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["Christian Stalberg" <cstalberg AT develop.net>]

fascinating...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Guerra" <rguerra AT yahoo.com>
To: <cpsr-activists AT cpsr.org>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 7:27 PM
Subject: Zimmerman replies to misquotes in the Post (fwd)


> No Regrets About Developing PGP
> 
> The Friday September 21st Washington Post carried an article by Ariana
> Cha that I feel misrepresents my views on the role of PGP encryption
> software in the September 11th terrorist attacks. She interviewed me on
> Monday September 17th, and we talked about how I felt about the
> possibility that the terrorists might have used PGP in planning their
> attack. The article states that as the inventor of PGP, I was
> "overwhelmed with feelings of guilt". I never implied that in the
> interview, and specifically went out of my way to emphasize to her that
> that was not the case, and made her repeat back to me this point so that
> she would not get it wrong in the article. This misrepresentation is
> serious, because it implies that under the duress of terrorism I have
> changed my principles on the importance of cryptography for protecting
> privacy and civil liberties in the information age.
> 
> Because of the political sensitivity of how my views were to be
> expressed, Ms. Cha read to me most of the article by phone before she
> submitted it to her editors, and the article had no such statement or
> implication when she read it to me. The article that appeared in the
> Post was significantly shorter than the original, and had the
> abovementioned crucial change in wording. I can only speculate that her
> editors must have taken some inappropriate liberties in abbreviating my
> feelings to such an inaccurate soundbite.
> 
> In the interview six days after the attack, we talked about the fact
> that I had cried over the heartbreaking tragedy, as everyone else did.
> But the tears were not because of guilt over the fact that I developed
> PGP, they were over the human tragedy of it all. I also told her about
> some hate mail I received that blamed me for developing a technology
> that could be used by terrorists. I told her that I felt bad about the
> possibility of terrorists using PGP, but that I also felt that this was
> outweighed by the fact that PGP was a tool for human rights around the
> world, which was my original intent in developing it ten years ago. It
> appears that this nuance of reasoning was lost on someone at the
> Washington Post. I imagine this may be caused by this newspaper's staff
> being stretched to their limits last week.
> 
> In these emotional times, we in the crypto community find ourselves
> having to defend our technology from well-intentioned but misguided
> efforts by politicians to impose new regulations on the use of strong
> cryptography. I do not want to give ammunition to these efforts by
> appearing to cave in on my principles. I think the article correctly
> showed that I'm not an ideologue when faced with a tragedy of this
> magnitude. Did I re-examine my principles in the wake of this tragedy?
> Of course I did. But the outcome of this re-examination was the same as
> it was during the years of public debate, that strong cryptography does
> more good for a democratic society than harm, even if it can be used by
> terrorists. Read my lips: I have no regrets about developing PGP.
> 
> The question of whether strong cryptography should be restricted by the
> government was debated all through the 1990's. This debate had the
> participation of the White House, the NSA, the FBI, the courts, the
> Congress, the computer industry, civilian academia, and the press. This
> debate fully took into account the question of terrorists using strong
> crypto, and in fact, that was one of the core issues of the debate.
> Nonetheless, society's collective decision (over the FBI's objections)
> was that on the whole, we would be better off with strong crypto,
> unencumbered with government back doors. The export controls were lifted
> and no domestic controls were imposed. I feel this was a good decision,
> because we took the time and had such broad expert participation. Under
> the present emotional pressure, if we make a rash decision to reverse
> such a careful decision, it will only lead to terrible mistakes that
> will not only hurt our democracy, but will also increase the
> vulnerability of our national information infrastructure.
> 
> PGP users should rest assured that I would still not acquiesce to any
> back doors in PGP.
> 
> It is noteworthy that I had only received a single piece of hate mail on
> this subject. Because of all the press interviews I was dealing with, I
> did not have time to quietly compose a carefully worded reply to the
> hate mail, so I did not send a reply at all. After the article appeared,
> I received hundreds of supportive emails, flooding in at two or three
> per minute on the day of the article.
> 
> I have always enjoyed good relations with the press over the past
> decade, especially with the Washington Post. I'm sure they will get it
> right next time.
> 
> The article in question appears at
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1234-2001Sep20.html
> 
> -Philip Zimmermann
> 24 September 2001
> 
> 
> (This letter may be widely circulated)
> 
> 
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
> 
> 
> 
> Robert Guerra <rguerra AT yahoo.com>
> WWW: http://www.geocities.com/rguerra/
> 
>