-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I guess this is particularly political, but I thought it interesting enough to attach to cypherpunks. Subject matter appropriateness flames by E-Mail please. Questions of Privacy and Property: How Encryption narrows the focus. - -> There is no right to privacy in this country. The much touted "Right to privacy" is a common law conception and invention that, for the most part, has little foundation. There are constitutional provisions that _suggest_ privacy, but none that "assure" it. To enforce a right to privacy in court, judges have to do a lot of reaching. I can't recall who it was, but some cypherpunk mentioned that they had not consented to the "social contract" or "convention" that gave the government the right to "violate" their "privacy" or collect data on them. I agree with you on principal (oh, unnamed privacy patron) but unfortunately logically I can't. Your natural rights approach to the rights of privacy is limited in that, unlike other rights founded in a Natural Rights / Victorian legal thought fashion, privacy has no logical precedent in the state of nature. When you see assertions of Natural Rights concepts, they tend to work down from grand principals. In the past, these principals have their root in a concept of the "State of Nature" or the Creation myth. e.g., Property exists and is enforceable because God created the Earth for common use, and what you take, and can reasonably put to use, becomes yours by means of the labor you put into it (Locke). How to find these precedents with regards to privacy is quite beyond me. It seems almost ingrained in the culture of Natural Rights that the Divine was all knowing. It leaves little basis to find a protection for privacy in Natural Rights theory. So move to the more progressive social convention theories. These are almost always more empowering to the judicial system, with a concept that the judge was not just a tool to enforce law, but to shape it as well. In the 1920's-30's we begin to see more and more frequent legal applications of nebulous "balancing tests" to replace the bright line rules as a result. Unfortunately the departure of the formalist approach takes with it the notion of the public and private spheres distinction. The progressive movement began to blend the spheres, and what distinction was left between them was gelded by the notion that the public sphere was the larger and more important of the two. Farewell individual rights, hello good of the collective. I think this is much of the reason that the appeal to the absolute right of privacy gets little attention today. Instead we see privacy taking a back seat to public elements like the war on drugs and national security. Avoiding for a moment the basic conflict between security and liberty, so long as the "establishment" can assert that a particular action is for the good of the public, it will justify the removal of any right or privilege. Turn for a second to the nature of right and privilege. Privacy is really not a right to begin with but a privilege. Before you get up in arms, and make analogies to driver's licenses, consider the following, courtesy of Hohfield. Every entitlement is either a right or a privilege. All rights have corresponding duties, (by definition in Hohfield's explanation) privileges by contrast are met on the other side by the existence of a no-right. For example: If I verbally assault Tom on the street, he has no legal recourse. I have the privilege of verbal assault, and Tom has a no-right relationship with my privilege. He has no right to redress. If I burn down Tom's house, Tom has had his right (to use and enjoyment of land) violated, and as a result, I have a duty not to infringe on that right. Privacy in the past has fit nicely into the privilege hole. It wasn't that you had a right to privacy, but rather that everyone else had no-right to pry. Privacy was in a Hohfieldian manner, a privilege. Today this changes. Privacy, or more accurately LACK OF PRIVACY, is now a duty. The social security administration has a RIGHT to assign you a number. The IRS has a RIGHT to poke around. The FBI has a RIGHT to tap your phone (with cause, [or not]). We have gone from a privilege to the opposite side of a right, a duty in effect. Enter cryptography. Now we have the means to protect our information. Technology makes it easier to avoid the "duty" of disclosure. One way or another, something will give. Privacy is on the fence right now with a movement to a government entitlement against it. Cryptography will either force the hand, or force a backdown. Which one is a matter of conjecture. Personally I would like to see the elements of privacy become guarded by right to privacy, with the typical bundle of property rights that follows such a designation. Right to use, right to exclude, right to transfer the property of information, personal or proprietary. This opens the door for more radical injunctive and money damage relief for the violation of these rights than is currently available. It is with this goal in mind that I approach my support of cypherpunks and cryptography. No one in my mind has a right to intrude and it is entirely counterintuitive to expect citizens to submit to a duty of disclosure as is the current practice and direction. Even with respect to business and banking, the only reason identity has become important is with the rise of the credit transaction. There is simply no need for identity disclosure with cash transactions. Numbered bank accounts and even lines of credit exist and will continue to prosper. Thank you for your time and attention. :) - -uni- (Dark) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLOFzGxibHbaiMfO5AQHSqAP/Z/yfWAOAA7vh1+KqaRbBgiRa2wnt59As 2Y+K0KvhZCdwBScR/Ft4ewAvHnu3JFKG4NYUSJ1IYlasQ23YjYZOkE0YxatDMY35 X/P2AF5oX3WTV0zGNsMFX88uUeJUTx83yCt24o+ZgX+FxM5aNDuNME1LDH2voatP mFdiGatQhS4= =7SjQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----