legally required forgetting

[An Metet]

Regarding the question of whether debt must be merely 'forgiven'
or actually 'forgotten', see http://www.epic.org/privacy/fcra for
information on the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970:

"The FCRA limits the length of time some information can appear in a
consumer report.  For instance, bankruptcies must be removed from the
report after 10 years.  Civil suits, civil judgments, paid tax liens,
accounts placed for collection, and records of arrest can only appear
for 7 years."

BlackNet thwarts such limitations on the reporting of consumer credit.
Clearly, providing access to this data harms individual privacy.
Yet Cypherpunks traditionally have supported this concept.  A privacy
advocacy group promotes technology which would aid the compilation of
individual dossiers and allow access to personally identifying data
about past financial transactions.

Of course, these were "classical" Cypherpunks, from the days when
"men were men and giants walked the earth".  They understood that the
way to keep data private was not to let it out in the first place.
They believed in freedom: freedom of association, freedom of contract.
They saw privacy as a means to achieve that freedom, not as an end
in itself.

Today, the Cypherpunks list is but a shadow of its former glory, with
anarcho-capitalism all but forgotten in favor of fashionable nihilism,
libertarians replaced by liberals.  Perhaps it is not too late to
resurrect the ideals of the past, but it will require hard work and open
mindedness on the part of all.