On Sat, 28 Jun 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:
But so what? Right now the government has intimate knowledge of your finances through tax records and other sources, and has the power to put liens on your property and your cash for all kinds of reasons. And indeed, all too frequently it gets out of control. But the bottom line is that business in the US continues to function. It would continue to function with key escrow, as well.
They can easily put a lein on MY property, but (except for some abuses which are the subject of lawsuits), they can't put a lein on something that has been sold and resold that is now someone else's. With GAK$, they can cancel every $20 e-bill I have ever spent, those I currently own, and those I have transferred to others in exchange.
Assuming certain models of key escrow, yes. Under other models, no. But imagine the worst case -- GAK creates a huge unwieldy expensive computerized infrastructure and associated bureacracy. What happens? Businesses find other ways to protect their data and transactions, huge economic inefficiencies develop, and the whole thing collapses and goes away.
It's amazing how little faith libertarians have in the market system, isn't it? :-)
Actually I expect exactly what you describe to happen. In various other posts and venues, I have said in some form that "The government won't be overthrown in a revolution, it will be obsoleted by technology". But waiting for the market to take effect may not be short or pleasant. Look how long it took for the Soviet empire to collapse.