Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uwm.edu!bionet!agate!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!Neon.Stanford.EDU!stanton From: stanton@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Scott Stanton) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Amendments Message-ID: Date: 12 Apr 91 19:09:58 GMT References: Sender: news@neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 41 In-Reply-To: brad@looking.on.ca's message of 12 Apr 91 04:49:09 GMT In article brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: With talk of amendments to protect privacy in the computer age, let me pose the opposite question. What do people feel would be the consequences of: Congress shall make no law abriding the right of the people to use any tool of computation or communication. (It would have to be clear that this would apply to activities that were otherwise legal. Would not want an amendment that forbade them from banning the use of computers for planning crimes, etc.) I don't think we should try to make using computers a 'right' any more than we should make the use of a car a 'right'. There are situations where it is both Constitutional and proper to deny someone the privilege of driving. I can imagine similar cases for the use of computer equipment. We should not lose sight of the fact that the use of computers is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. What we want to protect is the end. Given that we wish to protect the activities which the use of computers enables, we must next stop and consider why we would want to amend the Constitution at all. Why can't we legislate the necessary protections of our rights? I would contend that the Constitution already guarantees the rights we are interested in protecting. We just need to implement a mechanism for doing so. As it is written, the Constitution protects free speech, assembly, and free press explicitly, and it provides an additional catch-all category protecting rights that aren't explicitly mentioned (e.g. privacy). So it seems to me that what we should be pushing for is not additional enumeration of rights in the Constitution but legislative implementations of the protections already given by the Constitution. To this end, perhaps we should try to figure out what "implicit" rights we want to protect (and how to apply the explicit ones to new situations). -- --Scott (stanton@cs.stanford.edu)