Return-Path: cypherpunks-errors@toad.com Received: from toad.com (toad.com [140.174.2.1]) by desiree.teleport.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA20243; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:45:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA24963 for cypherpunks-outgoing; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:18:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from slack.lne.com (slack.lne.com [140.174.94.3]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA24943 for <cypherpunks@toad.com>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:18:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from ericm@localhost) by slack.lne.com (8.7.1/1.0) id LAA01221; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:17:38 -0700 From: Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com> Message-Id: <199607281817.LAA01221@slack.lne.com> Subject: Re: Feinstein wants controls on Internet, Books To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:17:38 -0700 (PDT) Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com In-Reply-To: <ae20e54404021004a690@[205.199.118.202]> from "Timothy C. May" at Jul 29, 96 02:26:17 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-cypherpunks@toad.com Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 80129fa915fe7d4135b53b9b5e157ff7
Timothy C. May writes:
One of my senators, Senator Dianne Feinstein, is now arguing on CNN for controls on information put on the Internet, on censorship of books and articles describing how pipe bombs work, and for making it easier to get wiretaps against those suspected of committing thought crimes.
One or two more major incidents on top of the recent ones (World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, Dharan, TWA 800, and Olympic Village) and I suspect Congress will simply vote to repeal the Bill of Rights and just be done with this whole experiment in liberty.
Yes, but it won't be nearly that blatant. In classic Orewllian Doublespeak, it'll be called the "Terrorist Victims Bill of Rights and Freedom of Information Act" and will merely 'abridge' the Bill of Rights with the "right" of the government to investigate, wiretap, arrest and detain without trial any suspected "terrorists" and "drug kingpins".
Cancelling the Bill of Rights would be too obvious, and probably isn't the outright goal of any but a few extremists in government. Rather, the majority of bureaucrats/elected officials want to redefine the Rights to only apply to "good citizens", for somewhat varying definitions of "good". "They" won't suddenly stage a fascist coup, instead it will (and has been) a long step-by-step process. I don't think that most policy-makers are even aware of what they're doing (DiFi certainly isn't) they're just responding to preceived public pressure and trying to stay elected.
The ugliest phrase in American lexicon: "There oughta be a law".
-- Eric Murray ericm@lne.com ericm@motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF
--- Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."