At 03:23 PM 4/8/96 -0800, david friedman wrote:

Have you read _The Hacker Crackdown_? I think it is pretty clear that part of what was going on there involved law enforcement people deliberately punishing BBS operators for behavior that was wicked but not illegal--basically facilitating communications involved in committing crimes (credit card number theft and the like). The punishment consisted of seizing the computer and backups and holding it for a year or so as "evidence"--without ever filing charges.

Conceivably the owner could have taken legal action--but doing so would give the law enforcement people an incentive to file charges, thus imposing large costs on the owner even if he was innocent of any crime and could eventually prove it.

I suspect that a good deal of this goes on in most law enforcement systems, in one form or another. Charging and convicting people is costly, even if they are guilty--and there is often behavior that law enforcement people want to prevent that is not even illegal. On the other hand, there are lots of things police can do that impose sizable costs but do not require a conviction, such as arresting you, holding you in a cell overnight, but never actually trying you for anything. David Friedman School of Law Santa Clara University

This is yet another one of the many reasons I advocate a system, AP, that some people around here call "extremely radical." (By today's standards it _is_ "extremely radical," but only in the sense that many sheeple seem ready to continue to tolerate the status quo.) I assert that if there is a mechanism in existence over the medium to long term to allow officialdom to punish people without conviction for things that are not even crimes, then I see nothing wrong with setting up a different system to punish these _officials_, without conviction, for things that THEY would claim are not crimes. If those officials wish to avoid this punishment, they should resign or even better, use their powers to immediately eliminate that unfair and unjustified punishment for ordinary citizens. But I guess this solution is a bit too obvious for some, huh? B^) Maybe we should call it "Contempt of Citizenry." Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com