Mind rape [was: Re: INTERCEPT THIS]

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Thu Aug 9 15:23:05 PDT 2001


On Thursday, August 9, 2001, at 01:55 PM, Trei, Peter wrote:

> Aimee, who is somewhat of a newcomer to our list, is groping towards
> an idea which seems to hold the minds of many contributors; that the
> contents of our private data are as personal, and should be as 
> inviolate,
> as the contents of our heads.
>
> To those of us to whom the use of computers is as natural as breathing,
> our data are as much a part of us as our memories, and we instinctively
> feel they should be just as intimately held.
>
> We now use computers as extensions of our minds - a vast store of
> knowledge, ideas, and abilities. This ability simply did not exist at 
> the
> time the Constitution was written, and as computers grew out of
> accounting equipment, their data came to be treated as 'papers'
> rather than 'memories'.

I agree with your sentiments, but not where I think you are going with 
this.

Importantly, there is nothing in the Constitution about "memories"  have 
special protection. There is "secure in one's papers and possessions," 
there is language about under what conditions a person may be compelled 
to testify, but there is no special protection or language about 
"memories."

And I think writings on a computer are no more special than writings in 
journals and letters and personal papers. Many of the Founders and their 
contemporaries were _prodigious_ writers, generating thousands of notes 
and letters a year. Many were ardent diarists.

They would agree, I'm sure, with our current revulsion for having 
fishing expeditions where the King's men root around in papers looking 
for thoughtcrimes and evidence of conspiracies.

I'm not a historian, but I don't recall hearing about many "take all of 
the papers and diaries in the house" raids on people in the 1800s. Most 
court cases were about alleged actual crimes, not thoughtcrimes. 
(Perhaps during the persecution of the Mormons in Missouri there were 
zealous prosecutors and judges who ordered all papers sifted through. As 
I said, I'm not a historian.)

It seems that it was this past century that political crimes, 
thoughtcrimes like Debs being jailed for talking about the draft being 
bad, became so central to our corrupt legal system. The search for 
communists, dissidents, and troublemakers.

This was paralleled by trends in "discovery." In the past 20 years it 
has become routine for lawyers to  demand every scrap of paper of any 
conceivable relevance, whether in a divorce case or an antitrust case. 
(This is why IBM, Microsoft, Intel and other companies shred so many 
records.)

Then we had the War on (Some) Drugs, the seizures of property, the Steve 
Jackson Games case (where _every_ computer and disk drive was dumped in 
the back of a truck and hauled away. It's as if someone accused of a 
minor crime in 1820 were to have his diaries and papers and all of his 
books taken away for later scrutinizing. And it could have happened in 
1820, had the people allowed it.

The problem is not that "memories" are being seized. The problem is that 
"secure in one's papers and possessions" has become a joke, a null and 
void idea.

The solution is pretty obvious to most liberty-minded folks:

1) End the War on (Some) Drugs. This will eliminate most trafficking, 
distribution, money laundering, and gang war crimes.

2) Nix the idea that a simple search warrant means the contents of a 
house or office can be carted away. (The Founders would have been 
shocked at how easy it now is to get a search warrant.)

3) Return to the concept that a search warrant is to be _presented_ to 
the target of the warrant. There are very few cases where secret 
searches are needed, once drug crimes and "conspiracies" are interpreted 
less broadly.

4) Require that _judges_ who issue secret search warrants disclose them 
after some amount of time. This takes it out of the hands of the FBI to 
disclose such warrants. Perhaps have a judge supervised by a more senior 
judge, who monitors compliance.

5) Fewer things criminal, but punish real crimes harshly. Instead of 
letting an arsonist off with a stern lecture while putting a kid selling 
blotter acid at a Dead concert in prison for 10 years, don't prosecute 
the kid and kill the arsonist. For thieves, put them on a work gang for 
several years. For murderers and rapists (real rapists, not Wimmin's Lib 
victims), kill them.

6) For cops found guilty of inserting toilet plungers into detainees, 
kill them.

7) For those involved in burning the Waco compound, kill them.

And so on.

But stop manufacturing police state thoughtcrimes and then using the 
courts to rubber-stamp hunting expeditions for more crimes revealed in 
papers and diaries and computer discs.

--Tim May





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list