Stu Baker on CALEA and the Net

[Greg Broiles]

At 10:12 AM 10/19/2001 +1000, Julian Assange wrote:
> > He's a gun-for-hire, not a doctrinaire blinders-on true believer for 
> either
> > the surveillance enthusiasts or privacy freaks.
>
>Oh, come off it.
>
>Stu is a well known NSA zealot.

Have you actually spoken with him, or are you just working from press reports?

Lots of things are "well known" and wrong, too.

>  The only reason there's a bridge
>between Kapor and Baker is due to the cavernous ravine that lays
>between them. Kapor is now apparently half-way across, following
>Stu's silently bekoning finger, fearfully running from the sounds
>of angels wings; fooled into believing that they lie behind and
>not ahead of him.

I don't know what Kapor has been smoking, but getting focused on Stewart 
Baker as the enemy is a distraction. He's articulate, and sympathetic to 
law enforcement/intelligence arguments in favor of surveillance and against 
privacy, but I'd sure rather hear him make those arguments in public than 
have him make them in private where the rest of us can't respond or prepare 
for what's coming.

Maybe Kapor just now noticed that lives really are at stake - crypto and 
security aren't just about spying on porn downloads and credit cards. His 
reaction is typical of leftist privacy activists the first time they need 
to really grapple with violence and its implications - they want to get as 
far from it as possible, and defer to the right-wing "experts" they 
previously opposed.

If the FBI really is preparing for a domestic surveillance initiative, 
hearing about that months in advance is a lot more helpful than yet another 
incompatible peer-to-peer content distribution system.


--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at well.com
"We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids