FC: John Gilmore advocates vigilantism against Poindexter, TIA?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:

"SF Weekly columnist suggests surveilling John Poindexter at home"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04206.html

---

Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 19:12:16 -0600
To: declan () well com
From: Mickey Chandler <micklc () earthlink net>
Subject: John Gilmore advocates vigilantism?

I guess I missed this when it was originally sent to Politech on 2 Dec 
because I sympathize with John Gilmore's stand on the dangerousness of TIA, 
but the following quote from the C|Net story you filed yesterday just 
screamed at me: "Even if some of the information that people end up 
revealing or using about such targeted scumbags is incorrect, such a public 
demonstration would highlight the damaging effects that incorrect database 
information can have on innocent peoples' lives, when used to target them 
for harassment without due process of law."

It seems to me that John's argument when it came to his open mail relay was 
that the ends do not justify the means. Yet here he argues that the ends do 
justify the means, even with the knowledge going in that innocent people 
could get hurt. The main differences between the two scenarios that I can 
see is that the "damaging effects" and "harassment" are not aimed at anyone 
named "John Gilmore" and that "the damaging effects that incorrect database 
information can have on innocent peoples' lives" when used in the manner 
that Mr. Gilmore is advocating here (for harassment) are potentially far 
more damaging than forcing him to use UUCP for email (since he refused to 
secure his open relay).

We don't need to engage in such an action in order to find the problems. 
There are already examples of the damage that could be caused if you only 
look at the effects of the "Megan's Laws" on innocent people. For instance, 
this story (http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53075,00.html), makes 
reference to a mentally handicapped man who was beat up in Dallas, Texas, 
because he lived at the address where a sex offender had lived at some 
point in the past (the offender had not updated his location information 
after moving).

The examples of the dangers of such things as TIA are already there for 
John if he would only be willing to investigate, without the need to create 
more of them because he feels it to be educational, newsworthy, or 
entertaining (cf. his comments in http://www.politechbot.com/p-04206.html) 
to encourage people to engage in vigilantism.


--
Mickey Chandler
micklc () earthlink net


"USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people
make up 75 percent of the population."
     David Letterman.






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