To: cypherpunks@toad.com A >the government: it protects us, provides free schools, etc etc, in A >exchange for which we have to pony up a fair share of our earnings. You should know that there are people out there who would use deadly force to resist government attempts to provide *their* children with free schools. To avoid a political argument which some may feel would be inappropriate for cypherpunks -- you should consider that social systems are dependent on the power relationships among individuals and groups in society. As technology changes, this balance of power changes. Social systems which depend upon the people being weak and the government strong, cannot survive an increase in the physical powers possessed by the people. This is a technological phenomenon. One of the public services that groups like cypherpunks can perform is to give both the rulers and the ruled some advance warning of the transformations that are on the horizon so that both groups can adjust their plans. Rather than debating whether or not the people owe the government information about themselves, you should argue about whether or not the government has the technological capability to discover information about people. In the absence of such capability, government "rights" to have the information are merely rhetoric. Duncan Frissell --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165