On Mon, Apr 02, 2001 at 02:52:15AM -0400, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
I'm probably going to be deeply sorry for this, but the following question has been bothering me for a while:
Why in the world does anyone on this list trust Declan McCullagh?
Your argument doesn't do much for me, Seth. The problem is, what you say of Declan could be true of ANYONE you talk to, journalist or not, and ANYONE on mailing lists or other forums where you send your thoughts. The advantage of talking to Declan is that maybe, possibly, some "freedom of the press" issues will let him avoid spilling everything. In that case, you'd need to trust him to keep your best interests. For non-press, you'd still need to wonder whose interests they have at heart, but without the (minimal) protection offered by a member of the press. More importantly, a member of the press isn't going to get a lot of inside scoops if he develops a reputation as a turncoat. This, to me, is the crux: It's in any journalist's interest to be trustworthy. In the context of cypherpunks activity, being trustworthy means not playing into the hands of over-zealous law enforcement techniques. After all, the DATA are there (that is, the Web pages, mailing list postings, news articles, etc.). All the Feds are looking for, in this case, is someone with credentials a judge will listen to. That's my logic, anyway. Personally, on what I've read from Declan, I'd trust him more than 99% of other journalists who write about technological issues. This is based on technical understanding, as well as what I consider to be a decent track record of standing up against authority. -- Greg