13 January 1999

    To: cypherpunks-announce@toad.com, cryptography@c2.net, gnu@toad.com
    Subject: Watch the gov't discuss crypto policy Friday in Cupertino: PECSENC
    Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 02:21:45 -0800
    From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>

    PECSENC is a hard-to-parse acronym for the President's Export Council,
    Subcommittee on Encryption.  The Council is a group of assorted
    citizens appointed by the President of the US under Executive Order
    12991 to advise him on US trade issues.  Since crypto policy is so
    complex and painful, they pushed it into a subcommittee of its own.
    That subcommittee is meeting this Friday at HP in Cupertino.  They
    usually meet on the East Coast, far from most people affected by the
    crypto regulations, so I thought it would be friendly of us to show up
    and welcome them to Silicon Valley.

    I will be speaking at the meeting about the Wassenaar Arrangement, but
    that isn't why you should come.  You should come because this is one
    of the few public fora in which government and selected citizens
    actually discuss crypto policy.  Officially, and to advise the President.

    They faxed me 6 pages of maps and directions, but it all boils down
    to: Take I-280 to Cupertino, exit on Wolfe Road going north/east, turn
    right at the second light on Pruneridge Ave, turn left at the first
    light into the HP complex, go 200 feet and turn right at the "T"
    intersection, and follow to the last building on the left, Building
    46.  Park in the visitor lot in front, register at the reception desk
    and get a badge.  The room can hold about 60 people (of which about 30
    will be PECSENC and invited speakers.)

    There won't be an opportunity to rant, like there was a few years ago
    when the National Research Council invited public comments at the CFP
    conference.  (Perhaps they'll set one up for a future meeting -- I
    think it would be informative for them.)  But it's a chance to see the
    alice-in-wonderland workings of the government as they try to
    manipulate a supposedly independent advisory group into overlooking
    the emperor's nudity.  We may get a chance to make a few short, polite
    comments, though they've arranged the agenda so the public gets to
    comment *before* the government or the subcommittee says anything
    worth commenting about.

    Some of the people on the subcommittee should be well known to
    cypherpunks:

    	Stewart Baker, lawyer, ex-General Counsel of NSA, GAK cheerleader
    	Kevin McCurley, cryptographer, IBM Research, President of IACR
    		(IACR was established by Diffie, Chaum, Rivest, etc in the
    		'70s to protect and foster crypto research -- www.iacr.org)
    	Esther Dyson, business philosopher & author, EFF, ICANN Interim Chair
    	John Liebman, lawyer, author of major export control law tome
    	  (I'm leaving out ten or twenty people, mostly because the list
    	   isn't published anywhere online that I can find)

    [See http://209.122.145.150/PresidentsExportCouncil/PECSENC/pecsenc1.htm ]

    As part of their role in "supporting" the subcommittee's work, the
    government has published the driest and least fun-looking "Notice of
    Open Meeting" that the law will let them get away with:
    	http://www.bxa.doc.gov/tacs/PECSENCMtg.html
    However there is a juicier agenda which I received as a speaker:

      We have revised the schedule in light of certain timing constraints.  So,
      please note that the private sector discussion of Wassenaar will take
      place in the afternoon.  In addition to John Gilmore, PECSENC member Ira
      Rubenstein will address this topic.  (Lynn McNulty of RSA has been
      asked to offer remarks on RSA's experiences, too.)  Also, Whit Diffie will
      let us know shortly whether he will speak before the group.

      Here is the updated agenda:

      President's Export Council
      Subcommittee on Encryption
      January 15, 1998
      Pacific Ocean Room, Bldg. 46
      19447 Pruneridge Avenue
      Cupertino, California 95014

    9:00	Opening Comments/ 	Stewart Baker, Acting PECSENC Chairman
    	Discussion of List Server/
    	PECSENC's Role

    9:45	Public Comments

    10:00 	BXA Update	William A. Reinsch
    			Under Secretary for Export Administration

    10:30	Congressional Presentation	Representative Zoe Lofgren

    11:00	Briefings	The Wassenaar Arrangement and Ambassador Aaron's
    			Initiatives
    			James A. Lewis, Director
    			Office of Strategic Trade and Foreign Policy Controls
    			Bureau of Export Administration (BXA)
    			Michelle O'Neill
    			Executive Director to Ambassador David Aaron
    			International Trade Administration (ITA)

    12:00	Lunch for Members

    1:15	Briefings	Private Sector Perspective on the Wassenaar Arrangement
    			John Gilmore, Co-Founder, EFF
    			Ira Rubenstein, Senior Corporate Attorney, Microsoft

    2:00			Foreign Availability of Encryption Technology
    			Kevin McCurley, Ph.D., IBM

    2:30			What's New In Commercial Crypto
    			Dr. Taher Elgamal, CEO, Securify, Inc.
    			Dr. John Atalla, Chairman, Tristrata, Inc.

    4:00			Adjourn

    I encourage anyone from the Bay Area crypto community who cares about
    export controls on crypto to come observe the meeting, and participate
    in the discussions in the hallways.  Like attending hearings of the
    Bernstein case, open your costume box and pull out the business drag
    (suits & whatever businesswomen enjoy wearing these days).  Our role
    will be less to inform the meeting of anything in particular, and more
    to inform them by our quiet presence that lots of significant people
    care to watch exactly what they're doing with our civil rights.

    After watching how it operates and thinking for a bit, you might have
    some informed suggestions for the subcommittee, which can be sent to
    them by email.  As Thomas Pynchon said, "If they can get you to ask
    the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."  The
    Commerce Dept may have been all too successful at getting the
    subcommittee to focus on the wrong questions.  (E.g. before the DES
    Cracker announcement, they were debating whether to ask the President
    to decontrol DES -- a useless and counterproductive action which of
    course the government has just done.)  Just as the cypherpunks came up
    with some great questions to inform the Clipper debate, I'm sure we
    can come up with some meaty questions for the subcommittee to chew on,
    rather than the pap the gov't feeds them.

    If you have any further questions about PECSENC or the meeting, please
    contact:

    	Jason Gomberg
    	Encryption Policy Controls Division
    	Bureau of Export Administration
    	+1 202 482 1368
    	<JGOMBERG@bxa.doc.gov>

    I hope to see you-all there.

    	John Gilmore, Electronic Frontier Foundation

    PS:  Also, don't forget the cypherpunks meeting the following day, in
    rooms B1-B2 of the San Jose Convention Center, noon-6PM, Saturday 16Jan99.