Enemies of the People...the customers of strong crypto

[Tim May]

On Friday, August 31, 2001, at 07:22 AM, Fisher Mark wrote:

>> When you were asked where were all the supposed wealthy freedom 
>> fighters
>> in communist controlled regimes, you came back with Osama bin Laden.
>
> Tim's point, which many seem to have missed, is that by design a tool 
> that
> enforces the privacy, anonymity, and pseudonymity of a women striving 
> for
> equal rights in Afghanistan can also be used by the Taliban in their 
> quest
> to track down and kill Afghans who converted to Christianity and are now
> preaching the Word.  Tools are tools -- the uses are what we make of 
> them.
> If you don't want to create tools that can be used for evil, then you 
> must
> forgo the making of tools.
>
> Crypto anarchy is coming -- we had best prepare for it, lest it 
> overwhelm
> us.  In the end, I believe that it will result in more freedom for more
> people, by restraining those in government from doing any silly thing 
> they
> like to us.

Many of those who have been quibbling about whether "freedom fighters" 
are terrorists, or whether Osama bin Laden is or is not a FF, etc., are 
MISSSING THE BIG PICTURE.

Take the long view, the more agnostic view. Whether one likes the 
actions of bin Laden or Pablo Escobar or James Jesus Angleton is not the 
point

Privacy and untraceability tools will be used by many who are seeking to 
evade others. Some we are taught in American schools are heroes, some we 
are taught are villains.

Here's a list I distributed some years ago at a CFP Conference:

(the paper is still available at Prof. Froomkin's site, 
http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/tcmay.htm  )


Appendix: Who are those Bad Guys, anyway?

Depending on which nation one is in, which regime is in power, and other 
factors, here are some of the enemies of the people the laws against 
strong crypto and the banning of digital cash are intended to crush:

Enemies of the People, the opposition party, the Resistance, friends of 
the Bad Guys, family members of the Bad Guys, conspirators, Jews, 
Catholics, Protestants, atheists, heretics, schismatics, heathens, 
leftists, rightists, poets, authors, Turks, Armenians, Scharansky, 
Solzhenitsyn, refuseniks, Chinese dissidents, students in front of 
tanks, Branch Davidians, Scientologists, Jesus, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, 
African National Congress, UNITA, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, 
colonial rebels, patriots, Tories, Basque separatists, Algerian 
separatists, secessionists, abolitionists, John Brown, draft opponents, 
communists, godless jew commies, fellow travellers, traitors, 
capitalists, imperialist lackeys, capitalist roaders, anarchists, 
monarchists, Charlie Chaplin, Galileo, Joan of Arc,, Martin Luther, 
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, civil rights workers, 
Students for a Democratic Society, Weathermen, Margaret Sanger, birth 
control activists, abortionists, anti-abortionists, Michael Milken, 
Robert Vesco, Marc Rich, Nixon's Enemies, Hoover's enemies, Clinton's 
enemies, Craig Livingstone's high school enemies, Republicans, 
Democrats, labor organizers, corporate troublemakers, whistleblowers, 
smut peddlers, pornographers, readers of "Playboy," viewers of images of 
women whose faces are uncovered, Amateur Action, Jock Sturges, violators 
of the CDA, alt.fan.karla-homulka readers, Internet Casino customers, 
Scientologists, Rosicrucians, royalists, Jacobins, Hemlock Society 
activists, Jimmy Hoffa, John L. Lewis, Cesar Chavez, opponents of United 
Fruit, land reformers, Simon Bolivar, Robin Hood, Dennis Banks, American 
Indian Movement, Jack Anderson, Daniel Ellsberg, peace activists, Father 
Berrigan, Mormons, Joseph Smith, missionaries, Greenpeace, Animal 
Liberation Front, gypsies, diplomats, U.N. ambassadors, Randy Weaver, 
David Koresh, Ayotollah Khomeini, John Gotti, Papists, Ulstermen, IRA, 
Shining Path, militia members, tax protestors, Hindus, Sikhs, Lech 
Walesa, Polish labor movement, freedom fighters, revolutionaries, Ben 
Franklin, Thomas Paine, and "suspects".