IP: IF you only knew what I know

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 18:34:23 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Dan Gillmor <dgillmor@sjmercury.com>
>To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>
>http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg053099.htm
>
>IF you only knew what I know . . .
>
>That line is the essence of something powerful and disturbing in our
>society. It's a line that can't be refuted, because you can't prove a
>negative. It justifies secrecy. It shields lies. It muddles trust.
>
>``If you only knew what I know,'' say law-enforcement officials when they
>insist that encryption, the scrambling of data to keep it from prying
>eyes, is so dangerous that we may have to bar Americans from holding
>private conversations online.
>
>And it's what U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach, is saying when
>he asks us to take at face value a report made public last week by a
>committee he chaired, the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and
>Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. The
>scary tales of nuclear-weapons spying almost certainly will be used to
>justify new restrictions on the export of technology.