-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 14 May 1997, The Spectre wrote:
The difference in all these cases (save mine) is that the people you listed would have been persecuted, if not prosecuted, for their actions. Now people are hiding out of fear and paranoia of something that in most cases doesn't exist. The people you mentioned never had to deal with this level of abuse, either.
Not everybody in the world has the luxury of not worrying about being persecuted for what they write. In other countries, free speech is not a recognized right. Also, many people express unpopular opinions that might not cause persecution, but might mean losing a job or worse. It is also useful for "liberating" certain information. In another message, you said that ftp sites could be used for this same purpose. Most ftp sites keep logs, and any corporation or government agency that has had secret information divulged is going to get the logs from the server. As for your comment about "fear and paranoia of something that in most cases doesn't exist", how do you know it doesn't? Only a few decades ago, the U.S. government was conducting illegal, domestic surveillance on communists, war protestors, civil rights activists, and other groups the government didn't like. What's preventing something like this happening today? Mailing list messages and news posts don't disappear. Something you write today could be used against you years later. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBM3oL9CzIPc7jvyFpAQG1awgAsrUxvyHkhV8o9ZWbJ89YZBybgn050DWA 86JW3pXoohpXXRSPJCI87M/mVgZbbtF2H7yzGb624roPyEpVVc1n0X12ftD8tV3R BEjpoxaRm8L+oBVpVfyEVH0tUYNqRYdSDruW9+9K6lJua76r88ACGKwalY9MQJXW KWQ9Li/HeEgtUMCRcTFH8bRxP/US3/7JXdwj0dprq17xZcpKA4550AAIgREUsrkA WrNhtwzC4V+/w8V6B5dQU85I70LlplAbEkIRPNdEBu5iqUO5WX2eJVzyUM9qixm9 Py24UOM5YtYou1QVlsBHtHPcAN3BWdrzBCo/VNezaVTmTl2BBNz9aw== =90in -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----