Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!dave From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: The end of privacy... and so what comes next? Message-ID: <1991Apr6.094615.26036@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> Date: 6 Apr 91 09:46:15 GMT References: <63473@bbn.BBN.COM> <10777@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1991Apr1.180311.5557@eff.org> <63565@bbn.BBN.COM> Reply-To: dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA Lines: 64 cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: >I'll disclaim here, just once: I am almost fanatically pro-privacy. >I've argued and debated it both on the net and in various other forums >for years. But basically, I think we've lost! I'll respond some to the >thread [maintaining the d-a position, on the whole], but as I hope you'll >see, the arguments _for privacy are mostly very subtle and often >just hypothetical; by contrast the arguments _against_ privacy can be very >seductive, practical, easy to grasp. This is a good point. Perhaps "we've lost" because we haven't found a good way to illustrate the results of loss of privacy. The real example for this is the recent L.A. police saga...certainly there were a lot of people who didn't believe it was happening or felt it was justified...until they saw the video. >In what way is this a relevant observation [aside that it is true]? >Should we deny the police to enforce the burglary/rape/whatever laws >effectively because they might use those powers to enforce >parking-too-far-from-the-curb violations? Should we let muggers go >free so that we don't go wild arresting people for tearing the tags off >of their pillows? Why shouldn't the response to John's observation be >"OK, so fix the laws, but what does this have to do with the police >going after the REAL criminals?" I think (back to the L.A. saga again) that with the ouster of Daryl Gates and the subsequent threat that the police have made (enforcing all the minor infractions that they can get their hands on) is a wonderful real example of the dangers of out-of-control government. I, for one, hope that the LAPD goes through with it. Maybe some folks will begin to understand what the first Colonists of this country felt against England... >This is all very hypthetical. Who gets to decide which are the bad crimes >and which are the good? This discretion exists ANYWAY, and crippling >the police from enforcing the laws, all of them and any of them, is >pretty arbitrary: if you don't want the police to enforce some >particular law, shouldn't you be making the law go away, rather than >trying to so-cripple the police that they _cannot_ enforce it? We have demonstrated that it is far more difficult, if not impossible, to remove an established law that is obsolete, silly, or downright dangerous. It is far more efficient to cripple the police than to remove these laws...otherwise these laws would no longer be on the books. >Is THIS what privacy is for: to allow us to *knowingly* flout the >laws? Should it be personal discretion as to which laws we use our >"cloak of secrecy" to hide? What sort of society is that? The law, as a system of substitute ethics, is neither functional nor efficient. This system has gotten so out of hand, that it is a rare moment when an upstanding citizen does NOT break the law each day. California's driving laws are written in such a way that it is almost impossible to drive in traffic and not break the law...and ignorance is no excuse, right? Is this the kind of society you are protecting? 8) -- Dave Hayes - dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov - ames!elroy!dxh History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.