They're not going to *care* that the last remailer on the chain (who will, presumably, be identifiable) wasn't responsible for the message which was sent. They're just going to invade the building the remailing host is in, kill everyone in the room, and destroy the machine, and all the machines around it. If they don't know which is the remailer, they'll just blow up the whole block. They don't care

I do not advocate censorship. I advocate responsibility.

Marc

In another couple of years, the "remailers" will not be *in* buildings but running as distributed processes on machines from Anchorage to Wellington. Hard to raid. You will be able to set up your own communications server located "somewhere on the nets" to handle message forwarding to you. Hard to raid a billion "processes". This over romatization of government power and violence is peculiar to writers of technothrillers and certain libertarians. You know who you are. Government is good at point force. It can bomb and raid fairly effectively. This ability to put a mass of organized muscle in the field was decisive in earlier technological eras. If you are fighting peasants bound to the soil or undisciplined barbarians, a Roman Square could prevail. Government is less able to apply force on a widespread basis. It depends on the respect, fear, or acquiescence of its subjects. If those weaken or disappear governments weaken or disappear. Markets apply "force" (incentives) across a wide front. They do not require fear or acquiescence to survive. They are self-enforcing. Even commies know trade. As we become stronger as individuals (I just spent a week's pay to buy more computing power (hardware) than existed on earth in 1955) we have less fear of (others) government and greater capabilities for self- government. The "anarchy" debates are beside the point. If the market is engaged in breaking down hierarchies, the government monopoly cannot stand either. King Canute cannot order back the sea. Radical restructuring (peristroika) is on the march. Strong individuals cannot avoid replacing "others government" with self government. Others government is only stable when a monopoly institution can maintain control over information and force. Information and force are becoming widely spread. We are seeing the collapse of the coercion metaphor at least in its wholesale form. When people and markets turn away from the state, it disappears. If its monopoly is broken, we will be in the realm of competing legal systems. Duncan Frissell