[free-sklyarov] RFC: draft to Putin

[Rob McGee]

Please comment, both on the specifics of the letter as well as on the
idea of soliciting Russian aid to our cause. Is this best aimed at Putin
or should I address it to the Russian ambassador? (Or to someone I
haven't thought of?)

My own comment, even before I have this thing finished, is that perhaps
I should just provide URL's to sites (in Russian, preferably) which
explain the details of the case. I would expect by now that he is at
least aware of it.

What about the Russian protocol of patronymic names? Shouldn't I be
talking about "Dmitri HisDadovich" instead of just "Dmitri"? So who's
his dad? For that matter, what about Katalov and Putin himself?

Re: Katalov and Elcomsoft: Is it Vladimir? Is that the best e-mail for
him? Does he have a Russian-language site? (If so I couldn't find it at
www.elcomsoft.com.)

Re: Robin and EFF: Is there another US coordination person, preferably
one capable of communicating in Russian?

Thanks,
    Rob - /dev/rob0

________________________________________________________________________
To: Vladimir V. Putin, President, Russian Federation <president at gov.ru>
From: Rob McGee <SerrQzvgev at zxmail.com>
Subject: USA prosecution of Dmitri Sklyarov

Dear Mr. President,

First, please accept my apologies for being unable to address you in
your native language. I was born in the USA and have lived all my life
here, where the education systems tend to ignore the importance of
teaching foreign languages.

While only incidental, that serious oversight of US education may help
serve to explain the attitudes of Americans and of their legal system.
Most people I know in the USA seem to think that the USA *is* the world;
if there is anything of significance is outside it, it exists only to be
exploited by Americans.

Dmitri Sklyarov, a young father from Moscow, who is a doctoral candidate
at Bauman Moscow State Technical University, is employed at Elcomsoft
(http://www.elcomsoft.com/). In his work there (also related to his
doctoral studies), he discovered glaring weaknesses in the security of
the eBook format, created and sold by Adobe Systems of San Jose,
California, USA. (In marketing literature aimed at electronic publishers
Adobe claimed their eBooks were "100% secure".)

Using Dmitri's research, Elcomsoft created a program which allows an
eBook user to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the eBook software.
Called "AEBPR", this software does nothing to promote piracy; it merely
enables eBook users to exercise their traditional rights of fair use,
such as making copies for backup or use on other computers or under
operating systems not supported by Adobe's eBook reader software. The
Moscow-based Elcomsoft offered it for sale on the Internet for US$100,
which is well above the price of a typical eBook. Clearly, this is not a
tool for theft or piracy.

Dmitri was invited to the DefCon conference (for computer security
professionals) in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and asked to give a presenta-
tion on the poor security of Adobe's eBook format. He did that, and was
arrested under the terms of a new and unjust law, the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA). He has been denied bail, and has been imprisoned
for more than two weeks now.

The act of giving a speech is protected under the US Constitution's
First Amendment. Unfortunately, we in the USA cannot expect our
Congress, our law enforcement officials, nor our judicial system to
uphold the Constitution. The prosecuting attorney in this case (David
Shapiro, acting US Attorney for the Northern District of California) has
shown no willingness to relent from this cruel, unjust and unwise
action. If the legal process goes on at its usual slow pace, Dmitri will
be kept from his home and his family for months before he even comes to
trial. The outcome of the trial is far from certain; in fact, my
personal guess is that he will be convicted and given the maximum
penalty under law (five years in prison and a US$500,000 fine.) While in
prison, he could possibly be subjected to civil litigation which could
cost him everything he owns, and more than the meager amounts which have
been raised through donations.

You, sir, are certainly more familiar with Russian law than are those of
us in the small community of Americans who are working to help Dmitri.
It is our understanding that the research he performed was perfectly
legal where he did it, in Russia. The resulting AEBPR software gives
users their fair use rights, which we understand are guaranteed under
your law.

And this is why I am writing to you, and asking that your government
join in our efforts to help Dmitri. Quite simply, the USA is not a safe
place for Russians. Your law-abiding citizens may be imprisoned while
visiting the USA, if the US FBI (or any of thousands of local law
enforcement authorities) suspects them of violating *American* laws
while at home in Russia.

This is an egregious infringement on your national sovereignty, and a
flagrant violation of established protocols in international law. As a
responsible member of the United Nations and the world community, you
have a compelling interest in discouraging this kind of behavior by the
USA.

Finally I want to address the humanitarian issues. Like Dmitri, I am the
father of two young children. He and they are missing out on these very
important early years, which of course can never be recovered. Those
children need their father, and he needs to be with them. American
supporters have offered to raise funds for his family's travel and
lodging in the USA, but Dmitri's wife Oksana has very wisely refused the
offer, probably out of fear for her safety. (At least while she remains
in Russia she can be fairly certain that her children will be with their
mother.)

Please act to help Dmitri. You, sir, are probably in the best position
to be able to help him return home. You can get the attention of
President Bush -- we have been rebuffed by low-level officials. This
being a Federal prosecution rather than a local one, it is within his
direct Constitutional and statutory authority to put an immediate end to
this travesty of justice.

I am willing to do what I can to assist you if you should consider my
request. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to do much; I am not even
an official representative of any of the organizations for Dmitri. For
more information and coordination with US-based support groups, I ask
you to contact Robin Gross of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(http://www.eff.org/) at 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
USA, e-mail: robin at eff.org, voice: 1.415.863.5459, facsimile:
1.415.436.9993 (English language). For information and coordination with
Dmitri and his family, you could contact Vladimir Katalov (in Russian)
at travel at elcomsoft.com. There is also a good bilingual information site
with a Russian-language mailing list at http://ezhe.ru/elcomsoft/ .

I thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I wish you and
Russia the best. I am sure you realize that not all Americans are in
support of the US Government, which has grown far beyond democratic and
Constitutional control.

Sincerely,
    Rob McGee
    My Town, State, USA