At 6:30 PM -0400 9/26/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:

The problem with all the current bills like original SAFE and ProCODE is that they're too wimpy, abstract, arcane. Who cares about protecting business? Nobody, at least not when you'll be dubbed soft on crime. So what's the one thing everyone cares about and wants to protect?

Yes, that's right: CHILDREN!!!! I think someone should introduce a bill called "The Child Molester Prevention and Effective Sentencing Act of 1997."

I've been looking for an excuse to post this, and if someone can find me the original article I'd be grateful: Christopher Caldwell in the New York Press quotes an article on child porn that appeared in the Times Literary Supplement by American University professor Kenneth Anderson: "The fears of the religious are real.... Still, it rarely occurs to conservative religionists in America that in sacralizing children they have thereby secularized their God. In order to play with power in the public sphere, the religious Right has raised children higher than God, precisely because in knows that children are a God for the secular and so can be invoked in public in a way that God Himself cannot. "But this relationship depends on the secular Left-liberals cooperating, by also making children a transcendental category. That they have done so has less to do with the welfare of children than with a restless search by these elites for a source of moral legitimacy to shore up their managerial foundations." Best-- Glenn Hauman, BiblioBytes http://www.bb.com/

What if you want to send a message to your child saying you will be late after school. What is to prevent a pedophile from forging such a message? And if a pedophile intercepts such a message, couldn't he arrive 5 minutes early saying that "dad changed his plans again and sent me...".

Now, Rep. Tauzin wants to make it illegal to listen in to any "private" radio communication (yes listen, not just repeat), since Gingrich couldn't have access to encrypted communication and someone listened in on his cell phone. One law prevents security from being available, so they think that a second law will prevent people from listening in.

Repealing a law preventing fences is more effective than adding a draconian penalty for tresspass.

I try to avoid "me too" posts, but I agree 100% with this. Somehow we have to convince a bunch of legislators that technological solutions are superior or legal ones in protecting info-privacy. Perhaps an analogy with welfare might help (at least with conservative members): access to crypto vs. laws protecting privacy is like private job creation vs. welfare. Do we want to live in a state where we are mandated to rely on the government for privacy (even if we could trust the government)? Thanks also for the concrete example of how pedophiles could make use of a parent's lack of encryption/signing. Paul Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.