Declan and Jim both seemed to have missed the point about Cypherpunks. I've attended physical meetings, off and on, since meeting #2 or #3 in the Bay Area. I'm not uncomfortable being called--or calling myself--a libertarian, but one of the first things that the meetings revealed was that we had attendees from all corners of the political arena. And as a result, we soon saw that nothing would ever get discussed--much less done--if we focused on our political DIFFERENCES instead of our community of interest. What is that community of interest? It is the fight for privacy, against those who would deny it to us, primarily through technological (as opposed to political) means. As long as we all kept our eyes on that prize, we had no problem getting along. When we got diverted into other areas of politics/philosophy we ended up accomplishing nothing. So, do the participants of this list wish to actually get something done with regard to securing privacy, or shall we just spin our wheels in internecine warfare? S a n d y