Subject: [Raven] What IS acceptable

From: "Adam Rabblerouser" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:09:54 EST

Just what do you weenies think IS acceptable Law Enforcement
behavior?

If all communication on the Internet is totally anonymous,
and totally encrypted, what do you tell the parent of the
teenaged kid who was lured by some scumbag to meet him when
the cops tell the parents there is ZERO they can do?

A few weeks ago there were articles about successfull prosecution
of a gang where wiretap evidence was able to show the ringleaders
handing out assignments to the soldiers, and some of the evidence
was calling patterns rather than actual intercepts.
What alternatives DO we give our cops?

Shall we totally abandon any attempt at monitoring dirtballs?

Until we succeed in getting all humans to behave decently, we
are stuck with law enforcement.  I don't see that situation changing.
Since law enforcement people are human, they make mistakes.  Lots
of them.  So do I.  Live with it.  Courts in the free world have
a pretty decent record in the last few decades for righting wrongs in this 
area, use them.  And don't whine to me about despots; they
can abuse anything good, and don't need no help to do so.

Turning off all eavesdropping tools because your civil rights
were violated by some idiot FBI or whatever turkey doesn't cut it.

Get real.

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From: "C. Wegrzyn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:26:06 -0500

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.

 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.

Chuck Wegrzyn

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From: Sampo A Syreeni <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 16:32:25 +0200 (EET)

>the cops tell the parents there is ZERO they can do?

One shouldn't mix people's expectations and network capability with each
other. In this case everybody should know that networkers cannot be trusted
- the problem is not so much in how the substrate works but in how people
expect it to work.

IMO, the net should go towards strong privacy and people's expectations
should be guided along with this progress.

>Shall we totally abandon any attempt at monitoring dirtballs?

If monitoring necessarily requires stepping on honest people's toes.

>can abuse anything good, and don't need no help to do so.

How about all the things that have passed around the crypto debaters, the
Echelon stuff and so on? It's not entirely clear everything goest to the
Court.

Sampo Syreeni <[email-masked]>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university

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From: Ed Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:04:17 -0500

>Just what do you weenies think IS acceptable Law Enforcement

I can't speak for "weenies", nor about what "weenies" think of "Stalinists".

>the cops tell the parents there is ZERO they can do?

You help people who suffer tragedies. You accept that safety is not perfect 
in anything. You ask the police if they ever do police work on atoms, 
rather than bits. You recognize that parents could put a monitoring system 
on their own computer for their own use without granting unprecedented new 
powers to the government. You understand that granting governments great 
new powers does not provide only nice, neat, beneficial results, but also 
promotes the ability to inflict tyranny and abuse. History is clear on that.

Of all types of groups (organized crime, terrorists, corporations, 
non-profits, militias, extremist hate groups, religions, governments, etc.) 
which of those do your records show as responsible for the most deaths this 
century? Most property destruction? More power to governments does not 
always result in more goodness or justice.

>What alternatives DO we give our cops?

To actually work on crime that involves atoms, not just bits.

>Shall we totally abandon any attempt at monitoring dirtballs?

"Dirtballs" can be monitored by having police look at them with eyeballs. 
By following them. By talking to their associates. By seeing what they 
buy.  By watching where they go. By actually doing police work. The choices 
are not 1) unfettered taps or 2) abandon any attempt at monitoring. That is 
a false dicotomy. I have not seen anyone suggest here that police work be 
ceased, or that attempts at monitoring be ceased.

>are stuck with law enforcement.

Some of whom behave decently, some of whom do not, particularly with 
wiretaps. See http://pd.co.la.ca.us/index.htm .

And in Los Angeles, the current news reports about police there:
"So far, the probe has revealed evidence of improper shootings,
beatings, drug thefts, intimidation of witnesses, and planting of false
evidence. " 
(http://www.latimes.com/tcn/glendale/news/19991120/tgn0000290.html). One 
should not blindly assume that rights held by the people are dangerous, and 
that power exercised by the police is good. Look deeper.

>   I don't see that situation changing.
>of them.  So do I.  Live with it.

Sure. Live with the mistakes that regular folks make, and be a little 
slower to put the police more deeply into their lives, since you may not be 
improving things.

>   Courts in the free world have
>area, use them.

They haven't yet brought dead people back to life, nor returned years 
unjustly spent in prison to one's lifespan. But also, the police can use 
courts, as they do everyday, when they arrest people for actual crimes, not 
just the movement of bits.

>   And don't whine to me about despots; they

They don't need help, but they become stronger and more pervasive with it.

>were violated by some idiot FBI or whatever turkey doesn't cut it.

I have not seen  anyone here suggesting "turning off all eavesdropping tools".

Others have written:
"The mushrooming of surveillance has been explained by the sense of panic 
and crisis felt throughout the government during this period of extremely 
vocal dissent, large demonstrations, political and campus violence, and 
what at the time seemed the inauguration of a period of wide- spread 
anarchy. While officials... suggested that these crises justified the 
surveillance, they failed to recognize that the rights guaranteed by the 
constitution are constant and unbending to the temper of the times."
Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 1973

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the 
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
William Pitt to the House of Commons, November 18, 1783

"Implicit in the term 'national defense' is the notion of defending those 
values and ideals which set this Nation apart... It would indeed be ironic 
if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of 
one of those liberties... which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile."
Chief Justice Earl Warren, U.S. Supreme Court, US v Robel

>Get real.

Now there's a great point!
--
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Ed Stone
[email-masked]
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