June 25, 1999

The Honorable Ben Gilman
Chairman, House Committee on International Relations
2170 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Gilman,

I am writing to express the support of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for lifting the current US government export controls on encryption and our opposition to measures that would maintain or increase controls. AAAS is the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and has been a leader in the scientific community for using science and technology in the service of human rights. As an organization on the front lines of defending human rights around the world, we are concerned that maintaining or, worse, increasing current government regulation of cryptography would endanger human rights activists, and gravely compromise freedom of expression and privacy worldwide.

The growth of a global human rights movement is indebted to the communications revolution; telephone lines and computers have linked defenders, governments and media worldwide. Once abuses and eyewitness testimonies are recorded, stored and transmitted by computer, they become at once more valuable and more vulnerable. In the hands of human rights activists, this information can swiftly expose atrocities and mobilize international and public responses. But in the hands of abusive police or military agents, computer information of this kind can be used to target and intimidate those who try to speak out against their oppressors.

Every year human rights activists are killed, tortured, disappeared and jailed for trying to expose horrendous abuses. Researchers use encryption to protect themselves, the victims and eyewitnesses they are interviewing, and human rights colleagues around the world when they communicate sensitive information on grave abuses of human rights. It is critical not only that U.S.-based human rights activists have access to encryption when they are abroad, but also that they can share encryption software with colleagues in repressive states who may then communicate securely.

However, U.S. government export regulations treat cryptographic technologies as threats to national security and public safety, rather than valuable tools for protecting political dissidents, human rights defenders, persecuted religious minorities, and the like. The current policy allows export of strong mass market encryption products only if they have special features ensuring government access to the plaintext of encrypted data. The effect of such export controls is to limit the availability of strong encryption at home and abroad.

Moreover, proposals have been under consideration for several years to require even domestic U.S. products to have a guaranteed form of plaintext access. If such a system were enacted in this country, no non-U.S. human rights groups could be expected to trust any encrypted communication with their U.S. colleagues. The danger is that sensitive information could be accessed and inadvertently communicated to other governments with which the U.S. cooperates, for example, through intelligence sharing or mutual assistance in law enforcement. There would be a terrible irony if this country were to stand out among democracies as a climate inhospitable to the sharing of sensitive human rights information.

Without strong cryptography, human rights workers will be even more vulnerable to censorship and reprisal. We therefore urge you to support the widespread availability of strong, unbreakable encryption.

Sincerely,

Richard S. Nicholson
Executive Officer

This letter was also sent to:

For more information, contact: Patrick Ball, Directorate for Science and Policy Programs, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005; (202) 326-6600; Fax (202) 289-4950; pball@aaas.org.