On Friday, August 10, 2001, at 08:05 AM, Trei, Peter wrote:

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Tim May[SMTP:tcmay@got.net] wrote: 5) Fewer things criminal, but punish real crimes harshly. Instead of letting an arsonist off with a stern lecture while putting a kid selling blotter acid at a Dead concert in prison for 10 years, don't prosecute the kid and kill the arsonist. For thieves, put them on a work gang for several years. For murderers and rapists (real rapists, not Wimmin's Lib victims), kill them. 6) For cops found guilty of inserting toilet plungers into detainees, kill them. 7) For those involved in burning the Waco compound, kill them. And so on.

[This is really a separate and off-topic issue] I object to all killing except in immediate and urgent defense of life and limb. I won't attempt to persuade you here. But even if I were a serial killer like Dubya, I would stop shy of killing rapists and other non-murderers. If rape as well as murder carried the death penalty, rapists (the real rapists you refer to) would be strongly motivated to murder their victims - doing so eliminates the best (and usually only) witness against them, and even if they are convicted, carries no additional penalty - it's tough to make someone serve two death sentences consecutively.

Rape and murder both carry the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and many/most other Islamic nations. Not a lot of rapes or murders in most of these countries (Indonesia a special case, some war-torn terror states are also special cases). There is some chance for what you describe, but the overall suppression of both will make for fewer cases than your analysis hints at. People fearing death if they rape will avoid the act in the first place, not rape...and then worry about getting rid of the witness. (Besides which, technologies are coming which make it harder for perps to get away with crimes like this. Encrypted WiFi escrow records of chemical scents and sounds, even images. Vastly better forensics, with rubbed-off DNA or deposited DNA linked to smells and fluids in public places....)

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But stop manufacturing police state thoughtcrimes and then using the courts to rubber-stamp hunting expeditions for more crimes revealed in papers and diaries and computer discs.

Agreed.

Two other trends: 1) More use of laptops, tablets, and PDAs under personal control at all times, or most times. Locked up when not under personal control. Case design which makes it much harder to insert hardware bugs (pretty difficult to do so in a Palm or Visor...). 2) Working papers encrypted, even stored offshore, regardless of what Mr. Happy Fun Court is or is not amused by. The publicity about his Mafia guy having his computer bugged is probably helping others to think about security again. --Tim May