ccr@duke.UUCP (11/01/84)
I am posting this to the net to solicit comments on some legislation
that might affect your use of networks like USEnet, CSnet, and ARPAnet.
This information comes from a friend of mine who is a reporter assigned to
the Hunt/Helms senate race (N.C.). As part of her research, she obtained a
copy of a confidential draft of a bill prompted by the recent split of
ARPAnet. The bill will be submitted to the next session of Congress, and she
wanted me, as a computer scientist, to comment on the possible effects.
The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Helms and a member of the Communi-
cations Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, and would prohibit the use of non-secure data networks for the
transmission of research material retricted by the Department of Commerce
Controlled Commodities List. For those of you not familiar with the list, it
covers almost everything of interest in computer science.
I was outraged (to say the least), and told her this would probably
destroy the use of academic networks and greatly restrict the flow of research
information. Your comments would be appreciated (post comments to
net.followup; she will not use names in any news articles). I have already
written to Senator Helms (SD402, Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC,
20510). Helms is notorious for extreme right-wing views. There is no doubt
in my mind that he believes enough in this to follow through.
Carl Romano (ccr@duke)ccr@duke.UUCP (11/01/84)
ommuni-
cations Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, and would prohibit the use of non-secure data networks for the
transmission of research material retricted by the Department of Commerce
Controlled Commodities List. For those of you not familiar with the list, it
covers almost everything of interest in computer science.
I was outraged (to say the least), and told her this would probably
destroy the use of academic networks and greatly restrict the flow of research
information. Your comments would be appreciated (post comments to net.followup;
she will not use names in any news articles). I have already written to Senator
Helms (SD402, Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510). Helms is
notorious for extreme right-wing views. There is no doubt in my mind that he
believes enough in this to follow through.
Carl Romano (ccr@duke)djw@imsvax.UUCP (Donald Whytock) (11/05/84)
To a certain degree, I can see their point. After all, USENET DOES stretch
from Frisco to Australia, going the long way. It makes a certain amount of
sense that the government would want to restrict some of the flow of research
data, much of which is government-funded, from travelling by word-of-electronic
mouth all around the equator. There is a sense of it being almost TOO easy
to post information worldwide. ("Hey, Amsterdam, wanna buy a '69 Chevy?")
However, perhaps there are better methods than curtailing the net as a whole.
Things which are not fit for academic exchanges over conventional channels
(tech journals, exchange programs, mail, etc.) are probably not fit for
USENET either; therefore, perhaps, limiting the spread of information can
be performed at the individual net-site (which, after all, is easier than
policing the net).
Alternately, it may be time to lobby for changes to the Department of
Commerce's list, in view of what is now worldwide public knowledge. Has
anyone got a copy of the list that can be posted?
Don Whytock
...!allegra!umcp-cs!eneevax!imsvax!djwearlw@pesnta.UUCP (Earl Wallace) (11/05/84)
How could the Government interfere with USENET? This is a free Nation
and "We the People" control the Government...... right?
I guess writing about the internals of a Computer is restricted information
and could cause death and destruction to all mankind?
Maybe the Government should encourage communications between people instead
of putting up barriers all the time. Would the U.S. be were it is today if
only the "top-secret" cleared scientists were able to exchange information on
advanced topics and the rest of us "uncleared" personnel could only talk about
new ways of preparing meatloaf salads?
All I can thing of now is the phrase "divide and conquer". Divide the People
by preventing them from communicating to each other, then pass laws that are
very complex and require a group effort to understand, then the Nation is
yours to command. Next step is to make it illegal to transmit any computer
information over a phone line without a special "export" license since its
so easy to dial up a site outside the U.S. and "dump" all those secrets...
maintain some sort
of technoligical lead in the World. Or we can continue to shut down comm-paths
until each person is only allowed to talk to one other person. We can have
word-of-mouth communication and soon we will be eating out of stone bowls and
hunting for food with our bare hands.
--
Earl Wallace
UUCP: ..!{ihnp4, ucbvax!hplabs, ucbvax!twg}!pesnta!earlw
PHONE: (408) 727-5540 x230
USMAIL: Perkin-Elmer Corp., Santa Clara, Calif. 95054jaap@haring.UUCP (11/06/84)
Don't be afraid, maybe your government won't allow you to use USEnet anymore, but if you are lucky, you can always make a phone call to the rest of the world. jaap
rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (11/13/84)
> I guess writing about the internals of a Computer is restricted information > and could cause death and destruction to all mankind? More likely, the worry is that it would interfere with the development of our ability to cause death and destruction better than anyone else! > Maybe the Government should encourage communications between people instead > of putting up barriers all the time. Would the U.S. be were it is today if > only the "top-secret" cleared scientists were able to exchange information on > advanced topics and the rest of us "uncleared" personnel could only talk about > new ways of preparing meatloaf salads? A particularly good point. There seems to be an increasingly large faction in our government which is madly possessive of our "scientific knowledge" and "technological superiority" - and the less they understand it, the more possessive they are. I'm afraid we're working full-time to shut down science in the U.S. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.