----- Original Message -----
From: Declan McCullagh
At 16:38 10/6/2000 -0700, Tim May wrote, in response to Robert Guerra:
Again you show yourself to be uncritical of these claims. You don't "get it." [...] The solution is not a regimen of data privacy laws but tecnologies to enable consumers to remain private. Those who "give permission" for their refrigerator to contact some outside party have made their choice.
Right. There are solid principled reasons to oppose government regulations on what people can and can't do with information. Let them make up their own minds instead. There are also economic arguments, as Richard Epstein recently spoke about (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38893,00.html).
And there's the fact that laws against such things usually either explicitly
except government ("legitimate law-enforcement needs",