IP: Two notes on The tragedy in NYC

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Sender: perry () snark piermont com
> To: cryptography () wasabisystems com, farber () cis upenn edu
> Subject: The tragedy in NYC
> From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry () piermont com>
> Date: 11 Sep 2001 17:13:04 -0400
> Lines: 42
>
>
> In the wake of the tragedy in NYC today, I was asked by someone if I
> didn't now agree that crypto was a munition. At the time, I thought
> that a friend of mine was likely dead. (I've since learned he escaped
> in time.)
>
> My answer then, when I thought I'd lost a friend, was the same as my
> answer now and the answer I've always had.
>
> Cryptography must remain freely available to all.
>
> In coming months, politicians will flail about looking for freedoms to
> eliminate to "curb the terrorist threat". They will see an opportunity
> to grandstand and enhance their careers, an opportunity to show they
> are "tough on terrorists".
>
> We must remember throughout that you cannot preserve freedom by
> eliminating it. The problem is not a lack of laws banning things.
>
> I know the pressure on everyone in Washington will be to "do
> something". Speaking as a New Yorker who dearly loves this city, who
> has felt deep shock throughout most of the day, watching the smoke
> still rising from the fires to the south of me, listening to the
> ambulances and police cars continuing to wail about me, let me say
> this:
>
>    I do not want more laws passed in the name of defending my home.
>
>    I do not want more freedoms eliminated to "preserve freedom".
>
>    I do not want to trade my freedom for safety. Franklin has said far
>    more eloquently than me why that is worthless.
>
> If you must do something, send out more investigators to find those
> responsible for this and bring them to justice. Pass no new laws. Take
> away no freedoms. Do not destroy the reason I live here to give me
> "safety". I'd rather die in a terrorist attack.
>
> --
> Perry E. Metzger                perry () piermont com
> --
> "Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."

From: "Alexander Polsky" <am_polsky () hotmail com>
To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Not a war . . .
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:18:07 -0400

Assuming that what we presently suspect is true --and this is a major 
assumption-- then our question will be: how shall we respond? Justice is 
one aim of any response, but prevention of future incidents must also be in 
mind.
Punishment is possible, necessary, and to be expected. But the capture and 
the jailing of the earlier World Trade Center bombers did not prevent this 
event, and the capture of those responsible for today's tragedy is unlikely 
to dissuade future acts, particularly when this one has been so 
spectacularly "succesful".
A more fundamental question is this: how much intercourse shall we have 
with those who seek our destruction? Today's actions required organization, 
planning and support. While the liberties of US citizens must not be 
trampled in the wake of such tragedy --this is expedient and dangerous 
jingoism-- we can observe that, in the case of the prior World Trade Center 
bombing, the perpetrators were not, in fact, citizens. . .being Sudanese, 
Egyptian and other foreign nationals.
To preserve American liberties, it is legitimate to ask those passing 
through our borders for more weighty and verifiable reasons for being here 
than the desire to work as a cabby or go to school. This is not an 
infringement of American liberties, but a just circumscription of the 
privileges we accord citizens of alien societies who wish to share the 
benefits of ours.



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