Subject: RE: [Raven] What IS acceptable

From: "Adam Rabblerouser" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:08:51 EST

>Well Adam, I suggest you go read the writings of Thomas Jefferson, perhaps
>the Federalist papers or even the Rights Of Man to get an understanding of
>the trade-offs between the rights of an individual vs. those of society.
>Maybe after that you'll stop having the knee-jerk reaction that the
>government is the right solution to every problem to one that is more
>considerate.
Well Chuck, as I recall, intecepting dispatches was quite common
in Jefferson's time.  He didn't advocate getting rid of such
practices.

The gummit isn't the answer to all problems.  It's just a tool
society uses to deal with the reality that we all don't behave
nicely towards one another.  We balance the right of individuals
against the rights of society so that we all enjoy "life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness", to use a parochial term.  If some
scuz kills my wife, she kinda looses her rights, wouldn't cha say?
We have a few thousand years experience with intercept.  It's
a mixed bag, but it's mighty damn hard to say that on balance
it's a totally bad thing.  On balance we've put more bad guys in the slammer
than we've trampled on someone else's rights.  That is why the laws
exist, why they have not been struck down by the courts, and why
the folks we elect keep passing new ones on us.  If y'all want to
change them laws, why go right out and campaign for it.  Meantime,
I'd sure appreciate you obeying them.

>  As to your point about the parents of children, you are barking up the
>wrong tree. As some one that has three children that regularly use the
>Internet, I do not defer my rights to control my children to either the
>government or any piece of software (or technology). It is my belief that I
>need to educate my children to think and act for themselves and be
>responsible than to rely on the 'good will' of the government or some piece
>of technology.
Yeah, right.  Just what do you think you would do if it happened to
you?  Tell your kids "I told you so"?  You REALLY think your teenagers are 
different from all the rest, and they can tell
who's a scum, and wouldn't go meet someone who sounded way
cool and .....  You want to tell the parents of the kid
it happened to that they were bad parents and should have taught their
kids better?  You make me puke.

Adam

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From: "C. Wegrzyn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:29:45 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: Adam Rabblerouser <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 10:08 AM
Subject: RE: [Raven] What IS acceptable

> in Jefferson's time.  He didn't advocate getting rid of such

True you are. But these were dispatches between government and government
officials and not individuals which is what is being suggested here.

> I'd sure appreciate you obeying them.

The problem is in the hurdles one puts on a government to stop the abuse of
rights. With electronic technology, and the decreasing cost to deploy it, it
becomes easier to patently infringe on the rights of individuals by people
in power. So if deployment is easy and not very costly, then one must be
ever vigilent on its use. As for the belief that it takes a lot to make the
government act in a hostile way to individual rights you only need to view
the IRS actions. It took almost 50 years for Congress to act. Did you know
that you don't need to be guilty of a crime to have your property
confiscated? Just the mere mention of drug dealings can get your house or
other property taken!

> kids better?  You make me puke.

Well Adam since you've made this personal all I can see is that when you
resort to such attacks you show that you aren't interested in conversation
and discourse but in just random, thoughtless knee-JERK reactions.

---

From: Ed Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:35:02 -0500

>That is why the laws

The US Congress creates about 5,000 new laws per year. The regulatory 
agencies, who create regulations with the force of law, create about 50,000 
new regulations per year. State and local governments add to that. 
Excluding state and local laws and regulations, if you spend 8 hours every 
day keeping up with those new Federal laws and regulations, you'll have 
only 180 seconds to read the legalese of each one to see how it applies to 
you. Of course, you have to know what they are to obey them...

A quote on this topic...

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is 
the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough 
criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that 
it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ch. III, "White Blackmail"

--
--------------------------
Ed Stone
[email-masked]
--------------------------

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From: Ray Yang <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 11:17:56 -0500 (EST)

Hello:
	I've been lurking for a while, this is my first post ;-) Please
backchannel hate mail. 

> in Jefferson's time.  He didn't advocate getting rid of such

	Actually, during Jefferson's age (at least later in his life) they
had this little thing called protection against unreasonable searches and
seizures, and except in time of war, the government wasn't allowed to do
that sort of thing w/o a warrant. Furthermore, cryptograms existed in that
era, and there was no general attempt to get everybody to store the keys
to their cryptograms with the government (or to forbid people to use
cryptograms in their letters). As a matter of fact, there was a rather
famous example where even during the war, General Washington refused to
order one of his officers to divulge the contents of an encrypted letter
the officer had received, believing in the man's right to privacy -- I
don't recall the details of the incident, but I do remember the officer
was vindicated. The point is that privacy in personal correspondence was
the rule -- not the exception. 

> I'd sure appreciate you obeying them.

	As I understand it, the discussion on the list centers not on the
merits of intercepts, but on the advisability of building a large
infrastructure to assist LEAs in tapping communications on a fairly easy
level -- something like a point-and-click, I'd imagine. That sort of
ability has never existed in the past -- it was never possible before (at 
least, I hope not). In American society, the government exists to protect
our rights, and we ought not to give it any more power than it needs to do
so. What is the powerful threat that justifies giving the FBI abilities
that the SS could only dream about?
	I think that regardless of whether the IETF creates a standard to
allow for point-and-click privacy intrusion, the FBI will find a way to do
intercepts when they really need to. The question is whether we want to
make it so easy that they can casualize it and they can trivialize
intrusions on privacy. In a nightmare scenario, we should wonder whether
we want to give the closest thing America's ever had to a secret police
the ability to analyze and read the mail of millions of people. 

> kids better?  You make me puke.

	As a teenager, I resent the idea that parents should completely
shield their children from the world. I think it would be irresponsible of
parents to deny their children the chance to make their own judgments and
their own decisions -- everybody makes bad decisions, but we have to learn
from the consequences of our own mistakes. Parents eventually (hopefully
not before I leave college) have to let kids go. That said, let me say
that I'm very grateful to my parents for a splendid environment to grow up
in, and a (hopefully) clear sense of right, wrong, what is safe, and what
is stupid. Parents can teach these things, but they cannot force children
to follow them forever. 

Respectfully yours,

Ray Yang

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From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 14:40:07 -0500

>in Jefferson's time.  He didn't advocate getting rid of such

In Jefferson's time, or about it, M. Carnot, who was then a minister of
Napoleon, wrote to a Prefect (a local governor) a letter with the following
text:

" Je suis informé, Monsieur le préfet, que dans plusieurs parties de l’
Empire, le secret des correspondances a été violé par des agents de l’
administration. Qui peut avoir autorisé de pareilles mesures ? "

Which shows that (1) the problem existed but also that (2) it was
definitely not considered normal practice, even in Napoleon's France, which
was not exactly a liberal state.
-- Christian Huitema