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US Encryption Export Policy Update
White House Chief of Staff John Podesta announced in July major new changes
that will relax US export controls on data encryption technology.
Podesta announced that American companies will now able to export encryption
products to anyone in the European Union, Australia, Norway, the Czech Republic,
Hungary, Poland, Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland, once they have turned
in a commodity classification request for their products to the Department of
Commerce. They no longer have to wait for a technical review to be completed.
Exporting to nations not covered by the above list still requires federal review.
Special restrictions still apply to exports to Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North
Korea, Sudan, Syria, and other sanctioned entities.
Podesta’s July announcement was the latest in a series of moves this year by
the Clinton administration to relax US policies in order to keep American companies
competitive in the encryption market. These changes, however, are also good
news for US human rights activists who use encryption or help human rights workers
in other countries obtain encryption technologies. Most readily available encryption
products, like PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, a widely used encryption package) may
be distributed in non-sanctioned countries once the products have been cleared
by the Commerce Department.
Updated regulations that went into effect in January allow cryptographers to
post encryption source code to the Internet, provided they supply the Commerce
Department with the code’s Internet address by the time it goes on-line.
The new encryption policies have been announced, but have not yet been formalized
as official regulations. For full information about the new encryption policies
and their status, visit the Bureau of Export Administration’s encryption web
page at http://www.bxa.doc.gov/encryption.
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