-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 25 Jan 1997, Toto wrote:

So far, as a result of the plethora of laws passed to enable law enforcement agencies to 'catch drug dealers', I have seen only a few minor criminals who are claimed to have been brought to justice as a result of these laws, while seeing documentation of hundreds and thousands of ordinary citizens being harassed and having their human rights violated by these same laws. And still, we have people like Mark, who seem relatively intelligent and informed but who still echo the party-line of Big Brother when He proclaims that the average citizen must be subjected to new and better ways to monitor the movements and activities of His citizens in order to 'protect' them from 'drug dealers'.

Somehow, I thought my original post was ambiguous enough to be interpreted as support for the government's expansion of surveillance capabilities or the War on Some Drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe that the original intention of requiring cell phone providers to have the ability to triangulate all the signals they receive was so that drug dealers and other Enemies of the People could be caught easier. Since, drug dealers frequently use cell phones to avoid tracking, I thought that this was probably the primary justification. Just like the current GAK proposal, the government has found another way to justify a proposal to fool people into thinking that it's really for their own good. Many people have grown tired of hearing about the government's "compelling interest" in fighting "crime." The government claims that GAK is not only for violating people's rights by trying to get people to believe that it is a valuable service because it will allow people to recover their crypto keys if they ever lose them. In the case of the cell phone proposal, the promise of better 911 service is used to justify this latest violation of civil rights. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMuu7UizIPc7jvyFpAQG55gf6ApVENBJJEIQ+9xKs/9ldaSRbDvemI1DY Q0MyPkuOHo4e97i3dMYFk42Jb+OA+O0Q0kdsxRV0Y2i26GxTvC362+f/xI2+dTly YvyhPwgUyztfVC+IrjQgpuvqOMWthqdBrkZR7cJAs7KQG49CiWMAVcmCmQGUWJU/ mv2TRHAw3GT0NYIqF5FhTFAEoXcPZAjuEHP1pYPOPJ1zjrUkp6adcK2khgFHKwYp L8Pc9YLTJ/VNuw1n02PcfnitzPfgQIdhQVJAxwRClCxyifBKzQW1BtcMKyPhoxHY roTqotTzpIROBJVGZStx99mEscYG3KJCymDp6zqEfC78WWcUhoMMYg== =N8mn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----