🚀 go-pugleaf

Ed Hamrick raises the new question of whether a book available at
B. Dalton's, which contains the DES code, is exportable.

From memory, I think at the time of the Pentagon Papers case, and again
when some "little" magazine published plans for building your own
A-bomb, the courts ruled that prior restraint was not permitted, but
that the government was free to act after publication.

If my memory is accurate, wouldn't that permit prosecution (if the
government for some reason wanted to do so) of anyone who exported
the book?

If Ed wants to pursue this, an interesting and amusing experiment
would be to call the book's publisher and ask if they will fulfill
prepaid mail orders for that book from outside COCOM countries--say
Iraq or Cuba or the PRC.

David
-- 
David Sternlight
RIPEM Public Key on server  --  Consider it an envelope for your e-mail