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From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Lifestyle Information
Message-ID: <63847@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: 23 Apr 91 11:20:47 GMT
References: <11216@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <9418@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <17164@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: news@bbn.com
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gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:

}jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) wrote:
}> it is well known that people often times say just the opposite of what
}> they do.  Lifestyle information is brutally accurate in documenting
}> certain habits.  The conclusions drawn are often incorrect but the
}> facts are not.  If your register tape shows you bought 30 lbs of beef last 
}> month, you actually bought at least that much.

}I wonder if any governments would be willing to pay to locate people who
}bought cigarette papers more than once but never bought any tobacco at
}all?

}How about people who buy lots of blank cassette tapes but never bought any
}CD's or albums anywhere?

Of course they would... and they already do do essentially that
[remember "Operation Green Grocer"?].  But this is not such a good
argument, is it?  This is less a matter of flagrant abuse than it is
one of the police dancing around the edges of the gray-zone of
evidence-gathering techniques.

}[Certainly they would catch a few law-abiding people in such a net, but
}their rate of finding lawbreakers would be a lot higher than if they
}went door-to-door.]

Ah, but we have to be clear about what the problem is here.  Let us
assume for the moment that essentially all of these law abiding people
are duly found innocent in the unlikely event they actualy get dragged
into a trial.  What was the cost?  Well, we caught [and, presumably,
convicted] a whole bunch of criminals that would otherwise have gone
free, and the cost was that a few people were
inconvenienced/scared/embarrassed.  After all, the LEOs still had to prove
you guilty, just buying the cassettes *themselves* is not a crime [yet, of
course...:-(].

Is that a price we ought to be willing to bear to live in a more
crime-free society?

  /Bernie\