fighting the clipper initiative here are some ideas for those of you who want to oppose the white house clipper chip crypto initiative i think this is going to be a tough measure to fight since the government has invested a lot of resources in developing this high profile initiative they are serious about it now it won t be as easy as it was defeating senate bill in possible actions to take in response mobilize your friends to to all the things on this list and more work the press talk with your local newspaper s science and technology reporter write to your favorite trade rags better yet write some articles yourself for your favorite magazines or newspapers explain why the clipper chip initiative is a bad idea remember to tailor it to your audience the general public may be slow to grasp why it s a bad idea since it seems so technical and arcane and innocent sounding try not to come across as a flaming libertarian paranoid extremist even if you are one lobby congress write letters and make phone calls to your member of congress in your own district as well as your two us senators many members of congress have aides that advise them of technology issues talk to those aides involve your local political parties the libertarian party would certainly be interested there are also libertarian wings of the democrat and republican parties the right to privacy has a surprisingly broad appeal spanning all parts of the political spectrum we have many natural allies the aclu the nra other activist groups that may someday find themselves facing a government that can suppress them much more efficiently if these trends play themselves out but you must articulate our arguments well if you want to draw in people who are not familiar with these issues contribute money to the electronic frontier foundation eff and computer professionals for social responsibility cpsr assuming these groups will fight this initiative they need money for legal expenses and lobbying mobilize opposition in industry companies that will presumably develop products that will incorporate the clipper chip should be lobbied against it from within and from without if you work for a telecommunications equipment vendor first enlist the aid of your coworkers and fellow engineers against this initiative and then present your company s management with a united front of engineering talent against this initiative write persuasive memos to your management with your name and your colleagues names on it hold meetings on it publicize deploy and entrench as much guerrilla techno monkeywrenching apparatus as you can that means pgp anonymous mail forwarding systems based on pgp pgp key servers etc the widespread availability of this kind of technology might also be used as an argument that it can t be effectively suppressed by government action i will also be working to develop new useful tools for these purposes be prepared to engage in an impending public policy debate on this topic we don t know yet how tough this fight will be so we may have to compromise to get most of what we want if we can t outright defeat it we may have to live with a modified version of this clipper chip plan in the end so we d better be prepared to analyze the government s plan and articulate how we want it modified philip zimmermann
