-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 09:43 AM 7/7/97 -0700, Alan wrote:
Reminds me of some of the "government is dead" threads of a couple of years back. My response was something to the effect of "The government is not like an old man dying in a corner. It is more like an old man having an epeliptic seizure in a crowded mall with lots of guns.". If the govenrment is on the way to losing its power over the people, they are going to take as many of us down with them on the way out.
Though neither the USSR nor the DDR did when they "went out." Likewise the Catholic Church when it "went out" (as a secular political power in Europe) at some point between 1400 and 1900. Those three institutions killed the bulk of their victims in their earlier more virile phases than they did in their senesence. That seems likely with our government as well. Single incidents like Bell's arrest prove nothing. Operation Sun Devil looked big at the time but did not lead to an effective government crackdown on cyberspace. It was actually a tactical and strategic loss for them. If Bell gets a dismissal or pleads to minor charges, it will be a loss for the Feds as well. Their losses against Phil Z and Jake Baker exposed the weakness of their control regimes when applied to the Net. DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBM8E1aoVO4r4sgSPhAQEjFwQAybSLQ3dW+N+Bf9lkgIt3+d2aIF22vDKa mO0zJ93e0PnvlnrLDOdHruTJUhXnj433JswgYptp6FYFhyoAe9LkcmhXmxTQiKGS 8DWjMV7CtTOLrht046QL2Y4kCqE/n31diQacgsxp07tLF+3Zw8OraqFHJC5PczWH RzIVPBDV90Q= =L8B/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----