FC: Responses to conservative group lobbies for U.S. mail spying

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

ATR's Michael Kamburowski wrote in with a reply to a politech message from 
last week about his group endorsing broader U.S. mail surveillance. You can 
find his reply (and, in fact, reply to his reply) at:
  http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/09/28/0558214&mode=nested

Another response, from a libertarian:
> I wouldn't endorse their solution, but I note that ATR is complaining about
> the situation whereby "Customs can and does search almost all mail sent
> through private carriers but cannot search most mail sent through the U.S.
> Postal Service."  Assuming that's true, it seems an unreasonable burden on
> the private sector that is not borne by the government quasi-monopoly
> competitor.

-Declan

********

From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunker () tjunker com>
To: info () atr org
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 12:37:52 -0500
Subject: Has ATR gone completelyl NUTS?
CC: declan () well com

             OPEN LETTER TO Americans for Tax Reform,
                        Grover Norquist,
                           President,
                              and
                       Michael Kamburowski ,
              Vice President for Legislative Affairs

                                  Re: email from Michael Kamburowski
                                     (mkamburowski () atr org),
                                     September 26, 2000

Dear ATR and Michael Kamburowski:

It's painfully clear that it's time for you to close up the ATR shop
and go home.  Your contact with bureaucrats and politicians
apparently has produced what it always seems to produce, even in
those who start off with pretty good ideas:  Washington Brain Rot.

You don't think U.S. Customs invades enough privacy as it is?  You
want them to open *all* the items possible?  Have you people gone
completely nuts???  This has *nothing* to do with drugs and
*everything* to do with handing over ever more unconstitutional
pseudo-authority to agencies that have already made a mockery of our
Constitutional Republic.  For that matter, how can a self-respecting
tax reform advocacy organization go anywhere near supporting
intrusive searches for "laundered money and other contraband?"  If
we were to get the tax reform we need and want and that the
Constitution requires, there wouldn't *be* such a thing as "money
laundering," which is one of the greatest pseudo-crimes ever
invented by control freak governments.

And just when was it that you strayed so far off the reservation,
hmmm?  When did "tax reform" come to include "warrantless searching
of mail?"  Have you spent so much time around reality-warped
Washington bureaucrats that you have begun to equate "tax reform"
with Washington's novel notion of "reducing tax losses," which in
reality are nothing more than missed opportunities for the feeders
at the public trough to snarf up every last bit within their reach?

I am surprised you can mention the Bank Secrecy Act with a straight
face.  It has as much to do with secrecy as "The People's Democratic
Republic of China" as to do with democracy or any other voice or
power of the Chinese people.  The very Act you advocate making even
worse than it already is is itself a masterpiece of Orwellian
newspeak.  Shame on you all.

For the life of me I can't imagine what exotic drugs you might be
taking that would give you the delusion that Americans favoring tax
reform would swallow this latest bilge.  You must have missed more
than a few briefing memos on the sentiments of the people who want
true tax reform.

I for one will not support your organization in any way unless and
until the unlikely event that you come to your senses, get rid of
Michael Kamburowski, and apologize to the American people for having
advocated more jack-booted thugism and continued desecration of the
U.S. Constitution.  In the alternative, the very best thing you
could do would be to close up shop and go back to the presumably
useful occupations you once had in Real Life, making room for some
group as yet uninfected by Washington Brain Rot to take your place
and fight the good fight.

Don't forget to turn the lights off when you leave.

Regards,

Thomas Junker
tjunker () tjunker com

*--------------------------------------------*
* We don't need "tax reform;" all we need is *
*         Bill of Rights Enforcement         *
*--------------------------------------------*





-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact.
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------