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Re: Controversial Commercial ISP for Remailer?
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dave Hayes wrote: > Igor Chudov writes: > > I am interested in your view, Dave. > > There are only two reasons that I can see your interest serving. > You either wish to support my views or oppose them. Neither case > serves your potential enlightement, therefore I shall choose to > not answer. Dave, you are a very insightful man, but in this case you were mistaken: I am interested to hear your views for my enlightenment. But your response above also serves my curiosity, no less than a more direct one, so thank you very much. - Igor.

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The Executive State
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 10:46:19 -0700 From: thomasu(a)mail.auburn.edu To: misesmail(a)colossus.net Subject: The Executive State Sender: owner-misesmail(a)colossus.net Precedence: Bulk The Executive State: The U.S. Presidency vs. American Liberty When President Clinton asked golfer Tiger Woods to join him at an official propaganda event, and even offered to send Air Force One, Tiger answered as every freedom-loving American should: he had something better to do. He was going on a vacation with some college chums. Tiger has his priorities straight, but his turndown is another indication that the presidency is shrinking as an institution. It still commands, but no longer compels, our undying (or dying) obedience, no matter how many monuments are erected to despots on the Washington Mall. This trend is all to the good. The legacy of presidential autocracy from the earliest days of the republic to the present survives in the form of the executive state. But where can you go in the library to find the truth about the havoc U.S. presidents have wrecked on the American promise of freedom? Virtually nowhere. The official history of the presidency reads like the Lives of the Saints. The Mises Institute intends to do something about this. In the Fall of 1998, we're holding a major academic conference on the American presidency. Our purpose is to debunk the conventional view that the more power he's usurped, the better off the American people are. All the presidents qualify for study, but we are especially interested in the checkered careers and dictates of Polk, Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt I, Wilson, Roosevelt II, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan. If you're a scholar and would like to participate with a paper on some aspect of a presidential power grab (or one of those few occasions when a president did some good) let us know. An abstract is all that's necessary to be considered now. The Ludwig von Mises Institute Auburn, Alabama 36849-5301 334-844-2500; fax: 334-844-2583 --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete with the New York Times?" Andrew Kantor: "Yes." Stahl: "Isn't that dangerous?" The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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airlines_2.html
by Lynx_User＠linux.nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Reuters New Media [ Yahoo | Write Us | Search | Info ] [ Index | News | World | Biz | Tech | Politic | Sport | Scoreboard | Entertain | Health ] _________________________________________________________________ Previous Story: Clinton Defends Wife's Whitewater Statements Next Story: Clinton, Zedillo Work to Improve Relations _________________________________________________________________ Tuesday May 6 11:33 PM EDT Airlines Step Up Baggage Security Measures WASHINGTON (Reuter) - U.S. airlines started a nationwide domestic trial Tuesday to match passengers with luggage as a way to intercept terrorists who might try to get a bomb on a plane in an unaccompanied bag. The Air Transport Association, which represents all the major U.S. carriers, said the trial followed recommendations by a special White House commission formed after the explosion last summer of TWA flight 800. Terrorism was at first thought to be the cause of the explosion that killed all 230 people on board the Boeing 747, but officials say evidence now lead to mechanical failure. John Meenan, Air Transport Association vice president for policy and planning, said the trial would run for about two weeks. He said the airlines were deciding the extent of bag checking, on Federal Aviation Administration advice to run trials at various airports, including hub and spoke operations and city-to-city flights. Meenan said there was a potential for delays when a passenger checked a bag but then, for any reason, might not board the flight and stayed back for a later connection. In the past, he said, that would not cause a problem. "But in the trial, if they find you are not there, they must find your bag in the belly of the plane," Meenan said. "The delay can be very significant." He said if one plane were held up for an hour at a busy airport, that would prevent another aircraft from landing and taking its place at the gate, as well as cause passengers to miss connections. "You have cascading effect," he said. FAA spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler said she hoped there would not be too many delays, adding that the trial was in part to see the effect of bag matching on airline schedules. Trexler added that airlines had the option of suspending the trial if delays were 20 minutes or longer, but by the end of the day she had no reports of any delays that long. Bags are already matched on overseas flights, Meenan said, but those are not scheduled as closely together as domestic flights when every departure and arrival is timed to get full use out of every plane making any delay costly to the carrier. He said he did not think bag matching was the answer to security because it would cause too many serious delays. He said the answer might be a combination of bag matching and profiling passengers to try to screen for further investigation any passenger who seemed to be a potential risk, also recommended by the special commission. _________________________________________________________________ ________________________ ___________ Help _________________________________________________________________ Previous Story: Clinton Defends Wife's Whitewater Statements Next Story: Clinton, Zedillo Work to Improve Relations _________________________________________________________________ [ Index | News | World | Biz | Tech | Politic | Sport | Scoreboard | Entertain | Health ] _________________________________________________________________ Reuters Limited Questions or Comments

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IBM's New Algo
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New York Times, May 7, 1997, p. D5. I.B.M. Researchers Develop A New Encryption Formula By Laurence Zuckerman I.B.M. plans to announce today that two of its researchers have come up with a new computer encryption formula that they say is nearly impossible to crack. The International Business Machines Corporation said that the breakthrough was still a long way from being employed outside the lab and that it did nothing to resolve the running dispute between the computer industry and the Federal Government over whether law enforcement agencies should be given access to encrypted communications. But it could ultimately help reduce the vulnerability of so-called public-key encryption, which is the favored security method used to safeguard commerce and privacy on the Internet. "They've made a big advance," said Joan Feigenbaum, a researcher at AT&T Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., who is familiar with the work of the two computer scientists who developed the system, Miklos Ajtai and Cynthia Dwork of I.B.M.'s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. "Scientifically, this is a big step in the right direction." But Bruce Schneier, a computer security consultant in Minneapolis and author of a standard textbook on cryptography, dismissed the news. "Theoretically it is important, but as a security breakthrough there is nothing new," he said. In public-key encryption, the sender of an electronic communication uses software that automatically scrambles the information by incorporating a publicly known numerical key. Decoding the scrambled transmission requires a private key, a number supposedly known only by the recipient. The security of the system depends, among other things, on how difficult it is for an electronic eavesdropper to crack the code using a powerful computer. If some of the codes that are generated by the system are difficult to break but others are easy, the system is inherently weak. I.B.M. said that its new system was the first to generate hundreds of codes at random, each of which is as difficult to crack as the hardest instance of the underlying mathematical problem. The system is based on a problem that has defied solution by mathematicians for 150 years, I.B.M. said. Mr. Schneier said that the cryptographic formulas now in use were already robust enough. The biggest challenge, he said, is creating security systems in the real world that are not vulnerable to hackers. "Cryptography is a lot more than math" he said. [End]

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Netscape-128 not at Replay.com
by Mike 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It seems that the US versions of Netscape have been removed from ftp.replay.com. Did Netscape comment on the software being available, or what happened? Mike.

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Rape, death and XS4ALL
by Paul Bradley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > The only "nice people" are dangerous anarchists bent on destroying > > governments and buggering poloticians to death. (last part a personal > > preference of course, the author is totally straight but would > > nonetheless be distinctly amused to see any government official > > butt-raped to death) > > I, personally, would have to use a dildo. Even if I were queer, > I wouldn't get it up for a politician or a Cabal supporter. This I can fully understand. > > > "The Internet Watch Foundation forces the provider to remove the > > > illegal content," he added. "This is a fundamentally different approach > > > to responsibilities on the Internet. We think the author of the > > > information is responsible for his own actions, not the provider." > > I hope the IRA blows up these Internet Watch motherfuckers. If I don`t get there first... > Is this Blair guy any saner than the tory bastards? Calling any democratic polotician, especially in the UK, sane, is a big mistake. However, if we may rephrase and ask if he is any less deranged we can safely answer "no". I heard a wonderful comment on the cryptography@c2 list earlier that Jack Straw (the new Labour home secretary, who is in charge of law and order) may be defined as the only person for whom anal sex with michael howard (his predecessor) counts as masturbation. They both even look deranged (Michael Howard looked rather like a serial killer and jack straw looks like a church reject). I don`t know about crypto policy, Labour are supposed to be opposed to mandatory GAK but this is of course a small issue when put in perspective. The new labour administration are a group of anti-drugs, anti-"crime" misfits who I hope go the same way as the previous leader of the labour party, John Smith, who died of a heart attack. Just to give you some overview of the fuck ups we now have governing the UK I present a list of proposals Tony Blair and his motley crew have made in the last year: Mandatory minimum sentencing for repeat offenders regardless of the opinion of the judge. State set curfews for all children under 16 regardless of their parents wishes. Parents to be held responsible for the crimes of their children if the children repeat offend. Several vague allusions towards internet censorship schemes or mandatory web page rating using PICS. Minimum wage for full time employees, regardless of the empolyees skills or the wishes of the employer. Further action to prevent "bias" and "discrimination" in the workplace, eg. "Employ this unskilled bone idle coon and we`ll lower your corporation tax 2%" Further plans for yet more CCTV cameras in public places. Mandatory ID cards for citizens (This one sounds like a joke, believe me it is not). A ban on all handguns even when registered (currently all pistols above .22 are banned and all guns have to be registered in a process whereby if the applicant for a certificate has any history of political dissention or crime (eg. Smoking a joint, the ultimate sin against society) the certificate will be refused. Yet more spending on welfare to support the pieces of shit in the gutter I pass every day. > > And if he chooses not to remove the content you happen to find offensive? > > If you truly believed in the rights of the author and publisher of the > > information you would think about it before sending in your own > > particular brand of thugs to "crush the mutiny". > > Perhaps we should further expose XS4ALL's hypocricy by renting from the > web space and putting up some pages they won't like. I think this is an excellent idea, I`ll call or mail them in a few days to find out their pricing structure. > > > Yet when violation of the law is flagrant, XS4ALL doesn't hesitate to > > > comply, as it did a few weeks ago when it shut down a customer's home > > > page called Neuroroom, which sold marijuana and other soft drugs in > > > Holland and abroad. > > > > Sometimes one really wonders why we bother to set up mirrors to allow > > freedom of information to users, when the owners of these servers, > > supposedly in favour of free speech, do not even have the strength of > > character or conviction to decide for themselves what they will allow on > > their servers rather than bending over for the long cock of the law... > > The ISP is not a court to decide that a web page offering MJ for > sale is "illegal". Absolutely, besides which, even though I believe in the right of people to be as bigotted and statist as they see fit, there are only so many causes we can support and coming in on the side of XS4ALL knowing their record seems ill advised to me. If they truly deserved our support they would retain the pages whether they were legal or not. > > > "Basically any project we like gets free resources from XS4ALL," > > > Rodriquez commented. > > > > And anyone who guarantees to publicly lick the boots of the benevolent > > owners in thanks for their support gets as much free space as they like? > > > > Of course I believe in the right to free expression of anyone and if > > these thugs choose not to allow material they don`t like on their servers > > they have every right to remove it. I just don`t see that setting up > > mirrors to defeat blocks on sites that refuse to carry certain content is > > of any value in the fight for free speech. Sure, create a mirror of > > Radikal, but giving any credit or attribution to XS4ALL seems to be a > > poor choice. > > My understanding is that Radikal is a harmless, toothless liberal rag > that the Germans had no grounds for censoring in the first place. > Mirroring it is no big deal. How about mirroring the MJ page that > the bastards at XS4ALL censored? I actually went to the page once, nearly brought some bud but as I recall they didn`t have an SSL link so I chose not to transmit my CCN. I don`t have a copy, but if XS4ALL have any balls at all they will send us a copy. I`ll get onto them about this later. > Actually, I don't think mirroring is a good technology either. > The "eternal server" posted a few days ago seems VERY VERY promising, > I'm very exited about this technology - many many thanks. No, it isn`t really but was, for all intents and purposes, the best we had. I haven`t yet seen the eternal server idea but I`ll trawl the archives for it. Paul "Can`t really be bothered to re-do his .sig file yet" Bradley

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(1048129di) Questions, Round Thirteen, The Dilbert Trivia Game
by dogbert＠yoyo.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* * * * * * Consultants Wanted * * * * * * * We want to fill up as many binders with as much information as possible, so we're asking Dilbert Trivia Game players to do the Yoyodyne Survey. What's in it for you? Prizes. We'll be randomly awarding stuff to people who do this: http://www.yoyo.com/dilbert/survey.html * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This memo is to announce that Round Thirteen of The Dilbert Trivia Game has now been implemented. Please file this memo in the appropriate binder, in triplicate. The distribution of cool, official Dilbert prizes is at stake here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Need a Way Out? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you'd rather write your own performance review than keep playing this game, please visit Yoyodyne's new Customer Service Center at http://www.yoyo.com/service, where your request can be fulfilled automatically. Want to quit all Yoyodyne games? The Customer Service Center can do that too. Just like that. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This Week's Questions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Question One ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a meeting with the boss, as captured forever in the pages of "Dogbert's Top-Secret Management Handbook" ("DTSMH"), Dilbert is told to add a sentence to his report saying that micro-robotics is a dead-end technology. When he answers that the statement would make the whole report a confusing and senseless waste of time, the boss says: A -- That's okay. We just won't let anybody else see it. B -- That's part of our strategy. C -- And your point is what? Question Two ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Discussing the quality assurance process with Ratbert (as transcribed in a strip in "DTSMH"), the boss accuses him of finding a huge number of flaws in the prototype, jeopardizing the schedule. The possible results, according to the boss, are: A -- Mass layoffs will result. B -- The entire project will fail and it's all your fault. C -- This could be the end of civilization as we know it. Question Three ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Waxing rhapsodic over the advantages of using temporary workers (as noted in a strip in "DTSMH"), the boss says: A -- I just love hiring these temporary workers. B -- No employee benefits...no union...just throw 'em in the Dumpster when you're done with 'em. C -- Both A and B. Question Four ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Asking the boss to delay the beta trial of a product until it stops exploding, Dilbert is met with resistance, as evidenced by this strip in "DTSMH": A -- You engineers are such pessimists. Just once, try to focus on the positive aspects of the trial. B -- Is that a bad thing? C -- Could we call that a feature? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Productivity Tip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dogbert absolutely, positively must receive your answers at dogbert(a)yoyo.com before the deadline of 5/11/97 11:00:00 PM Eastern Time or you'll be replaced by a consultant. So give yourself enough time for the mail to get here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Incentive Plan Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Every correct answer earns you an entry into the weekly, quarterly, and annual prize drawings. And even wrong answers count toward the drawing for the annual attendance prize. (No sick days or vacation days if you want to win that one.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How to Answer the Questions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First off, your player ID -- the letters and numbers in parentheses on the Subject line when you get your questions -- has to be on that same old Subject line when you send your answers. It looks like this example: (123456di) Most mailers will set this up automatically when you use the "Reply" button. If yours won't, then copy the Subject line from the Question message and paste it into the Subject line of your reply. Next comes setting up your answers. Start by picking the LETTER of the multiple-choice answer you like best. Say the answer to a question is this: A -- A coffee cup with a slogan is your answer to the productivity crisis? Your answer would be the letter A, preceded by a single pound sign # -- like so: #A One more thing: Each answer goes on its own line, please. Thanks. To review: Start by opening the original e-mail with the questions, click the "Reply" button, type your answers in the order in which they were asked, on separate lines, and put one of these thingies # in front of each one. There's more about the formatting stuff in the How to Play document, which you can get by sending e-mail to dogberthow(a)yoyo.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Fine Print ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *FLAMES*FAN MAIL*FEEDBACK* Please send everything like that off to Laurie, the Quality Obsessed Customer Service Rep for the game. Her address is ratbert(a)yoyo.com (she lives under the copying machine, in a little nest there, right next to Ratbert). Laurie will forward any game feedback to Scott, in neatly tied daily bundles. Scott prefers it this way -- he told us so. Letting Laurie solve your problems will allow Scott to focus on drawing more great comics for us to enjoy. * Official Notice About the Vagaries of E-mail * As you've doubtless discovered if you've used e-mail even once, it usually gets where it's going when it's supposed to, BUT sometimes the e-mail gods divert your message to Elbonia. If your answers to the game questions land in our system after the deadline or fail to make it to us altogether, we can't count them. We send out a message listing the correct answers right after the deadline. The Internet *should* work on time all the time, but it doesn't. The best thing you can do is send in your answers well in advance of the deadline. * Player ID * Your player ID is the collection of digits and letters, enclosed in parentheses, on the Subject line of every question e-mail you receive in this game. It looks like this example: (123456di). We need to have your player ID in every communication to Yoyodyne. Most mailers will set this up automatically when you use the "Reply" button. If yours won't, then copy over the Subject line from the Question message and paste it into the Subject line of your reply. * More Info * For more information about The Dilbert Trivia Game, send e-mail to these addresses: Quality of Life Issues: ratbert(a)yoyo.com How to Play: dogberthow(a)yoyo.com Game FAQ: dogbertfaq(a)yoyo.com The Official Rules: dogbertrules(a)yoyo.com Web site: http://www.yoyo.com/dilbert Tell your friends to play The Dilbert Trivia Game, and see whose score is higher! The sign-up address is dilbert(a)yoyo.com. Like, wow. For info about other free Yoyodyne games you could be playing, send e-mail to win(a)yoyo.com or, even better, visit our Web site at http://www.yoyo.com. And don't forget about our free weekly newsletter. E-mail news(a)yoyo.com to sign up. --- Yoyodyne Entertainment "Where the future begins...tomorrow." win(a)yoyo.com, http://www.yoyo.com Copyright, United Features Syndicate, Inc. 1997

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Re: SAFE
by Lee Tien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's what Prof. Froomkin said about SAFE on another list: >What I want to know about SAFE is this: > >1. Will it in effect federalize huge chunks of state criminal law once >crypto is ubiquitous in telephones, email, garage-door openers etc.? >Every state crime will now have a federal component... > >2. Will the federal crypto-use-in-furtherance-of-a-state-crime be a >separate predicate offense for civil (and criminal?) RICO? > >3. What will the five year term for this offense do to the >plea-bargaining dynamic in every garden variety crime. > >Recall my hypothesis: crypto will be seamless and ubiquitous in N years, >where N is not large. Especially if SAFE passes and export controls are >removed. > >On balance, I oppose SAFE. It's not worth it. [I wonder: how does SAFE interact with IPSEC and arrangements like S/WAN? This is not, I think, merely the "willful furtherance" provision. The "law enforcement" access provision may be ambiguous for keys that are not "private"; my understanding of IPSEC is that the key is in the possession of the machine and not the user. I'm unclear whether users have 4th A. standing to challenge law enforcement access to such keys; there are lots of 4th A cases where a person has no privacy interest in information because it's been disclosed to another person, or is in another person's control. Of course, I probably don't understand how IPSEC works, so corrections are welcomed.] Lee

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My editorial in Oregonian newspaper published today.
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following editorial appears in the Tuesday, May 6 issue of the (Portland) Oregonian newspaper, on the editorial page. Fishing Expedition Swims Against Tide According to the maxim, if you invent a better mouse-trap the world will beat a path to your door. Maybe the truth is that, instead, you'll get assaulted by angry cats who are afraid of losing their jobs. Suppose the government discovered a method to make itself obsolete. Or suppose the military learned how to make us all even more secure, for a thousandth as much defense spending. We'd never hear about it because they'd be out of a job, and job security, not national security, is their highest priority. Two years ago I had a revolutionary idea. I was tired of hearing the usual stories about how much harder society's problems have gotten in the last few decades. It's not that the problems are harder, it's just that large constituencies have been built which depend on these "problems" for their income. For example, when the Cold War ended, there was no military reason we couldn't have reduced our military budget by a factor of two or three. "But no!," said the politicians, let's continue buying those expensive Stealth bombers, submarines, tilt-wing airplanes, and other toys. We weren't afraid of getting attacked, the spending continued because of the threat of unemployment on the part of the defense-industry workers. Legalize drugs and turn a vast legal problem into a far cheaper and more manageable health problem? No, because with 70% or more of the prison population there due to drug laws, you'd have to fire most of the jailers, the prosecutors, the police, the judges, and the lawyers, all of whom have come to depend on the involuntary "generosity" of the taxpayer. Two years ago I realized that the whole corrupt system could be stopped. It would be necessary to not only halt pork-barrel politics at all levels, but also to provide a very few necessary services for people, such as defense and justice, although financed inexpensively and voluntarily. You'd have to shut down all militaries and governments, simultaneously, all around the world, while at the same time protecting our security. Impossible? In the summer of 1995 I began to write an essay, half-jokingly titled "Assassination Politics". It occurred to me that if people could defend themselves by anonymously donating money to anonymous people who act to protect us, you wouldn't need militaries or governments anymore. Nuclear bombs would be obsolete, and in fact they will be hopelessly dangerous to anyone who owns them, because the rest of us will be able to donate money to ensure their owners have no choice but to dismantle them. Conventional militaries will be useless, because threats to people's security will be dealt with far more cheaply by large numbers of tiny individual contributions buying the part-time services of a few semi-professional trouble-shooters. Murderous dictators of the past and present, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Khadafi, Idi Amin, and so many others simply couldn't operate in such a world, because they (and their replacements, if anyone dared follow them) could be removed for the collective pocket change of a few million angry citizens. There'd be no conventional wars, because anyone who would make war would be a threat not only to his enemy, but also to anyone on "his" side who would be forced to help pay for that war, or even third parties who wouldn't want to see aggression win, for fear they'd be the next target. There would be no draft, because forcing someone else to fight for you makes YOU his enemy, as well: On the other hand, if your cause is just, he will contribute voluntarily, just as you do, to see the bad guy stopped. There would be little crime, because crime will be treated as an attack, and people will be able to donate money to find and stop the criminals. But unlike today, there will be no large constituency (police, jailers, judges, prosecutors, lawyers) who have a vested interest in keeping the crime rate high, thus terrorizing the public into supporting "anti-crime spending" which really just lines their pockets. I've been openly debating the idea on the Internet since then with anyone who will listen. My essay surprises many and shocks more than a few, but I am pleased that such a truly revolutionary concept has been so well received. Even the Columbian newspaper (www.columbian.com) has decided to add a pointer to the essay. The only "threat" in the essay is to the jobs of the people who have been parasites on the rest of us for decades, as well as to the future of tyrannies around the world. But that's why, on April 1, twenty Federal agents burst in and took my computer, told the news media I was "armed and dangerous," and began engaging in a fishing expedition including harassing people simply for knowing me. (No arrest or charges so far.) They may claim that they were looking for something else, but what they are really, desperately hoping to find is...job security. If I'm right, they have none. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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My editorial in Oregonian newspaper published today.
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My editorial appeared in the Tuesday, May 6 issue of the (Portland) Oregonian newspaper, on the editorial page. Fishing Expedition Swims Against Tide According to the maxim, if you invent a better mouse-trap the world will beat a path to your door. Maybe the truth is that, instead, you'll get assaulted by angry cats who are afraid of losing their jobs. Suppose the government discovered a method to make itself obsolete. Or suppose the military learned how to make us all even more secure, for a thousandth as much defense spending. We'd never hear about it because they'd be out of a job, and job security, not national security, is their highest priority. Two years ago I had a revolutionary idea. I was tired of hearing the usual stories about how much harder society's problems have gotten in the last few decades. It's not that the problems are harder, it's just that large constituencies have been built which depend on these "problems" for their income. For example, when the Cold War ended, there was no military reason we couldn't have reduced our military budget by a factor of two or three. "But no!," said the politicians, let's continue buying those expensive Stealth bombers, submarines, tilt-wing airplanes, and other toys. We weren't afraid of getting attacked, the spending continued because of the threat of unemployment on the part of the defense-industry workers. Legalize drugs and turn a vast legal problem into a far cheaper and more manageable health problem? No, because with 70% or more of the prison population there due to drug laws, you'd have to fire most of the jailers, the prosecutors, the police, the judges, and the lawyers, all of whom have come to depend on the involuntary "generosity" of the taxpayer. Two years ago I realized that the whole corrupt system could be stopped. It would be necessary to not only halt pork-barrel politics at all levels, but also to provide a very few necessary services for people, such as defense and justice, although financed inexpensively and voluntarily. You'd have to shut down all militaries and governments, simultaneously, all around the world, while at the same time protecting our security. Impossible? In the summer of 1995 I began to write an essay, half-jokingly titled "Assassination Politics". It occurred to me that if people could defend themselves by anonymously donating money to anonymous people who act to protect us, you wouldn't need militaries or governments anymore. Nuclear bombs would be obsolete, and in fact they will be hopelessly dangerous to anyone who owns them, because the rest of us will be able to donate money to ensure their owners have no choice but to dismantle them. Conventional militaries will be useless, because threats to people's security will be dealt with far more cheaply by large numbers of tiny individual contributions buying the part-time services of a few semi-professional trouble-shooters. Murderous dictators of the past and present, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Khadafi, Idi Amin, and so many others simply couldn't operate in such a world, because they (and their replacements, if anyone dared follow them) could be removed for the collective pocket change of a few million angry citizens. There'd be no conventional wars, because anyone who would make war would be a threat not only to his enemy, but also to anyone on "his" side who would be forced to help pay for that war, or even third parties who wouldn't want to see aggression win, for fear they'd be the next target. There would be no draft, because forcing someone else to fight for you makes YOU his enemy, as well: On the other hand, if your cause is just, he will contribute voluntarily, just as you do, to see the bad guy stopped. There would be little crime, because crime will be treated as an attack, and people will be able to donate money to find and stop the criminals. But unlike today, there will be no large constituency (police, jailers, judges, prosecutors, lawyers) who have a vested interest in keeping the crime rate high, thus terrorizing the public into supporting "anti-crime spending" which really just lines their pockets. I've been openly debating the idea on the Internet since then with anyone who will listen. My essay surprises many and shocks more than a few, but I am pleased that such a truly revolutionary concept has been so well received. Even the Columbian newspaper (www.columbian.com) has decided to add a pointer to the essay. The only "threat" in the essay is to the jobs of the people who have been parasites on the rest of us for decades, as well as to the future of tyrannies around the world. But that's why, on April 1, twenty Federal agents burst in and took my computer, told the news media I was "armed and dangerous," and began engaging in a fishing expedition including harassing people simply for knowing me. (No arrest or charges so far.) They may claim that they were looking for something else, but what they are really, desperately hoping to find is...job security. If I'm right, they have none. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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