Gotti, evidence, case law, remailer practices, civil cases, civility

[Black Unicorn]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cypherpunks at lne.com [mailto:owner-cypherpunks at lne.com]On
> Behalf Of An Metet
> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 7:10 PM
> To: cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: Re: Gotti, evidence, case law, remailer practices, civil cases,
> civilit
>
>
> Black Unicorn, esquire, wrote:
> > (Lesson for other posters- to get legal research for free out of
> > Uni, just insult him a lot)...
> >
> > ...Seriously interested researchers will spend time at the library,
> > look up statutes and learn to Shepardize.  I happened to be at the
> > law library for an unrelated matter so I wasted 90 minutes looking
> > this silliness up for you and the list Mr. May.  I herewith submit
> > my invoice, payable on receipt, for more civil treatment, for
> > services rendered.
>
> Many people on and off this list have spent a lot more than 90 minutes
> researching things, writing posts, writing code, solving math
> problems, etc., etc.  Tim May in particular has written thousands of
> pages of high quality or entertaining work.

I don't know you or how long you've been around cypherpunks but Mr. May and
I have been bouncing discussions (of both a civil and uncivil nature
depending on our respective moods) pretty much since the list started.
People might claim many things about me, but a lack of respect for Mr. May
is certainly not one of them.

What astounds me, and is right in line with your point about people spending
much more time than 90 minutes on research for this list, is that in an
environment of such dedicated posters (and I totally agree with you- once on
a node like lne.com that does a touch of filtering the content on this list
is second to none- which is why I'm here) so many spend a disproportionately
_minute_ amount of time in such work before making entirely wrong headed
assertions about law and government and yet feel entirely justified
conveying this advice as gospel to their fellows, who often take it at face
value.  (Revisit my IANAL discussion in posts a few days ago in which I
wonder aloud why these posters are taken seriously while the "I am not a
doctor, but" posters are not).  If you've been here for any length of time
I'm sure several of the most egregious examples will come to your mind
immediately without my prompting.

It hardly seems prudent to allow these errors go uncorrected.  In fact, in
my position, I would consider it irresponsible of me not to comment in some
way that would permit designers of code and systems which actually see
deployment (of which this list is uniquely populated) to write systems that
have practical and legal grounding to actually proliferate anonymity and
confidential communications capabilities world-wide without running afoul of
our most esteemed attorney general.

It would have been really nice if someone from e.g. Napster had been
listening to discussions like this back when that company's founder began
design work.  I can think of many other examples in which millions (if not
billions) could have been saved with a little sage and cautious legal advice
properly deposited in the ears of the security or design "geeks" at the
appropriate time.

Do I consider myself _more_ valuable than "geeks" or those who write code?
Don't be silly.  I will constantly, however, assert that the legal issues
that plague all the kinds of cutting edge technologies that consistently see
discussion on this list 5 and even 10 years before they are ever even
considered by the market or the real world, much less a courtroom, require
addressing by someone who actually knows what they are talking about on the
subject of legal process.

> Your complaints about "free research" suggest that you have the sense
> that you are more valuable than or superior to other contributors.

I think that's quite a reach on your part if you are pointing it out
generally.  If you mean with specific reference to legal points regarding
the production of documents and such- very much the focus of my early legal
career- then I would submit to you that I would have to be awfully stupid
_not_ to have more experience and expertise in these matters than anyone who
had not spent the amount of time I had in the field.  (I hope that's not a
thinly veiled accusation on your part that I am somehow stupid).  By the
same token you will never, _never_ catch me second guessing, e.g., Mr. May
on topics related to Physics.

Look, I would like to play basketball as well as Michael Jordan.  Is it
somehow unfair of life that I cannot?  Is Michael Jordan insulting someone
when he comments about the game in a way that suggests he knows what he is
talking about?  Of course we recognize this as an absurd assertion.  So why
should anyone be offended by the proposition that "geeks" might not always
have the best grip on the law and need a touch of advice on occasion?  Does
pointing that out somehow make me a snob?  If so, fine.  I'm a snob.  Still,
I readily admit that I don't always have the best grip on system design, nor
do I claim to.

I am more than happy to volunteer my expertise, and my research time, to try
to focus discussions (or confuse discussions depending on your view) with
respect to legal matters that impact system design.  I am _not_ happy to do
so just because someone wants to see me spew out a long list of citations
which they are unlikely to ever read.  (Mr. May is specifically excluded
from this comment because I am pretty sure he actually reads my responses
and checks up on me on occasion).  I, after all, don't demand cites from C++
manuals, or physics texts when a fairly recognized expert in those fields
posts on those topics here.  If I were to make such requests they would be
for my own edification and as requests for references to where I could learn
about the topic, not just to try and prove a point.

Most of the posters I end up citing major passages to have no, and never had
any, interest in learning about law- whether they realize it or not- but
rather putting as little effort into the consideration of it as possible,
primarily out of the grossest of intellectual laziness, while still spouting
off cliche legal errors that have long since been corrected on this list and
elsewhere, like "all foreign embassies are technically foreign soil" or "you
can't drive barefoot, it's illegal" or, one of my favorites, "if you ask and
they don't tell you they are police, then you're safe from prosecution."
Again, and I shouldn't have to keep pointing this out, I hardly mean this as
a reference to _all_ posters on cypherpunks.

> While this is couched in civility, one could conclude that this is an
> insult, something along the lines of "of course geeks should work for
> free, but I'm a lawyer!"

One concluding such might also be prone to conclude that geeks are overly
sensitive to such matters because of an underdeveloped sense of the value of
their own work.  This conclusion would be just as much a reach as your own,
above, and not in any way bear resemblance to my attitude about most of the
coders on this list (but completely in line with my attitudes about armchair
posters who are mostly typing the rubbish they purvey here merely to sound
busy with keystrokes in their cube at work).

> It's a free world, but it might work better
> not to insult people, even if the insult is slightly veiled.

I think if you review the posts on this topic over the last few days you
might find that I've been perhaps the most civil of the authors, even in the
face of some pretty caustic replies.

> (Your spoliation posts have been interesting.  Thank you for writing
> them.)

Oh, you read them?  That will be $750.00 please.