Re: PGP in the US (Re: formal documents)
john@dhh.gt.org writes:
> Kikutani Makoto writes:
> > I'm a Japanese living in the United States, but not a permanent
> > resident. I've heared that the usage of PGP in the States by a person
> > like me is controversial.
>
> You heard wrong. Your nationality and residency status is irrelevant.
Well, not entirely irrelevant, though not really important for this case.
It might not be legal for someone to give him PGP or explain how crypto works
even while he's in the US. However, Japan is not exactly a big terrorist
nation and this is weakest part of the whole thing as far as first amendment
violations goes. The government has not to my knowedge even threatened to
apply this part anywhere, and many universities with foreign grad students
would line up to help defend someone prosecuted on such a basis.
In any case it wouldn't be you breaking the law, but the person helping you
use PGP. But really, i wouldn't worry about this, the only things the
government or the patent holders are likely to worry about are export of
crypto and significant commercial use of RSA, respectively.
So the safe thing to do is use pgp-us while in the US, and delete it from your
computer before leaving the US.
(that said, i'm not a lawyer and don't blame me if i'm wrong)
greg
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