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Date: 2000-01-13

US-Krypto: Liberalisierung und Kritik


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ACLU, EFF und EPIC sagen, was da liberalisiert wurde ist
längst noch nicht genug.

Related stories:

http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/5683/1.html

http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=14979

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Civil Liberties Groups Say New Encryption Export
Regulations Still Have Serious Constitutional Deficiencies

Washington, DC -- Leading Internet civil liberties groups said
today that new encryption export regulations released by the
U.S. Commerce Department fall short of the Clinton
Administration's promise to deregulate the privacy-enhancing
technology. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) will continue to press their
Constitutional cases. These court cases seek to eliminate
U.S. government regulations that make Internet encryption
software and technology more cumbersome to publish or
send than the same items when published in other media.

While the Administration has taken a step in the right
direction with its latest revisions, the fundamental
constitutional defects of the encryption export regime have
not been remedied. Specifically:

- The new regulations, like the old ones, impose special
requirements on Internet speech, contrary to the Supreme
Court's 1997 ruling in Reno v. ACLU. The regulations require
that the government be notified of any electronic "export" of
publicly available encryption source code, and prohibit
electronic "export" to certain countries. Yet people may
freely send the same information anywhere on paper.

- The export regulations are still a completely discretionary
licensing scheme. They continue to require licenses for a
large amount of communication protected by the First
Amendment, including transmitting source code that is not
"publicly available," source code that is "restricted," source
code forming an "open cryptographic interface," and various
forms of object code.

- While the new regulations appear to permit free posting of
encryption source code to Internet discussion lists, such
posting may be illegal if the poster has 'reason to know' that
it will be read by a person in one of the seven regulated
countries (such as Cuba).

- The new regulations still ban providing information on how to
create or use some encryption technology as prohibited
"technical assistance." Software publishers can be fined or
imprisoned for helping people to use their code. These same
limitations do not apply to non-encryption source code.

The U.S. export control laws on encryption have been the
source of much legal wrangling for the past several years.
Encryption is a method for scrambling data in order to make
electronic communications more secure.

As more computer users employ encryption to protect the
privacy of their e-messages and documents, the U.S.
government has until now demanded guaranteed easy
access to the content of Internet communications.

In a well-publicized court case, mathematician Daniel J.
Bernstein has challenged the export control laws on
encryption on First Amendment grounds. Professor Bernstein
claims that his right to publish his own encryption software
and share his research results with others over the Internet is
being unconstitutionally restricted by the government's
controls. Bernstein won his case at the trial level, and won
an appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The
government asked that the appeal be reconsidered in light of
the new regulations, and a larger "en banc" panel of Ninth
Circuit judges will reconsider the case this spring.

A similar case challenging the constitutionality of the export
rules was brought by the ACLU of Ohio on behalf of Ohio law
professor Peter Junger, who wished to publish an electronic
version of an encryption program he wrote. The case is
pending in the Sixth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.

Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director for the ACLU, said, "The
rules are a step forward, but they are still too complex and
leave too many questions unanswered. Now that the
Administration has tacitly admitted that it can't and shouldn't
control the use of encryption, it should have announced a
simple deregulation, rather than regulatory maze."

"These First Amendment problems need to be fixed before
we can support the government here," commented EFF
attorney Shari Steele. "The government has made some
concessions, but they are not enough to make the
regulations constitutional. EFF will continue to support
Professor Bernstein as he presses on with his litigation."

According to EPIC General Counsel David Sobel, "The
revised rules will make it easier for commercial firms to
export and sell encryption products. While that is a positive
development, the government will still retain significant
control over this technology, to the detriment of efforts to
create a truly secure Internet. It's time to remove the
bureaucratic requirements and permit the free exchange of
encryption"

The American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org) is
the nation's largest and oldest civil liberties organization. In
its defense of the principles of the Bill of Rights, it advocates
for both free speech and privacy rights.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org) is a
leading global nonprofit organization linking technical
architectures with legal frameworks to support the rights of
individuals in an open society. Founded in 1990, EFF actively
encourages and challenges industry and government to
support free expression, privacy, and openness in the
information society. EFF maintains one of the most-linked-to
Web sites in the world.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center
(http://www.epic.org) is a non-profit research and advocacy
organization based in Washington, DC. It was established in
1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties
issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and
constitutional values in emerging communications media.

A copy of the latest encryption regulations can be found at:


http://www.epic.org/crypto/export_controls/regs_1_00.html

For more information about the Bernstein case, check out

http://www.eff.org/bernstein/

Press Contacts:

David Sobel, General Counsel, EPIC sobel@epic.org +1 202
544 9240

Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director, ACLU barrys@aclu.org
+1 212 549 2508

Cindy Cohn, Prof. Bernstein's attorney
cindy@mcglashan.com +1 650 341 2585

Shari Steele, Dir. of Legal Services, EFF ssteele@eff.org +1
301 283 2773


.



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edited by Harkank
published on: 2000-01-13
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