FC: More on House armed services committee and crypto

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[In fairness to the House armed services cmte members, this kind of inanity
is common everywhere in Congress. Reporters are trained, however, to pluck
out the most articulate phrases, so Congresscritters generally don't look
that stupid in news articles. But reading the transcripts gets you closer
to the truth. BTW Lucky is a cryptographer, Charles a technology writer and
author, and Tom a .com CEO, so they probably know what they're talking
about here. Unlike their elected officials. --DBM]

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Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 22:54:46 -0700
From: Lucky Green <shamrock () cypherpunks to>
Subject: RE: House armed services committee members tie crypto to kidnappings
To: declan () well com

LOL. Well, sort of... Actually, this transcript somewhat scares me. These
people are utter idiots. "Babbling" is definitely the word...

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Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 02:02:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <cp () sedona net>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: FC: House armed services committee members tie crypto to
kidnappings

Enjoyed your transcript of the words of our elected representatives. 
Reading this stuff, it makes me wonder how any political journalist can 
complain that someone such as Jesse Ventura is a "mere actor" who somehow 
lowers the intellectual tone of the establishment. Yet this was precisely 
the argument (presented as objective journalism, of course) in the main 
feature article in Newsweek a couple of weeks ago....

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From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt () hotmail com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: House armed services committee members tie crypto to
kidnappings
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 23:34:57 PDT

<sighs in despair>

Yeah, "lets break some knuckles"... I wonder what the Home Secretary and 
Prime Minister of Great Britain think of that comment...

... let's not even consider what India, the country which produced the most 
talented mathematical mind of the last century or two (and also happens to 
be filled with talented computer programmers), would have to say about any 
attempt on our part to "break some knuckles"...

inexpressibly stupid does not begin to describe this comment... babbling 
birdbrains is too kind of a description

Thomas

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Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 20:08:17 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: George Mason <masong002 () hawaii rr com>
Subject: Re: FC: House armed services committee members tie crypto to 
  kidnappings

Abercrombie is from my home state of Hawaii.  He used to make patronizing
gestures to the LP, especially about the draft and is considered far left.
At any rate, I found his and Kasich's comments not just birdbrained but
literally incomprehensible....

*******


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