An Open Letter on Privacy and Anonymity (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:37:11 -0700
From: Eric Hughes <eh-cypherpunks at grace.speakeasy.net>
Reply-To: cypherpunks at ssz.com
To: cypherpunks at lne.com
Subject: CDR: An Open Letter on Privacy and Anonymity

2001 September 12
An Open Letter on Privacy and Anonymity


Fellow Citizens of the United States of America:

I am moved to write as a founder of a movement that, far beyond my own 
efforts, has eloquently expressed an ideal, the ideal of privacy in 
society.  Privacy is not uniquely American, yet it is at the core of the 
American ideal, at the core of free speech that enables human connection, 
at the core of free association that builds society up from a savage state, 
at the core of liberty.  I helped to start cypherpunks, a movement for 
privacy in the digital world.  Cypherpunks is a diverse movement with no 
explicit doctrine, yet with a deep shared desire for human liberty.

Let none who call me friend say that the events of September 11 are 
anything other than a dark day upon humanity.  In the midst of the 
violence, I see a thirst for the taste of the blood of vengeance in the 
mouths of many of my fellow citizens.  I see that destruction will 
ineluctably ride upon the opponents of the country of these my fellow 
citizens.  So be it.  I do not seek here to forestall or to avoid the 
violence directed toward the perpetrators of these deeds.

I write as a citizen of the United States that our country may avoid a 
self-inflicted wound against liberty.  The terrorists have struck a blow 
against liberty, it is said.  The terrorists will strike again, it is 
said.  I say to all, let us not strike the second blow against 
ourselves.  Today we are seeking an enemy unknown, an enemy who is hiding, 
as well they ought to.  The thirst that drives our country forward now 
cannot be slaked without the apprehension of those responsible, and we have 
yet to identify or find them.  We now have a great temptation before us, to 
lash out at those amongst ourselves who may be thought to have given succor 
to our enemies, at those amongst ourselves who may be thought to still 
provide them solace and deception, and at those amongst ourselves whom some 
dislike for unrelated reasons.

I wish to repeat again the words of Governor Davis of California, who spoke 
yesterday that "we are all Americans."  We are all Americans, and we should 
not attack ourselves.  We are all Americans, and we should not fight each 
other in the streets.  We are all Americans, and we should not turn our law 
enforcement apparatus and our national security infrastructure against the 
very liberties that we all hold dear.  The goal of these terrorists is to 
restrict freedoms in America, to steal its essence and to weaken it.  I 
shall pray we do not cooperate with this their goal in a hot-headed rush to 
immediate results.  Let the anger of this country be cold and calmly 
directed, that the accompaniment of wrath be precision.

The terrorists are cowards, it is said.  Shall America be a coward to 
itself?  We have an excess of strength to expend upon our opponents, be 
they external or internal.  We will find that there are internal champions 
of liberty that have without conspiracy or knowledge furthered the plans of 
our opponents, who have taken advantage of the liberties that America 
offers all who enter her shores.  Many of these champions I know 
personally, because cypherpunks have enabled liberty on-line to all takers, 
without discrimination and without distinction.  Let the prevailing wrath 
be directed not against those to promote liberty, but those who consciously 
seek to destroy it.

We need not curtail our liberty in order to save it.  The message is 
seductive that we may more effectively fight for liberty if we limit our 
freedoms for a time whose end has yet to be announced.  Yet this is not the 
message of America, but of several of its vanquished enemies.  For liberty 
is not fair-weather clothing that may only be worn when the weather is 
good.  Liberty is rather the jewel in the locket, the most prized 
possession short of family and life itself.  We diminish ourselves if we 
rationalize our freedom away in an evanescent fog of rhetoric about 
efficiency.  Liberty is not efficient; it is expensive and tortuous, and as 
an American people we desire it before most everything else.

As we enter a new century, let us demonstrate the true strength of an open 
society -- that it can withstand the threat of demagoguery even as it 
remains a powerful actor against an external threat.  This is the ideal 
that our strength may manifest, that a democracy may express its power as a 
democracy itself, and not as a police state masquerading as one.

I stand with the Federal Congress and sing "America, my home, sweet 
home."  For I live upon this land and soil, with other people who have set 
their lives along the course of freedom.  I pray that we may all pass 
through this dark time with the dignity of our own ideals intact, that we 
may pass through to the other side with renewed vigor to pursue the cause 
of freedom over all the earth.  My heart grieves with those who have lost, 
yet it also rejoices that we might yet undergo this ordeal as a country and 
emerge stronger and more faithful to our own nature.

May peace be with you all, with the fullness of your existence in tow.


Eric Hughes



[Please feel free to post this at will.]