Comment by zitterbewegung
3 years ago
He won a case against the government representing himself so I think he would be on good footing. He is a professor where I graduated and even the faculty told me he was interesting to deal with. Post QC is his main focus right now and also he published curve25519.
He was represented by the EFF during the first, successful case. They declined to represent him in the second case, which ended in a stalemate.
The full story is interesting and well documented: https://cr.yp.to/export.html
Personally my favorite part of the history is on the “Dishonest behavior by government lawyers” page: https://cr.yp.to/export/dishonesty.html - the disclaimer at the top is hilarious: “This is, sad to say, not a complete list.” Indeed!
Are you implying that he didn’t contribute to the first win before or during EFF involvement?
Are you further implying that a stalemate against the U.S. government is somehow bad for self representation after the EFF wasn’t involved?
In my view it’s a little disingenuous to call it a stalemate implying everything was equal save EFF involved when the government changes the rules.
He challenged the new rules alone because the EFF apparently decided one win was enough.
When the judge dismissed the case, the judge said said that he should come back when the government had made a “concrete threat” - his self representation wasn’t the issue. Do you have reason to believe otherwise?
To quote his press release at the time: ``If and when there is a concrete threat of enforcement against Bernstein for a specific activity, Bernstein may return for judicial resolution of that dispute,'' Patel wrote, after citing Coppolino's ``repeated assurances that Bernstein is not prohibited from engaging in his activities.'' - https://cr.yp.to/export/2003/10.15-bernstein.txt
I’m saying that the EFF are skilled lawyers who won a major case, and they should not be deprived of credit for that accomplishment.
4 replies →