European users of PGP may also make contributions to the fund, as
described in the following message posted to alt.security.pgp. Note
that this fund is not endorsed or managed by the people managing the
real legal defense fund; it is intended as a medium for Europeans (and
others) to be able to contribute to the fund easily.
- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
This is a call for donations to support Philip Zimmermann, the
author of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), directed especially to the
european users.
To avoid the large bank fees when transferring money
to the
United States or when issuing checks to overseas, I have established
an european legal trust fund for your convenience. First of all, I'd
like to inform you what this legal trust fund is all about in the
first place. If you already know Phil's situation, you might skip the
quoted message below. I am using parts of the "request for donations"
as it was posted by Philip Dubois, Zimmermann's lawyer.
| As you may already know, on September 14 LEMCOM Systems (ViaCrypt)
| in Phoenix, Arizona was served with a subpoena issued by the US
| District Court of Northern California to testify before a grand
| jury and produce documents related to "ViaCrypt, PGP, Philip
| Zimmermann, and anyone or any entity acting on behalf of Philip
| Zimmermann for the time period June 1, 1991 to the present."
|
| Phil Zimmermann has been explicitly told that he is the primary
| target of the investigation being mounted from the San Jose office
| of U.S. Customs. It is not known if there are other targets.
| Whether
or not an indictment is returned in this case, the legal
| bills will be astronomical.
|
| If this case comes to trial, it will be one of the most important
| cases in recent times dealing with cryptography, effective
| communications privacy, and the free flow of information and ideas
| in cyberspace in the post-Cold War political order. The stakes are
| high, both for those of us who support the idea of effective
| personal communications privacy and for Phil, who risks jail for
| his selfless and successful effort to bring to birth "cryptography
| for the masses," a.k.a. PGP. Export controls are being used as a
| means to curtail domestic access to effective cryptographic tools:
| Customs is taking the position that posting cryptographic code to
| the Internet is equivalent to exporting it. Phil has assumed the
| burden and risk of being the first to develop truly effective tools
| with which we all might secure our communications against prying
| eyes, in a political environment increasingly hostile to such an
| idea -- an environment in which Clipper chips and Digital Telephony
| bills are our own government's answer to our concerns. Now is the
| time for us all to step forward and help shoulder that burden with
| him.
|
| Phil is assembling a legal defense team to prepare for the
| possibility of a trial, and he needs your help. This will be an
| expensive affair, and the meter is already ticking. I call on all
| of us, both here in the U.S. and abroad, to help defend Phil and
| perhaps establish a groundbreaking legal precedent. A legal trust
| fund has been established with Phil's attorney in Boulder.