Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li> wrote:

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What is or is not your personal or EFF's official position is meaningless. It is clear that the personal beliefs of those involved in EFF are those of compromise, present day politics, and a general lack of moral fiber.

While nobody's called Esther Dyson a Communist here yet, there are people on the board I disagree with - Mitch Kapor, in particular, has shown signs of being a (gasp!) Democrat! My initial reaction to the EFF's first year or two was that they were doing some very good things (the Steve Jackson defense), and also had people making speeches about the need to provide everybody with access to the Information SuperHighway. Getting the S.266 anti-crypto-pro-wiretapping bill killed a few years ago was what convinced me to join them, though their compromise positions on some of the other anti-freedom bills since then have not helped my mixed views of the organization. With all due respect to Jerry Berman, I'm more comfortable now that they're not Washington Insiders any more.

Why am I any more mistaken for pointing out that a single influential member of EFF's staff or board is anti-anonymity and yet remains with the organization than you are for pointing out that a single influential member who happened to be anti-anonymity has left? .... Maybe there should be an EFF position on the matter.

Maybe. If it's a good position, it will recognize that anonymity is a mixed blessing; there are people who use it creatively and responsibly, like Black Unicorn and Lucky Green, and there are spammers who abuse it to the detriment of society, like the slimeball who used my remailer to post hatemail to the gay newsgroups with somebody else's name attached to the bottom. On the other hand, free speech is also a mixed blessing; there _are_ things I wish people had the good taste not to say, but I'm not going to get in Voltaire's way while he defends to the death their right to say them... # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto