A reply to Lessig on anonymity: string the bastards up! [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 10:24:01 -0600
Subject: Re: [Politech] Larry Lessig replies to Politech over limiting 
anonymity [fs][priv]
Cc: lessig () pobox com
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Jim Davidson <davidson () net1 net>
In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20031205085420.022009c8 () mail well com>

Dear Declan,

Prof. Lessig reminds me a good bit of ol' William F. Buckley.
You may remember back in the 1970s, Mr. Buckley was a
champion of the Family Privacy Act which, among other things,
limited the use of Social Security numbers by colleges and
other institutions for, e.g., posting grades.  Today Mr.
Buckley is a big enthusiast of a nationalist identity card
which he insists is inevitable.

The pursuit of various tools for enumerating the people is
going to end in calamity.  It is going to end with people
who have promoted concepts like nationalist identity cards
being put up against walls and executed.  When the scarcity
of ammo becomes a problem, these people are going to be
eviscerated and hung from lampposts with their intestines
in place of rope nooses.  Not by me, of course, but by the
revolutionaries who finally tire of this new police state.

Prof. Lessig's proposal of identity escrow is just another one
of those "trust me" proposals that fly in the face of everything
we know about the jerks in government.  The government has
proven, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted.
Prosecutors lie on warrants routinely and are neither
admonished nor punished by the present system.  The government
routinely arrogates to itself the power to issue subpoenas
and gather data without judicial oversight, and the notion
of an independent judiciary is utterly discredited.

Identity escrow, like encryption key escrow before it, is a
bad idea which ought not to be encouraged.  It is exactly the
kind of government-nose-in-the-tent nonsense which led to the
demise of the Clipper chip a few years back.  We already know
that the government cannot be trusted, we already know that
open source encryption systems can be validated, and we
already have as much anonymity as we want on the Internet.

Not only do anonymous remailers, anonymizers for browsing,
and Freenet represent strong absolute anonymity systems
(without those difficulties of "trust me" that Tim May has
pointed out in various financial crypto systems) but there
are also strong absolute anonymity systems for routine
e-mail such as Yahoo and Hotmail, strong absolute anonymity
systems for value transfer such as GoldBarter.com and
Pecunix.com, and strong encryption with OpenPGP among others.

Not only is anonymity important for whistle-blowing and
reporting governmental brutality, it is also important for
creating free systems of exchange, for avoiding confiscatory
taxes and other systems of theft, and for discussions of
sensitive issues such as incest and rape which, especially
in the case of rape of men goes substantially under-reported
without anonymity.  There is a large and growing market
for anonymity, and this market is being served.  New
peer-to-peer systems are now available which make the entire
notion of controlling the Internet increasingly laughable.

A system which protects absolute anonymity is good, it is
freedom-oriented, it is proper, and it is what the market
wants.  The property of an identity is individual and it is
not collective.  All this "papers please" nonsense makes
people sick, and rightly so.  There was a time when the
film "Casablanca" was shown in the USA when every instance
of "papers please" would result in boos and hisses from
the audience.  That mentality was the correct attitude, and
all this currying favor with the government by insisting on
identity escrow is so much nonsense.

A warrant requirement is no protection at all.  It has never
been an adequate protection of privacy.  What's important to
recognize is that where identity information is stored, the
warrant or subpoena to access data already exists as a tool.
Where identity information is not stored, warrants and
subpoenas are useless - which is highly desirable.

As for permitting systems for identity escrow, or using
tax dollars to encourage them, this notion is silly.  The
government doesn't need to permit anything.  Identity
escrow systems will be developed if there is a market
for them, if the government simply stands out of the way.
Everything gets done if it is profitable to do it.  We
don't need the government to permit anything, and we
don't need tax dollars to encourage bad ideas.  If the
idea of identity escrow has merit, it will be developed
into a serviceable platform.  After all, censored versions
of the Internet such as "AOL: The Internet Sanitized" as
I recall from their recent advert campaign, are widely
accepted by some segments of the market.

Prof. Lessig's view that "we will make no progress following
path one" is nonsensical.  Plenty of progress has already
been made in this pursuit.  Moreover, his pronoun is collective
and mistaken.  Some will make progress with identity escrow
systems, others will make progress with absolute anonymity
systems, and still others will take the Mark of the Beast
and suffer eternally in the lake of fire for the same offense
which caused God to punish Israel when King David violated
His law and enumerated the people.

Given that Prof. Lessig admits that "no real showing" is the
status quo, then "we" have to trust that the government will
be reformed to require "some real showing" or even "very
real showing" before warrants for identity escrow systems
can be issued.  I think this notion that we can fix government
and therefore should give up on absolute anonymity is rather
fanciful.  Perhaps Prof. Lessig has magic fairy dust he can
sprinkle on Washington DC from a great height to turn all
the trolls, demons, pork barrel rollers, and Congresscritters
into more pleasant creatures, restore the integrity of the
constitution and oaths to uphold it, and return us to an era
of limited government.  Maybe we should all cast votes on
Diebold voting machines to signify our confidence that Prof.
Lessig's petition for reform will be answered if only we
"elect" the right set of rascals.

In the meantime, I shall not be wasting my time developing
identity escrow systems nor launching revolutions against
systems which others believe worthy of defending.  Instead,
I shall be continuing my work to develop, implement, and
utilize free market money, bearer instruments with digital
features, and absolute anonymity so that more people can
break free of the various systems of control and enslavement
and get on with their own business.

Meanwhile, I recommend that Prof. Lessig go to a good coin
store and ask to see a sample of a Continental - the original
worthless American paper money.  On that item he'll find
the legend, "Mind your business."  Ultimately, that is what
the American Revolution was all about.  Presently, that is
what the digital revolution is about.  What the market wants
are systems that allow people to mind their own business,
and keep others from minding it in their stead.

Regards,

Jim
 http://www.ezez.com/free/freejim.html

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