Tim Werner writes:
The scary thing has been our general erosion of a right to privacy from private enterprise. For instance, most big companies now routinely make urinating in a jar a requirement for employment. It's much easier for a private entity to get away with something like that than for the government.
Some misplacing of blame here. Don't forget that it is the "War on Drugs," the requirements for getting govenment contracts ("a drug-free workplace"), and even the civil liability laws (where a corporation gets sued into the ground if drugs are involved...), etc., that are causing the current hysteria. I know a lot of heads of companies (sometimes I think I'm the only person who worked in Technology Development at Intel in the 1970s who didn't end up the President of a company!) and their attitude on drug use is that they don't want to be bothered with what their employees (or themselves :-}) do on their own time! But their lawyers tell them the government, the "Drug Czar," and the legal system are making it necessary to implement a "drug and smoking and abusive-language free environment." Corporations left to themselves have little interest in testing for previous drug use....obvious inebriation is another matter. (Being drunk on the job is a firable offense at most companies...but I can recall more than one departmental lunch" at Intel where too much wine and beer was consumed and we returned to work mostly drunk, with our department head standing at the door, passing out dimes for the coffee machine and shaking his head in amusement.) Corporations exist to make money, for the most part. A few are run for ideological reasons, which may involve attempts to snoop or to regulate the off-hours behavior of employees. The response of those concerned should be to _leave_. A fair response. What's so bad about government-corporate ties is that the same crummy policy is then enforced everywhere, and there's no "leaving." --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."