Jim Bell's fiber-optic patent application.

[CryptoFreak]

On 09/20/2013 10:53 PM, Jim Bell wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 9:48 PM, coderman <coderman at gmail.com
> <mailto:coderman at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>>Evidently he has made what he considers a step in this direction ;)
> 
> I propose that the public force such companies to sign what I'd call
> "Disloyalty oaths", promises to be disloyal to any and every
> government.  This would include a promise that if subjected to any sort
> of court order (even and especially those requiring that the company
> keep silent as to the existence of said order) that the order would be
> 'leaked' shortly, say less than a week, to an organization (Cryptome;
> Wikileaks) that would publicize it.  Primary methods as crude as leaving
> a few hundred copies of the order at the company water-cooler, or in the
> cafeteria, or by the copier, would probably induce volunteer leakers to
> mail copies to the leak-publication organizations.  Governments and
> courts have little reason to issue such orders if their existence will
> be leaked, particularly if they are going to be very quickly leaked. 
> Leaks, obviously, are very easy to do these days and the identity of the
> leaker would be very hard to know, and even harder to prove.  Chances
> are good that such court-orders simply will cease.

I completely support the idea of disloyalty oaths. The only problem I
see is that they simply wouldn't work. What we'd see is the government
putting increased threat of criminal prosecution on the corporate chain
and not enough corporate officers willing to risk going to jail in order
to do the right thing. Marissa Mayer from Yahoo said as much in her
Techcrunch interview last week.

The only option I see is that the public simply refuse to do business
with the offending companies and do business with their foreign
counterparts; take the money out of the US and do real harm to the US
economy in the process. When major companies start failing and everyone
knows it's because they betrayed their customers, the government will
have to respond. It's already starting to a degree. Microsoft and Google
have already said they're experiencing real financial loss because of
the NSA revelations.

We need to vote with our money. And we need to be willing to accept
'less viable' solutions for a time while other companies ramp up their
services. Are Americans willing to go that far? I'm not too sure. We
want comfort and convenience. Often, principles take a back seat to those.


CypherPunk