Mind rape [was: Re: INTERCEPT THIS]

[Adam Shostack]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 03:23:05PM -0700, Tim May wrote:

| 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.)

Jeffrey Rosen writes about this in "The Unwanted Gaze."  He recounts
the story of John Wilkes, an MP in the 1760s whose diaries were
seized, and how the law evolved from allowing only the seizure of
contraband, and not papers for use as "mere evidence."  I found it an
entertaining read for $13, and there was useful historical context and 
interesting tidbits.

The trends Tim describes would have been very familiar to the
founders, and have been going on for longer than 20 or 40 years.

Adam



-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume