From: jamesh@netcom.com (James Hightower)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 19:00:27 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Cops on the net
Message-ID: <199406110200.TAA22779@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Let's try this again...

> CYBERCOP 
>         A former New Jersey police officer now spends his time cruising for
> suspects in cyberspace and has been involved in dozens of criminal
> investigations, including a sting operation that nabbed a pedophile who
> lured young rape victims via a bulletin board service.  (Tampa Tribune
> 6/8/94 BayLife 5)

And the pedophile was named Craig Shergold?

Seriously, this "Pedophile uses net to lure rape victims" is reaching
the status of some kind of Law Enforcement/Urban Legend. Sort of the
Willie Horton of the nineties.

And as you'll remember, (at least those of you who follow US politics,)
Willie Horton was some kind of convicted bad guy that then-governor
Mike Dukakis released from prison on some kind of early-release program
who then went on a crime (rape? murder?) spree. This was used as a 
rallying point by Dukakis' opponents when he ran for president some
years later, and was arguably the one thing that insured his defeat.
(The above was from memory -- feel free to flame^H^H^H^H^Hcorrect me
if the facts aren't straight.)

Now the same technique is being used against the proponents of strong
crypto. And why not? It worked so well last time...

We need our own Willie Horton, some blatant example of why strong
crypto is a Good Thing. It would be nice to be able to pull a few
examples of Gov. wiretap abuse or mail tampering (electronic or 
otherwise) out of the hat whenever that pedophile story gets an airing.

Can anyone point me to something along these lines?

JJH
--
My loathings are simple: 
stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.      -Vladimir Nabokov