[tor-talk] Non-free country law preventing Tor from getting donations

Joe Btfsplk joebtfsplk at gmx.com
Sun Jun 15 00:29:44 UTC 2014


On 6/14/2014 5:50 PM, krishna e bera wrote:
> On 14-06-14 01:00 PM, Collin Anderson wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 10:07 AM, Joe Btfsplk <joebtfsplk at gmx.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not a legal or embargo rules expert, but I wonder if an embargoed
>>> country or individuals in it, giving money to a non-profit for which they
>>> receive nothing valuable, or that benefits the country financially,
>>> militarily or politically, actually violates the spirit of embargo laws.
>>>
>> Not only the spirit but the actual law. I would not touch the money no
>> matter how substantial.
> When exporting crypto from USA was illegal, the FreeS/WAN project moved
> all development to countries with less repressive regimes[0].  That was
> fine for a civilian-funded effort but perhaps wont work well for Tor
> Project.
>
> What about forming an international consortium to shepherd Tor, so that
> developments can come from and be funded in multiple jurisdictions?
> This would also remove some of the odour that any US-based project emits
> on international and virtual streets.
>
> [0] http://www.freeswan.org/freeswan_trees/freeswan-1.5/doc/exportlaws.html
Nah, that would make too much sense.

When politicians want to take illegal contributions or gifts, they find 
a way around rules & have done so for 1000's of yrs.

According to some reports, Google has been the 2nd largest "spender" on 
Capitol Hill, for the last 2? yrs.  They get what they want & (usually) 
do what they want, because of handing out "free pens" to Congress.

It's OK for an organization dedicated to providing anonymity to protect 
users - everywhere, in no small part from various gov't agencies, to 
take major funding from... a gov't agency.  Yet, that organization can't 
take *private* donations from a country w/ embargo restrictions.  Don't 
make no sense, Jethro.


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