From: Jim choate <ravage@bga.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 94 06:43:47 PDT
To: jim@acm.org
Subject: Re: Devil's advocate
In-Reply-To: <9407010127.AA13673@mycroft.rand.org>
Message-ID: <199407011343.IAA08806@zoom.bga.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> 
> Answer 1:
>     Wrong question: Once you allow the question "What do you have to hide?"
>     about your communications, you don't have a good place to stop the
>     inquiries about the rest of your life.  Law enforcement should not be
>     allowed to dictate that you behave in a way that will facilitate their
>     surveillance; they need to show probable cause <before> starting their
>     proceedings against you.
>
My responce would be why do you want to know what I information I am    
exchangeing and while we are on the topic, can I look at your corresponcance?

I suspect that this flip would shut them up quite quickly.

It is not the law enforcement but rather the legislatures impression of the
desires of the general populace that will dictate this.

> Answer 2:
>     Sometimes the advances of science favor the police, and sometimes they
>     don't -- luck of the draw.  LE has a lot of tools available that they
>     didn't have a few decades ago, including DNA matching, fiber analysis,
>     and cellular phone triangulation.  Crypto may reduce one way for them
>     to read our mail, but they have others that weren't available before;
>     if they have reasonable cause for a court order, let them roll in the
>     Van Eck radiation van, plant bugs, sneak in and dump your hard disk,
>     or whatever.
>
If law enforcement was meant to be easy why do we have the Constitution and
such concpets as proof and probably cause?

The argument that we should do anything simply because it makes somebodies
job easier is fallacious. Our responsibilities (both personal and societal)
don't include making other peoples lives easier (it does mean not making them
harder in some cases).

> 
> That's all independent of whether you can trust Mykotronx and their
> masters not to keep copies of the keys while they're making them before
> they put them in escrow.
>
When we are talking about a persons freedoms and rights I would hold that
no person or agency is entitled to trust. They must prove they are a 
paramour.