From: Declan McCullagh The short answer, perhaps, is that government should as a general rule adopt those policies that allow the greatest freedom over the long term. Private social pressure from families and communities may then develop into a more powerful force. ..................................................... There are limits to what can be accomplished through government. 'Government' is a coercive medium for effecting results; if everything could be accomplished by coercion, then it would rightly be expected that everything (everyone) should be always to be subject to coercion in order to have a smoothly running social machine. But if everything (all the benefits that people expect from social arrangements) could be accomplished by coercion, we wouldn't be the kind of life forms that we are. We would be the equivalent of "technology", subject to someone (else's) latest algorithmic program. Certainly under such an arrangement there would be no need for privacy. .. Blanc