IP: 2 on Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for U.S.: Dan Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 10:36:10 -0400
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu, ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com
>From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
>Subject: Re: IP: Re: Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for
>   U.S.: Dan Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001
>
>Well, by publishing Mr. David Barrett's letter, you sure raised my blood 
>pressure.  I have no idea who he is (since he posts using yahoo, a great 
>venue for people who need to be protected behind its relative anonymity), 
>but if he is on the side of law enforcement, his lack of willingness to 
>even listen to the concerns of people who worry about privacy proves his 
>opponents right.
>
>In my experience discussing these issues with government decision makers, 
>the typical attitude has been we should use all tools available to us, 
>unless there is a huge outcry *in advance* from a vast majority of the 
>public.  Yet the actual harm is often far in the future, as in the case of 
>moves for long-term archival storage of all communications.
>
>I argued in the early Clipper era that a huge problem with key-escrow 
>comes when combined with the ability (now here) to record all 
>communications forever.  (disk-oxide capacity is now growing at a rate 
>that exceeds message creation rates).  This argument was squishier than 
>the more glamorous paranoia around whether there was a "secret NSA 
>backdoor" designed into Clipper, so the problem with universal recording 
>got short shrift.
>
>This enables ex-post-facto revisions of what is acceptable thinking and 
>behavior, such as what happened in the McCarthy witchhunts for communists 
>and fellow travellers, and what happened when small percentages of Jewish 
>ancestry were suddenly classified as worthy of death penalty.  Or in other 
>countries where messages discussing opposition to other dominant 
>ideologies lead to harassment and oppression?
>
>Can we trust the well-meaning despots of the future with these tools?  I 
>am still shocked at some of the atrocities that have been ordered by my 
>government in the past - and yet that government was well-meaning and 
>supported by a majority of citizens.
>
>Anyone, Mr. David Barrett's certitude and use of terms like "whining" 
>shows exactly why we cannot trust him or his like in government.  They 
>have no capability of tolerance or empathy with points of view other than 
>their own.
>

>From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <shap@eros-os.org>
>To: <farber@cis.upenn.edu>, <ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com>
>Subject: Re: Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for U.S.: 
>Dan  Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001
>Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 05:36:05 -0400
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200
>
>[For IP]
>
>Dave:
>
>I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Gilmore's article, but I'ld like to
>emphasize something that he touched on only in passing. This first came to
>my attention in conversations with Ben Laurie, who is the man behind Apache
>SSL.
>
>In the US, one of the major organizations pushing for reducing privacy is
>federal law enforcement. There has been a string of ill-considered
>legislation in recent years that has been strongly endorsed and supported by
>the FBI.
>
>In contrast, the British police largely felt that the RIP act was total
>idiocy, and were vocally opposed to it.
>
>There are still police officers in the US do a difficult job well and
>properly, but cops here are increasingly disengaged from the population. A
>silly example: when I started driving, it was still common for a patrol car
>to render driver assistance or pause to clear a hazard from the road. When
>was the last time you saw a patrol car do this? A few weeks ago, I saw a
>Maryland state trooper clear a hazard on 695 here in Baltimore, and I was
>struck by the fact that it had been *years* since I had seen a cop do that.
>In a variety of ways, we have allowed our police forces to lose sight of the
>"serve" part of "protect and serve."
>
>In the end, it is the *combination* of a disengaged police force with
>invasive law that is truly frightening. The British police are still engaged
>with their communities, and for a variety of social reasons are likely to
>remain so.
>
>
>Jonathan Shapiro



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