Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!looking!brad From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Subject: Re: Amendments Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Date: Sat, 20 Apr 91 01:55:06 GMT Message-ID: <1991Apr20.015506.11577@looking.on.ca> References: <1455@gargoyle.uchicago.edu> <1475@gargoyle.uchicago.edu> BTW I will point out that I seriously doubt a computer freedom amendment along the lines of my proposal could ever be passed. Not in today's modern society. The USA's best admendments were done in the less media-saturated, special interest controlled world of the 18th century. Today you can't even get a simple and largely supported amendment like the ERA passed. What I fear -- and indeed what I think was one of the motivations for the start of the EFF -- is the notion that many people have that there are things that it should be illegal to do with a computer, even if it was never illegal to do them without one. A thing is either bad or good, and I am wary of suggestions that the tool you use should make the difference on whether an activity is illegal. The right to use a computer to conduct your affairs is going to become more important than the right to walk down the street, or phone somebody, or print a newspaper. If we allow the government to regulate it willy-nilly, we allow them the power to regulate almost every aspect of what life might be in the future. We must not. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473