Underestimating long-term consequences of cryptoanarchy

Tim May timcmay at got.net
Wed May 14 17:55:24 PDT 2003


On Wednesday, May 14, 2003, at 03:24  PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 11:05:26AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>> We hold corporate employees liable for criminal acts. Why should
>> government employees be exempt from the same standard? And why should 
>> a
>> judge who is able to withstand pressures not to sentence corporate
>> employees to prison be unable to withstand similar pressures when it
>> comes to government employees?
>
> Agreed... I'm not disagreeing about the problem, just the remedy. As
> an example, Sen. Leahy thought his "morphed child porn" bill was
> constitutionally problematic, but introduced it anyway:
> http://www.politechbot.com/p-03545.html
>
> Same with debate over other bills -- "let the courts figure it out."

I would craft the rules for prosecution so as to cut Leahy a break on 
this, as it was the _first_ time the "morphed child-like images" law 
was tested. (Assuming for the sake of argument this was in fact the 
first such law...I dimly recally morphed images being outlawed half a 
dozen years ago in another law.)

My main point was not to criminally prosecute those who pass laws 
_later_ found to be unconstitutional, when tested for the first time, 
but to prosecute those who keep passing the same unconstitutional laws. 
They know the laws "won't pass constitutional muster," as the lingo 
goes, but they get enough other career criminals to sign on anyway.

None of this is going to happen, we all realize, but the point is 
valid. Passing obviously bad laws ought to have the consequences that 
cooking the books does with with corporate fraud.

>
>
--Tim May
"The Constitution is a radical document...it is the job of the 
government to rein in people's rights." --President William J. Clinton





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