Why Leahy is No Friend of Ours

Sat May 4 21:06:51 PDT 1996

Timothy C. May typed:

> But no Congressman who co-sponsors such legislation as the "National
> Wiretap Initiative," with its "1% of the engineering capacity" requirements
> and other such Big Brother Surveillance State clauses, is a friend of ours.

No legislator at all is our friend.  The legislature is a gateway - we push 
an issue thru it into the politico-legal system, and other groups push 
their own issues back through the gateway at us.  Whoever pushes more, and
times their pushing with when the gate is open, wins.

This isn't about making chums.  Leahy is a gatekeeper, like any other 
legislator. We don't have to like him, just get him to open the gate for us,
and close it for our opponents.

--
<HTML><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/">    Stanton McCandlish
</A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech at eff.org">        mech at eff.org
</A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/">         Electronic Frontier Foundation
</A><P>        Online Activist    </HTML>