From Nero's gladiators and the Christians to Janet Reno's ATF and
to: mech@eff.org I found your memo from the cable company very interesting. And very familiar. In the 1970s, I had a career in transportation management. (Certificates, licenses, a couple of jobs. I spent two years learning to read and understand ICC tariffs.) Inter- state transportation went under federal control in 1887. In fact, they nationalized the railroads during WWI -- they also seized all RADIOS (transmitters and also receivers) at this time. They created the Railway Express Agency (REA) in 1920 from the freight forwarding companies they nationalized, as I believe, they created the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) at the same time. Anyway, in the trucking business, it was standard operating policy to screw the customers by pointing to "federal regulations that require us to do this." Of course, those regs came from the close interactions between the industry and government. Some of them were just typical company policies. But you couldn't go to another company with different policies. They were all the same. By law. Now, anyone who swamps about in libertarian political writing will tell you that this is to be EXPECTED. If you talk to someone who likes to read Ayn Rand, they will tell you that this is REQUIRED by the Laws of Nature. Banking, healthcare, farming, housing (and urban development), post office, you name it. These are NOT isolated events. The reason that so many cypherpunks don't buy EFF's theory of "government providing the glue of the Net" is that they understand PRINCIPLES. Government, like gravity, is what it is. When the chimp leader or his lieutenants break up a fight, they beat both combatants. They seek to control conflict to maintain the tribe. The nature of the conflict the "right" and "wrong" are irrelevant. Anaxagoras was tried for impiety. Socrates was exiled. (He chose death.) Galileo, Scopes, the NIH cancer quacks, the list is very well known. They started with lead coins washed in silver and came up with federal reserve notes. the Branch Davidians. These are all elements of the same set. No matter what the "good intentions" the road leads to the same place. You let the government provide "the glue" and five years from now even The Well will be using regulations to screw customers. Don't blame the cable company for seizing an opportunity. You created the environment they are living in. In that company there are honest techies who love bandwidths and frequecies. You put them in second place behind the scamster who uses regulations to screw clients for quarterly results. Blame yourself for the fruits of your socialism. When Cobert called togther France's merchants to find out how the government could help them, one said, "Laissez nous faire!"