-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- It has occurred to me with the approach of the presidential campaign in the US (and its attendant press frenzy), that there is an an unprecedentedly vast opportunity to bring certain items on the cypherpunk platform into the public spotlight. There are two planks of this platform that I believe: 1. would benefit from this exposure; 2. would be relatively easy to inoculate among the press and/or the candidates (actually, inoculation of the candidates, with subsequent propagation by the rabid campaign press). The first of these has to do with net.censorship, and formal recognition under law of ISPs' common carrier status. The second concerns remailers. I'll deal with each in turn. I believe that, given the hunger of the candidates for as much exposure as possible, that one of them might be persuaded to take a part in the Scientology fracas. (This would have to happen fairly soon, since it looks like the Church <spit> is losing some major battles lately - the brand new news from Denver re:FACTnet and the ruling in VA concerning Arnie Lerma and the Washington Post). The desirable features of such a candidate might include: a certain amount of current power, marginal current press exposure, fairly deep pocketed financing, an anti- regulatory stance, and a smidgeon of net awareness. It should be fairly straightforward to convince such a candidate that: 1. there would be tremendous increase in exposure due to the songs of praise from netizens (whose influence is most likely to be overly discounted by campaign strategists, IMHO, at this point in time), and from the mainstream press (especially Time magazine and the Washington Post, for obvious reasons). 2. that the exposure would be worth the peril of inviting the wrath of the Church <spit>. The payback of the press coverage of such a candidate would be infection of John Q. Public with the idea that ISPs are no more responsible for content of carried messages than the phone company, and an anti-censorship stance that does not make him (John Q.) pro-porn. This last is a huge flaw in the current battle for free speech on the net, IMO. (Thank you Marty Rimm.) If this issue could be refocused, I think that John Q. (and Jane) would find it much easier to support. The second plank that could be potentially advanced is anonymity. Anonymous remailers in particular, but the benefits of anonymity to users of the Net in general as well. I propose that we get some likely candidate (actually, a similar candidate to the one above) to advocate the benefits of anonymity on the net. The "spin" that would have to be used would depend on the particular candidate, but let's for example we have: Candidate Posturing Required Spin ----------------------------------------------------------------- Pro-business, tough on crime anonymous crime tip e-mail a la Fed whistleblower stuff, and the SPA Pro-choice, womens' vote anonymous support services Of course, there are many more examples, but we'd have to see which postures this campaign's candidates are going to pick. Of course, I am somewhat cynical in my advocation of the particular "Required Spins" (the SPA support, especially), but I feel that the threats to privacy and public use of strong encryption (which walks hand in hand with the use of the remailers, naturally) are worth the potential risk on other fronts (the burgeoning software patent silliness, eg). You may ask why these candidates would be interested in this type of thing, and my response is that they can be forced. The religious right has no problem bringing their agenda into the public spotlight and forcing their issues onto candidates because of their willingness to use hyperbole and fanaticism (not to mention pressure on advertisers and other sponsors). I believe that netizens in general, and cypherpunks in particular can bring similar, and more reasoned, pressure to bear. I think that our job is easier than the religious right because it should be trivial to enlist the support of the mainstream press on these issues, and to direct the anti-federal ire that has been building in the US. In addition, Democratic candidates that are currently in office would love to have some way of attacking the Republican plans for this session of Congress. An attack on net.censorship via the CDA and the telecomm bill could be seen as the ideal place to attack the Republican agenda, and thereby the success of Republican candidates in the presidential race. <whew.> Let the flames begin. - - David C. Lambert dcl@panix.com (finger for public key) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMFcB+qpplsfgM88VAQFdewP9G0aHVTweUeCMa7J7Xhtu2R4cID6yP/J3 7WS5OicRWfl/hPRXj1Db74A9tDrkStEfobbL/2H6CsO9N4wZNgcDLQAa5MjX8ujf 0EF6v57nlcANb1qLJ5kmwfGj96PUMDtw00409tin3KssRAL0uz/lL9SWP/Mhj9q5 emZHYW3VC3c= =bTsO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----