At 06:17 AM 10/11/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
Yep, seems right to me. While I share some part of your position on the undesirability of wiretapping, Uni's remarks about it being "firmly entrenched" in the minds of L.E. and Capitol Hill are quite on-target.
Few here in DC believe in an absolute right to privacy.
In actual fact, most public officials profess (if not practice) a belief in an 'absolute right to privacy.' That is, they profess opposition to torture. They believe that coercion for testimony should be limited to two years imprisonment (or less). There is no *official* pro-torture lobby in America (though in practice torture does occur). We've already established that they believe in an absolute right to privacy, we're just arguing over how far beyond the brain that extends. And since we control our brains and we control our i/o we can probably expand that zone of privacy in practice. My "Brain Tennis with Dorothy" post of a few weeks ago expands on this argument. DCF "You don't have to be nice to nation states you meet on the way up if you're not coming back down."