On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:
I suspect the scare about privacy has led to muddled thinking.
Free speech is a right that strictly limits the government's ability to control what you say. We should have a similar right of privacy from the government.
That would be nice. You should have put that in your article.
But I give up my free speech "rights" when I attend a college with a wacky speech code or go to work at a company with workplace speech policies. My choices in those situations are governed by my free speech preferences. Similarly, I give up my privacy "rights" when I go to unknown web sites, apply for a loan, or post to Usenet, etc. These also are preferences.
But here you have a choice, you can chose to not accept that job or attend that class, or surf that site, or even do so with a nome de guere. What choice have you to control TRW or the DMV's, or your criminal records if you have any? Those aren't on your computer. You can always attend the classes under assumed names. This has been done before. (I believe one of the Steves at Apple did this - Wozniak???)
I'm surprised not to hear more from other folks here: my position is one cypherpunks have advocated for years -- controlling what data flow from my computer is my responsibility.
It's still early in the morning. I'm sure the thread will explode pretty soon. Yes, but what about the information that others can get to on your ISP? Do you control that info? We've always advocated protecting our own data, but this doesn't mean that we should invade the privacy of those who are clueless, or suck it in when some rogue piece of software (see the netscape thread) endagers our privacy. I'm not saying pull your shades up and stand butt naked infront of your windows. I'm saying someone shouldn't have the right to stick a camera in your home without your knowledge and then publish pictures of you in Playgirl or whatever. =====================================Kaos=Keraunos=Kybernetos============== .+.^.+.| Ray Arachelian | "If you wanna touch the sky, you must |./|\. ..\|/..|sunder@sundernet.com| be prepared to die. And I hate cough |/\|/\ <--*-->| ------------------ | syrup, don't you?" |\/|\/ ../|\..| "A toast to Odin, | For with those which eternal lie, with |.\|/. .+.v.+.|God of screwdrivers"| strange aeons, even death may die. |..... ======================== http://www.sundernet.com =========================