IP: 2 on Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for U.S.: Dan Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 10:36:10 -0400
> To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
> Subject: Re: IP: Re: Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for
>   U.S.: Dan Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001
>
> Well, by publishing Mr. David Barrett's letter, you sure raised my blood 
> pressure.  I have no idea who he is (since he posts using yahoo, a great 
> venue for people who need to be protected behind its relative anonymity), 
> but if he is on the side of law enforcement, his lack of willingness to 
> even listen to the concerns of people who worry about privacy proves his 
> opponents right.
>
> In my experience discussing these issues with government decision makers, 
> the typical attitude has been we should use all tools available to us, 
> unless there is a huge outcry *in advance* from a vast majority of the 
> public.  Yet the actual harm is often far in the future, as in the case of 
> moves for long-term archival storage of all communications.
>
> I argued in the early Clipper era that a huge problem with key-escrow 
> comes when combined with the ability (now here) to record all 
> communications forever.  (disk-oxide capacity is now growing at a rate 
> that exceeds message creation rates).  This argument was squishier than 
> the more glamorous paranoia around whether there was a "secret NSA 
> backdoor" designed into Clipper, so the problem with universal recording 
> got short shrift.
>
> This enables ex-post-facto revisions of what is acceptable thinking and 
> behavior, such as what happened in the McCarthy witchhunts for communists 
> and fellow travellers, and what happened when small percentages of Jewish 
> ancestry were suddenly classified as worthy of death penalty.  Or in other 
> countries where messages discussing opposition to other dominant 
> ideologies lead to harassment and oppression?
>
> Can we trust the well-meaning despots of the future with these tools?  I 
> am still shocked at some of the atrocities that have been ordered by my 
> government in the past - and yet that government was well-meaning and 
> supported by a majority of citizens.
>
> Anyone, Mr. David Barrett's certitude and use of terms like "whining" 
> shows exactly why we cannot trust him or his like in government.  They 
> have no capability of tolerance or empathy with points of view other than 
> their own.

> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <shap () eros-os org>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>, <ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com>
> Subject: Re: Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for U.S.: 
> Dan  Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001
> Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 05:36:05 -0400
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200
>
> [For IP]
>
> Dave:
>
> I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Gilmore's article, but I'ld like to
> emphasize something that he touched on only in passing. This first came to
> my attention in conversations with Ben Laurie, who is the man behind Apache
> SSL.
>
> In the US, one of the major organizations pushing for reducing privacy is
> federal law enforcement. There has been a string of ill-considered
> legislation in recent years that has been strongly endorsed and supported by
> the FBI.
>
> In contrast, the British police largely felt that the RIP act was total
> idiocy, and were vocally opposed to it.
>
> There are still police officers in the US do a difficult job well and
> properly, but cops here are increasingly disengaged from the population. A
> silly example: when I started driving, it was still common for a patrol car
> to render driver assistance or pause to clear a hazard from the road. When
> was the last time you saw a patrol car do this? A few weeks ago, I saw a
> Maryland state trooper clear a hazard on 695 here in Baltimore, and I was
> struck by the fact that it had been *years* since I had seen a cop do that.
> In a variety of ways, we have allowed our police forces to lose sight of the
> "serve" part of "protect and serve."
>
> In the end, it is the *combination* of a disengaged police force with
> invasive law that is truly frightening. The British police are still engaged
> with their communities, and for a variety of social reasons are likely to
> remain so.
>
>
> Jonathan Shapiro



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