Gentlemen do not read each other's mail...

[Jim Bell]

>From: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l at odewijk.nl>
>I still feel offended that the leaders do not get furious over ALL CITIZENS BEING SPIED UPON but only CUTESY ME IS BEING SPIED UPON. >Maybe they imagined how wrong things can go for them, and that became very vivid. But how come their fantasies about corporate espionage >weren't vivid?
My understanding is that many years ago, in the 1960's, many U.S. states passed laws prohibiting people from recording face-to-face conversations unless all parties were aware of the recording, and they consented to it.  Why was this?  I strongly suspect this:  It was in the 1960's the technical ability to do such recording easily developed, with compact equipment (radio transmitters or tape recorders), and the politicians realized that anybody they talked to (lobbyists and other legislators, as well as citizens) had a powerful motivation to record them.  Naturally, such recordings could surface at any time, with obvious embarrassing (and even incriminating) consequences.   Politicians' primary motivation was to protect themselves, NOT to protect ordinary citizens:  If such recordings were illegally done, it would tend to deter the making and/or release of them.  (Although today, with the Internet and Cryptome, and Wikileaks, it might not make
 any difference.)
       Jim Bell
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