At 12:45 PM -0700 8/28/97, stonedog@ns1.net-gate.com wrote:

Let me get this straight: a couple of federal (were they in this case?) LEA's come to your door and say, "Come with us, you and your family are going to prison because of the color of your skin." You say, "I am a citizen of of the United States, and my rights are enumerated in the Constitution. You do not have the authority to incarcerate me without due process of law. Now please get off my property." The LEA's reply, "Hey, we're just doing our jobs. Don't give us a hard time, you stupid Nip." You pick up the shotgun you keep in the closet by the front door and say, "If I have commited a crime, then arrest me. Otherwise, get off of my property." The LEA's reply, "You just made a big mistake, bud." Twenty minutes later they return with a fifty agents with automatic rifles and orders to shoot to kill the "spy".

Of course, if he just "went along quietly", he would have spent a few years rotting in an "internment camp" while his business failed or he lost his job to someone fortunate enough to have immigrated from Italy or Germany instead of Japan. That's better than endangering the lives or yourself and your family, right?

You might feel that the example that you responded to was a bit too simplistically polemic, but I think for many people, especially those in this forum, your hypothetical situation is not at all an ethical dilemma.

Whatever you do, don't interpret what some are saying on this issue at "the view of Cypherpunks. In my view, the arrest, detention, and internment in concentration camps of persons of putative or confirmed Japanese ancestry was a slam dunk violation of their constutional rights (specifically, I presume, of their 4th and 14th ("equal protection") rights. That a "foreign entanglement," which Washington warned of, was happening between mostly Caucasian soldiers and mostly-Mongoloid soldiers over trade routes and colonies was no constitutional justification for these arrests and detetentions. And once released from these concentration camps, redress in the courts was not possible. (Token redress was made decades later.) The Japanese should have formed underground cells to track down and execute those who stole their property and their freedoms. We think killing SS arrest battallions is what the Jews should have done, so why not the same for the battallions assigned to ship these persons to America's concentration camps? It's still not too late. Strong crypto will make this very possible to coordinate and carry out. The Jews are always clamoring for Nazi criminals to be tracked down, kidnapped, and tried, a la Eichmann, so why not the co-conspirators in this case? Of course, like the Jews, few Japanese were armed at the time. And even fewer after the war (hint: any rifles or handguns they owned at the start were _not_ returned to them in 1945.) Other ethnic groups are less easily placed into concentration camps. Let the fascists try putting Koreans into concentration camps, and some of those AR-15s they used so well on the rampaging blacks and Hispanics will kill some cops and soldiers. Like the Jews in Europe, the Japs were just too fucking timid and well-mannered. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."