Responding to msg by James A. Donald: ;If we fail to point out that people have a right to :privacy, if we fail to point out the moral and :constitutional implications of coercive inspection, :then our enemies win, by citing tax evaders child :pornographers terrorists and pedophiles. Well, sure, you can always expect that government employees should have to know about morality, since they've made themselves responsible for things like social welfare and the advancement of Great Societies. But no one else is required to 'behave' that way - they only need to know that they will suffer the consequences of trespassing the lines which divide us. :If all morality is relative, then the only possible way :for people to live together peaceably is for a single :arbitrary will and to impose that morality by as much :violence as necessary -- this is the classic argument :(Hobbes, Nazis) for absolutist government. No one said that morality is or should be relative, nor either that they want to live together peaceably. They did express their displeasure at having to read anyone's disapproval on particular applications of crypto knowledge. I myself don't think that being able to evaluate human actions in terms of their propriety is outside the capacities of technogeeks to ponder (don't jump if you don't identify with one). I agree it is important, especially for those who do expect to live in formal societies, to develop a *conscious knowledge* of morality, of the meaning of human actions in terms of 'right' and 'wrong'. If we were all properly acquainted with the elements of morality it would be easier to identify its place in the life of real humans who have values and wish to protect them from deliterious, intrusive attacks (from any source). A conscious knowledge also makes it possible to present valid basis for objecting to the 'evil' which governments will do. You said, in reference to ye kings of olde, that "many of the actions of the state were unlawful" and that there were those who established that the king could not "make law as he pleased". Actually, being a conquering ruler gives a king the latitude to make any 'law' that he pleases. But to free themselves from the king's grasp, the influential philosophers of the past took their mind to a consideration of what the substance of morality, or 'goodness/badness', means in the life of a human being qua the nature of being human. What else could be the basis for the desire to act in freedom & liberty from autocratic rule? Some cpunks don't think it's necessary to indulge in these discussions, but individuals always act within the context of evaluations upon the implications of their actions. It doesn't go away; it must be dealt with it, especially if what one (publicly) contemplates doing is potentially in conflict with others' high moral standards. .. Blanc