December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

The Cartoon Decency Act? from the Netly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 08:05:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: The Cartoon Decency Act? from the Netly News *********** http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1055,00.html The Netly News Network June 13, 1997 The Cartoon Decency Act? by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) We all know what threats confront our children today: War. Hunger. Poverty. Ignorance. But animated cartoon characters on the Net? Actually, the Center for Media Education and its allies ignored the others and just zeroed in on the looming menace of Net-toons yesterday during the Federal Trade Commission's interminable privacy hearings. CME's Shelley Pasnik warned, "Animated product spokescharacters are coming into our childrens' computers... Parents are deeply troubled by the intrusive nature of the online [world] coming into our homes." Hadn't she read Kurt Anderson's editorial in The New Yorker this week, that the onslaught of 'toons signals a cultural renaissance in the U.S.? Doh! The Center for Media's alarums sound familiar. Supporters of the notorious Communications Decency Act cried that "pornography is coming into our home computers" and used the same excuse of "protecting children" to justify passing the law. [...]

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Responses to "there's no general right to privacy"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

************** Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 19:27:45 -0400 From: Barney Wolff <barney(a)databus.com> > Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 18:58:25 -0400 > From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)pathfinder.com> > > ... But in truth, privacy is not a > right but a preference: Some people want more of it > than others. Free speech is not a right but a preference. Some people want more of it than others. Because your job would be easier if there were less privacy, we all should suffer? Consider yourself flamed. Barney Wolff <barney(a)databus.com> ************** Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 22:43:59 -0400 From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)well.com> To: declan(a)well.com, fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu At 6:58 PM -0400 6/12/97, Declan McCullagh wrote: >************** > >http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1050,00.html > >The Netly News >June 12, 1997 > >Privacy? What Privacy? >by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) > > I have a confession to make: Unlike many of my >civil libertarian colleagues, I believe you have no >general right to privacy online. I endorse Declan's comments here, and most of what he says about privacy -- in particular that there is no general (read "universally applicable") right to privacy. There are, however, some particular rights to privacy in the United States that are worth maintaining and protecting into the next century. As against the government, these include (but are not limited to) one's 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights that limit what the government can do to violate your privacy. As against other individuals and private entities, these include (but are not limited to) the rights protected under the invasion-of-privacy torts, and the restrictions on private companies' secondary use of transactional data. These carveouts from the general presumption articulated by Declan are generally supported by the American public, and have been reasonably well harmonized with First Amendment law. And they've stood the test of time. Most privacy advocates I know, when they're talking about privacy, are talking about these carveouts -- both as they exist now and as they will need to evolve in the decades to come. It should be noted that efforts like the EFF-originated ETrust program (now called Trust-E thanks to a trademark dispute) are not based on "rights," but on the creation of incentives to inform the public about the use of their personal information. As such, they sidestep the "right to privacy" discussion altogether. Which is probably just as well, given the quasi-theological taste such legal discussions tend to have. --Mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Indeed, the Government's asserted "failure" of the Internet rests on the implicit premise that too much speech occurs in that medium, and that speech there is too available to the participants. This is exactly the benefit of Internet communication, however. The Government, therefore, implicitly asks this court to limit both the amount of speech on the Internet and the availability of that speech. This argument is profoundly repugnant to First Amendment principles.' --Judge Stewart Dalzell, ACLU v. Reno. Mike Godwin, EFF Staff Counsel, can be reached at mnemonic(a)eff.org or at his office, 510-548-3290. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Quadratic residues
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy C. Maya's wee-wee is so tiny that only his mommy is allowed to touch it. __o _ \<_ Timmy C. Maya (_)/(_)

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Cato forum on federal law enforcement
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 12:13:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Robin Hulsey <rhulsey(a)cato.org> Subject: No More Wacos: What's wrong with federal law enforcement and how to fix it NEWS MEDIA ALERT WHAT: Book Forum No more Wacos: What's wrong with federal law enforcement and how to fix it WHY: On April 19, 1993, federal agents conducted a deadly raid on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas. The Waco raid was the largest raid in the history of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; it was the largest federal armed entry ever of an American home; and it resulted in the largest number of deaths of law enforcement officers in a single operation as well as the largest number of civilian deaths in a law enforcement operation. In No More Wacos, Kopel and Blackman maintain that what happened at Waco was neither a conspiracy nor a fluke. The Waco tragedy instead represents the worst-case scenario of problems that still plague federal law enforcement, including lax procedures involving search warrant applications and the militarization of police tactics. The authors will discuss why such tragedies occur-and how future Wacos can be prevented. WHEN: 4-6 p.m., Thursday, June 19 WHERE: F.A. Hayek Auditorium Cato Institute 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC WHO: David B. Kopel Independence Institute Paul H. Blackman National Rifle Association HOW: RSVP to Robin Hulsey, at 202-789-5293 or rhulsey(a)cato.org

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Re: June 18th SF C'punks meeting: export controls on trial
by Ed.Falk＠Eng.Sun.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> ... There will also > be a regular 2nd-Saturday c'punks meeting this month (I think it's at > PGP, Inc.) Hi all; I haven't seen the agenda yet, but if there is time & interest, I would be willing to organize a PGP key-signing party. Signify interest by mailing your key -- or a pointer to it -- to me by Friday. Come to the c'punks meeting with photo ID and your PGP fingerprint. It would also be way cool if we could get some of the folks at PGP Inc. to join in. More info on key-signing parties will be at www.best.com/~falconer/keyparty.html by tommorrow. -ed falk

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Burn flag = unconstitutional
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > House Passes Constitutional Amendment On Flag Desecration > > By Darlene Superville > Associated Press Writer > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted overwhelmingly today for a proposed > constitutional amendment against flag desecration, an issue pushed by > conservatives since Republicans took over Congress in 1995. > > The House tally, held two days before Flag Day, was 310-114.

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Life inside the Beltway
by Chip Mefford 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New technology for the cops. It brings tears of joy to my eyes to think of all the children that this new technology will save. -------------begin included text-------------------------- Alexandria police have a new high-tech tool to help them catch fugitives and find missing people. Police officials last week unveiled new digital scanners and cellular transmitters that allow cruisers to transmit photographs in less than a minute. That means an officer can scan in a family photo of a lost child and send it to all active patrol cars nearly instantly. The technology also lets the police send photos to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which can then pass information on to other police departments. "In the search for a missing child, time is the enemy," said Ernie Allen, president of the Arlington-based center. "The more quickly we can provide a child's image, the greater the likelihood we can find the child." Alexandria and College Station, Tex., are the first two police departments in the country to get this image technology, officials said. Although the two departments use different computer systems, they are able to send pictures to each other via a computer center in Florida. At a demonstration last week, a College Station car sent a photo to an Alexandria cruiser in about 40 seconds, and a photo from the National Center took about the same time. It takes the same amount of time to send a photo to one car as to broadcast it to all of the cruisers, allowing the department to blanket an area with images immediately, officials said. The same technology will allow Alexandria to send photos to neighboring jurisdictions as soon as they get computers that receive digital images. Federal Highway Administration officials said they expect this kind of system to become widely available over the next two years. Alexandria is spending $800,000 to outfit its patrol cars with the new scanners and portable computers that can run criminal record checks. Adding the scanning technology "is an opportunity we just couldn't miss," said Lt. Michael Clancey, who commands the vice-narcotics division. Most of the money for the computers -- $500,000 -- comes from two federal grants and assets seized from criminals, officials said. The department is buying 82 computers, ensuring that most on-duty cars will have them. "Alexandria has been on the forefront of creative development in the use of technology," said Daniel Rosenblatt, director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. © Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company By Brooke A. Masters --------------------------------------------------------------------

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There's no general right to privacy -- get over it, from Netly (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 18:58:37 -0400 > From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> > Subject: There's no general right to privacy -- get over it, from Netly > likes to say "Privacy is not an absolute right, but a > fundamental right." But in truth, privacy is not a > right but a preference: Some people want more of it > than others. A right is not a question of popularity or amplitude, it is a question of existance. It is or it isn't. Some people want more guns than others (obvious even to you) so you seriously hold that there is no fundamental Constitutional right to own firearms? Or speech, we don't all want to use it to the same amount, we therefore don't have a right to free speech? Or (oh my god!) crypto, we don't all want to use it to the same degree therefore we don't have a right to use crypto? Serious boo-boo. I hope it ain't gone to print yet... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: FCPUNX:There's no general right to privacy -- get over it, from Netly
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:27 PM 6/13/97 -0400, tzeruch(a)ceddec.com wrote: > Today the Nazi's would simply pay Experian (was TRW) for their databases. > I think the IRS already does. I do not see private organizations bothering to collect data on racial identity, except where they are compelled to by the government. > --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: There's no general right to privacy -- get over it, from Netly
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- William H. Geiger III <whgiii(a)amaranth.com> wrote: > Well this is rather a poor example. The requirment of a census was written > into the costitution and with good reason. Many of the government actions > are based on demographics congressional districting is a prime example. > > There is a fight going on in cogress right now as the current > administration wants to be able to gestimate the census rather than doing > an actuall head count so it can manipulate the figures any way it wants > (ie change the figures in key congressional districts so they can re-draw > them to favor their supporters). Not that I feel strongly either way, but the other way to look at this is that the current Congress likes its cozy little districts and likes restricting the census to people with permanent addresses, which tends to bias the figures in favor of suburbia. I certainly agree with the fundamental points that censuses and districting have always been important, and hence political[ly corrupted]. Anyone here descended from 3/5ths people? - -rich http://www.stanford.edu/~llurch/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQBVAwUBM6HgHJNcNyVVy0jxAQEmsgH+IWGzDmFvmlCIKSxw26xaP4+tBRHhdRDu BT572zIvqjQfh/4B31qOzOjjWh6cFCEREXE/9bzHaRmyOYA3YfP+EQ== =8mJR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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