Forced disclosures, document seizures, Right and Wrong.

[Blanc]

James A. Donald wrote:

The basic problem with any legal incantation is that at some point
you must explain to the authorities:  "My actions were legal for
this reason and that reason", explaining in inconveniently great
detail what you are doing, and their response your complicated and
highly informative explanation will almost certainly be to hit a
few times, and then lock you up.    With cryptography they have a
mysterious block of unexplained and useless bits.
----------------------------------


And doesn't providing all these explanations of their behavior, or else
excuses for them, put a person in the position of being the equivalent of a
puppet on a string?  They yank, you respond (or else).  It's not much at all
like the ideal of being one's own person, with liberty and authority to
direct one's own actions, to be reduced to answering for your decisions
(crypto or otherwise) - under the guidance of a stranger who is only
concerned about following the proper procedure for responding to the pull -
to some other stranger put into position of power over you, who may be
irate, bored, humorless, eager to be elsewhere, etc.

The arguments in these threads deal with cryptography and bits of data and
how they are treated by 'the owner' or 'the consumer' or 'the researcher'.
And they are discussed within the context of laws which are designed to
circumscribe the actions of citizens in regard to each other.  But in fact
there is a larger context which precedes these contexts, which form the
foundation of expectations about being a real person and living a rational
life, and which should not be set aside as insignificant. This is what makes
me - and some other of us - uncomfortable about the laws, lawyers, and legal
systems.

It is ideal - as an individual or in a controversy with others - to be able
to come to terms about what is Truth and Justice, and Right and Wrong, using
intelligent arguments to distinguish between them and make decisions in
regard of them.  But if that is not possible, then either a person succumbs
to what others impose upon them, or they must find methods of self-defense
against being reduced to the status of a "criminal" and being treated as
such (worthless).

Currently it appears that anything which is not first reviewed and approved
by official overseers falls under the category of 'crime'.  The 'crime'
appears to be that of not making oneself satisfactorily, publically,
submissive and subordinate to legal oversight and direction.  And this tells
me that in fact, those who study and apply the law do not really know the
difference between good and bad (what is proper or improper) for 'mankind' -
when the only solution they can come up with to the problems of living and
working together is to reduce everyone ad absurdum to a malleable level,
when they should actualy be assistants to to prevention from being reduced
to low standards of functioning.

[But I guess this is best dicussed on L-Cyberia. Do they keep archives?]

  ..
Blanc