More on surveillance: Would countermeasures be illegal?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Reply-To: declan () well com
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 15:57:06 -0800
To: politech () politechbot com
Subject: FC: More on surveillance: Would countermeasures be illegal?

Scott makes an excellent point. In fact, the version of my column that I
filed (before it was edited) said:
> Nobody wants to live in a society where people sneak around in darkness,
> armed with camera-zappers and transmission-blockers, if they wish to have
> a modicum of privacy and solitude. Besides, it wouldn't take long for
> governments to make those self-protection methods illegal anyway.
> Short of fleeing to the wilderness or living our lives entirely online,
> our only option is to fight the Poindexterization of modern life before it
> becomes too late. Congress returns this week. Why not ask your
> congresscritter why there has never been even one hearing investigating
> DARPA, Poindexter, and his Total Information Awareness plans?

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04284.html

-Declan

---

Subject: RE: Weekly column: How will surveillance tech evolve in 10 years?
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:04:24 -0800
From: "Scott Meredith" <scottmer () microsoft com>
To: <declan () well com>

You wrote:

>
There are some bright areas in this generally dismal outlook. Avi Rubin,
an associate professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University,
predicts growing interest in antisurveillance measures. "I expect there
will be a whole industry popping up in counter-surveillance--at least, I
hope," Rubin said. "Nowadays, it's not like someone drops a camera and
comes back and retrieves the data. You attack the transmission."
<

I believe this line misses the point. Sure it is fun to envision a
free-wheeling kind of Kevin Kelly scenario of bright-boys techno/gadget
arms-race of Spy vs Spy. Might even re-invigorate the Valley, right ?

This Tom Swift thinking misses the point entirely.

It doesn't matter how effective "antisurveillance measures" might be
technically, the fact remains that all such will be ILLEGAL. That means,
once anybody, in a fit of Libertairan righteousness, deploys any such
A-S technology, they will have become criminals, and can be mopped up,
or used, at the State's leisure.

So from the State's point of view, the more "antisurveillance measures",
the merrier, as it all leads in the (obviously) desired direction of
total criminalization of the entire population.

-Scott Meredith




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