Subject: Re: Releases
To: None <kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil, proff@iq.org>
From: Ross Harvey <ross@ghs.com>
List: tech-crypto
Date: 10/18/1999 16:27:58
It is most definitely NOT legal to export anything to prohibited regions
simply because you bounce it through a permitted one.
Your state of mind isn't much of a defense, either. They don't have to
prove you knew it would happen, since it is your responsibility to understand
who you are shipping to. Your state of mind is hard to prove and would
probably only affect your sentence, not the fact of the BXA violation. (And
it's really a shame that you can be convicted of a felony for which there
is no statute enacted by a legislature, just rules written by bureaucrats.)
While I don't think that the us dept of injustice cares in the slightest
about netbsd, and I don't care how aggressive or daring the netbsd strategy
is or is not, please try not to make the old and completely incorrect
argument that bouncing crypto through Canada is in any remote way a hole
in the BXA regs.
And I would strongly urge you not to place much stock in technicality
defenses. Don't believe the Reader's Digest "we need more of a police state"
propaganda that claims defendants are frequently going free on technicality
defenses.
The actual fact is that in the USA, conviction rates are ~~ 95% and we lead
the *entire world* in the percentage of citizen population incarcerated.
"Stay out of court in post-1984 America".
ross.harvey@computer.org