Forbes says he'll ditch all crypto export controls

[mea culpa <jericho () DIMENSIONAL COM>]

Forwarded From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,33049,00.html

        Forbes, the Privacy Candidate
        by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
        11:40 a.m. 17.Dec.1999 PST

        WASHINGTON -- If you're the kind of
        person who frets about ever-eroding
        privacy rights, Steve Forbes wants to be
        your president.

        In the first campaign speech by any
        presidential candidate on the topic, the
        publishing luminary left nothing to the
        imagination: Voracious databases know
        more about you than your mother does,
        and the Clinton administration is
        particularly to blame.

        "Bit by bit, day by day, we are being
        seduced by politicians promising security
        as they take away our sovereignty,
        promising prosperity as they gnaw away
        at our privacy," Forbes told a crowd at
        the conservative Free Congress
        Foundation on Thursday afternoon.

        Hearing someone grouse about Bill Clinton
        and Al Gore at a Free Congress
        Foundation event is about as remarkable
        as a Macy's post-holiday sale, but Forbes'
        plan to muzzle federal infocrats is one
        that even the ACLU can cheer.

        [...]

        Much of Forbes' speech was devoted to
        how the executive branch is "engaged in
        the greatest assault" on privacy in the
        history of the United States, a claim the
        Clinton administration dismissed on Friday
        as campaign hyperbole.

        [...]

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