Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!bbn!apple!well!gdhour From: gdhour@well.UUCP (Grateful Dead Hour) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Computer Virus Hearings Message-ID: <11770@well.UUCP> Date: 22 May 89 03:32:53 GMT References: <154@oldcolo.UUCP> Reply-To: gdhour@well.UUCP (Grateful Dead Hour) Distribution: usa Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Lines: 67 Keywords:"Amen" to Hughes' letter May 22, 1989 Senator Patrick Leahy Senate Judicial Subcommittee on Technology and Law 815 Hart Office Building Washington, DC, 20510 Honorable Chairman Leahy: As a participant in several computer-mediated "online communities" and a concerned observer of our government's efforts to deal with the impact of advancing technology on the lives of the citizens, I watched with interest your conversation Clifford Stoll last week. (I should note that I got word of C-SPAN's live broadcast immediately after it began, via a message on a public computer system.) I am writing to voice a hearty "amen" to a May 16 letter to you from David Hughes of Old Colorado City Communications (a copy of which is enclosed in case it eluded your attention). Hughes posted a copy of the letter on a public- access computer system to which we both subscribe. Dave Hughes' assessment of the issues raised by improvements in connectivity - particularly the three distinct states of online information environments to which he refers ("property," "premises," and "speech") - makes an eloquent case for the importance of these new media in amplifying the voice of the private citizen, so often drowned out in the political arena by the roar of business, government and the military. I am impressed by the open-mindedness you evinced in the hearing. I am not at all sure, though, that the government at large will be so reasonable as these matters progress toward legislation. Over the years I have observed the steady degradation of long-standing concepts of the rights of individuals (and thus the rights of small communities); for example, we may soon find ourselves incarcerating an alarming percentage of our population over the contents of their bloodstreams, which (to my mind and heart) the constitution ostensibly protects under the umbrella of privacy. Having failed to harness the outlaw economy of drugs, the government seems willing, even determined, to sacrifice what it purports to hold in highest esteem: liberty, and privacy - the primacy of citizen over establishment. To which I ask, gamely: cui bono? Culturally, and politically and geographically, Dave Hughes and I are half a continent apart. We have never met face to face, but we have engaged in constructive discourse on many subjects and I have immense respect for his leadership in the quest to re-empower our citizens by promoting communication among ourselves and between the government and the governed. The electronic highways used by Dave Hughes, Clifford Stoll and their colleagues (and myself) are a bloodstream of another sort, vital to this new collective organism and vulnerable to misbegotten regulation. Overzealous regulation of the computer nets could be very costly in the long run. It is entirely possible that our next Edison will be not one person but three or four or five "isolated" individuals who never meet in the flesh but share effort and inspiration in a virtual laboratory that exists only when their computers connect over those phone lines. Sincerely, David Gans encl. -- Grateful Dead Hour well!gdhour@lll-lcc.arpa David Gans {pacbell,hplabs,lll-crg,apple}!well!gdhour Truth and Fun, Inc. 484 Lake Park Ave #102, Oakland CA 94610