From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 95 10:38:47 PST
To: "David G. Koontz" <koontz@MasPar.COM>
Subject: Re: Press attack on anonymity.
In-Reply-To: <9501032146.AA19980@argosy.MasPar.COM>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9501041054.A10000-0100000@netcom10>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Tue, 3 Jan 1995, David G. Koontz wrote:
> The question is who launched all this stuff?

When the government -- or some rogue government department wishing
to expand its role and authority -- wishes to launch a new,
and possibly unpopular, act of coercion, they normally find
some interest group that might be advantaged by that act
of coercion, and boost them up.

Assume the objective is to make the famous information
superhighway into an imitation of Plodigy and existing
media -- in other words ensure that it is dominated
by few to many communications, and that many to many
communications are censored.

The obvious interest group is those who wish to advertise
on the interent as if it was a normal few to many medium.

This assumption makes predictions consistent with 
what we observe.

I am not unduly worried.   Cantor and Siegal is not 
a significant interest group.  Furthermore the 
Republican party is at present in favor of many to many
communications because talk radio was a big factor
in their victory, and the internet was a major factor
in the defeat of Foley.

This is just a small time conspiracy by some ignorant
rogue government department, perhaps the NSA, that does 
not realize what they are confronting.

When the internet starts to have a serious impact on
government revenues, then I am going to worry.

In addition, many to many communications work primarily
against the Democrats primarily because they are so 
entrenched in power.  When the Republican party has
been in power a while, they will no longer be so
keen on many to many communication.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@netcom.com