Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!grover.llnl.gov!howell
From: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Lotus Marketplace
Message-ID: <86567@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 21 Nov 90 19:02:15 GMT
References: <5010@rsiatl.UUCP> <86447@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <5022@rsiatl.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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Nntp-Posting-Host: grover.llnl.gov

In article <5022@rsiatl.UUCP>, jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond) writes:
|> howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) writes:
|> >John made a decent try, but his scheme still sounds way too harsh
|> >to me.  
|> 
|> I intend it to be very harsh.  In a way, the manner in which our
|> privacy is invaded and we are harmed by centralized databases
|> is more severe than if the purveyors of harm would just kill us.
|> It would not matter then :-)  The damage personal information 
|> databases do can follow you for a lifetime.

|> >A $50000 fine for sending a letter is outrageous...

|> Then the organizations should be careful NOT to violate the law.  As 
|> long as the law is kept simple, violations would not be difficult to
|> avoid.  Of course, the easist way to avoid a violation is to simply
|> stay away from that practice.
|> 
|> Such fines are not unheardof in other important areas such as 
|> nuclear safety.  It is common for nuclear operators to be fined 
|> multi-hundred thousand dollars for minor violations such as leaving
|> an inside door unlocked.  You can damn sure bet that not many
|> operators leave doors unlocked!

Be serious.  Some company having a little information about you is
not comparable to risking a nuclear accident.  You may have a personal
axe to grind, but you're blowing this way out of proportion.  I'm
not even sure such fines are appropriate for the nuclear plant worker.
Is someone really going to be that much more careful for risking
$100000 than for $10000?  Once you've bankrupted a person and screwed
up his life for years, perhaps permanently, does it help society in
any way to keep punishing him?  We're not talking about a violent
offender who could be a danger on the streets, we're talking about
some poor goofball who may have just made a mistake.

|> We have to ask the question, If 90% of the players in a certain
|> activity are harming us, do we try to pick out the bad ones on
|> a case by case basis or do we just restrict the activity such that 
|> the 90%'ers can't stand the risk of getting caught?  I vote for 
|> banning.  There is no constitutional right to collect personal data
|> on others without their permission.  It is a priviledge, a priviledge
|> that has been sorely abused.  I'm damn tired of being a number!

You might as well argue that if most inner city gun owners are rotten,
we should ban all guns in the inner city.  The fact that a right is
listed in the constitution doesn't make it morally or ethically better,
it just makes it legally more defensible.

|> No, it would just make you play by the same rules as everybody else or 
|> else be financially destroyed.

There is obviously a lot of disagreement about this issue.  Does it make
sense to destroy someone for an offense that many people would not even
consider a crime?

I've noticed that activities that are generally regarded as crimes, e.g.
assault, tend to have fairly rational penalties associated with them.
When something is a political issue, however, emotions flare and
penalties can be stretched all out of proportion to the offense.  Abortion
and gun control are marvelous examples of this---something may be perfectly
legal in one state and worth a ten year jail term in the state next door.
I don't know what you call this, but I don't think it's justice.  Is it
not more reasonable to make a controversial offense at worst a rather
mild crime, or should we just go crazy and punish people for the sake of
exacting revenge?

-- 
Louis Howell

  "A few sums!" retorted Martens, with a trace of his old spirit.  "A major
navigational change, like the one needed to break us away from the comet
and put us on an orbit to Earth, involves about a hundred thousand separate
calculations.  Even the computer needs several minutes for the job."