & availability-vs-programming).
this is a serious topic & i intended to raise it,
but we all need to keep the temperature below boiling point.

Mr McGee wrote 961209:
> Sounds sorta like you have a chip on your shoulder wrt US laws.
-- if so, it's the flip-side of the difficulty a lot of americans have
in understanding that canada isn't an extension of their own jurisdiction:
my examples of trade with cuba & the guy who got kidnapped by bounty-hunters
were glaring cases which came quickly to mind.  canadians in general do feel
very strongly on this issue, even tho' we tend to be a soft-spoken lot.

> The simple fact is, those of us who live in the US _ARE_ subject
> to US export laws even if we do disagree with them.
> Wise US citizens are unwilling to risk
> antagonizing federal officials who have already shown that they are quite
> happy to "make an example" of someone who didn't really do anything wrong,
> but just got involved in the issue. ... asking US citizens who have
> such to take the risk is pretty easy for you to do since you won't be the
> one who might loose everything they own defending the case.
-- fully understood & i've not asked americans to take risks
with their own laws or to break ours.  but the problem, if there is one,
lies at the us/canadian border, not at our borders with the rest of the World.

> 
> Let me assure you that many of us in the US are just as adamant as you in
> feeling that US law cannot practically be applied to the Internet, and 
> should not attempt to be so applied, but until our politicians and 
> lawmakers "pull their heads out", there is little we can do but lobby for
> more reasonable laws. Don't ask us to break or help you break those we
> are already subject to.
-- it is upto americans how far they choose to stick to lobbying
& how far they choose to test the legality/constitutionality
of us restrictions by ignoring them: i would certainly advise caution,
but it does seem to me that in the case of sending an encrypt-enabled lynx
to canada via the Net -- NB as far as i understand, it's simply `hooks'
in the source to allow encrypting code to be appended -- the distance
from sending missile parts to iraq is galactic & chances of apprehension,
let alone successful prosecution, just about nil (the Feds have to pay
their own lawyers too).

> One final thing. I have copies of Fote's SSL stuff. Don't ask me to send
> you copies, however, as I am not all that sure that either you might be
> plant by US export officials and I'd wake up the next day in jail, or that
> said officials might be monitoring this forum (plenty of things here to
> wake up their monitoring software) and I'd still wake up in jail. It just
> isn't worth that to me, nor, I suspect, to other US lynx-dev members.
-- now just read your paragraph again (i know we all loose off sometimes):
it really is paranoia, isn't it?  i'm not inviting you to, but it is easy
for you to make a couple of phone calls to find out that i'm who i sign
myself to be at the bottom of this.

-- there's a news item from Reuters in Yahoo today about Mr Zimmerman,
whose problems seem to lie at the back of some us thinking on this subject,
who is about to float a company to market the encryption software
for which he was harrassed by the us govt for several years.
unfortunately, the story repeats the fallacy i'm trying to expose
by saying that hi-level encryption can be used for e-mail thro'out the us
AND CANADA: if that is so, the restrictions claimed by the us govt are
on the same level as those of many totalitarian regimes who have tried
to dupe their citizens (Mr Filip, no relation, knows that 1st-hand).

pace Messrs Bonomi, Richardson & Zerucha -- who offer nothing concrete --
there is NOTHING in canada to restrict the export of encryption software
beyond a couple of vaguely-worded regulations, whose legality,
let alone constitutionality, is wide open to question, & whose enforcement
is in practice nil.  if this worries anyone from the rcmp etc, they should
clearly get their act together & persuade the canadian govt to introduce
legislation in parliament to rectify the problem.  of course, that might
provoke a storm of protest from canadian public opinion, & vague threats
of midnight raids & legal harrassment leading to bankruptcy might be
considered more effective in practice.

so i have to leave it to americans to decide how far they're being gulled
by enforcement-hype from their own govt, but the only question
they should be asking is whether they can legally export the software
from the us: once it's in canada -- given the excellent research
by the guy at mcmaster -- there's nothing in practice to restrict export
anywhere else except libya & iraq.
-- 
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