From: Decius <decius@montag33.residence.gatech.edu>
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 05:59:52 +0800
To: PADGETT@hobbes.orl.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security)
Subject: Re: Why am I wrong?
In-Reply-To: <960206100646.2021253f@hobbes.orl.mmc.com>
Message-ID: <199602062107.QAA30185@montag33.residence.gatech.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> OK you is wrong.
:)
> No, most in law enforcement at the working level have no opinion one way 
> or the other. Many I talk to know what it is but few have ever seen 
I should have been more specific, I was thinking about Louis Freeh, et all...
> 
> >The law is often very wrong, and even our lofty constitutional values 
> >do not prevent bad laws. When the law is wrong, the law's enforcer is 
> >the criminal.
> 
> Dangerous attitude to take. The law is never wrong because it is the law.
> The fact that a law exists may be wrong but that has nothing to do with the
> law itself, it merely is. The law's enforcer would be derelect in his/her
> duty if she/he did *not* enforce the law.
> That is the definition of natural law, 
I don't agree. The theory of natural law is basically that when people 
come together to form a society and create a government, they enter into
a social contract. If a member of the society breaks the contract (by, 
say, blowing someone's brains out) that member has breached the contract and
can be punished by the government. Similarily, when the government breaks 
the contract (by say, killing off an ethnic minority, or maybe banning 
indecent speech) the government has breached the contract and the 
government may be destroyed. To say that the law is always right because it
is the law, is to defend ethnic cleansing, book burning, detention camps, 
taxation without representation, slavery, and all the other evils 
governments have done, while condeming those who would free slaves or 
fight in revolutionary wars. Making something a LAW does not make it 
right. 
> Is the great strength of the US.
Agreed. Though we must fight to preserve it. 
> >That is why law enforcement is very restricted in the Constitution. 
> Law enforcement is not restricted by the constitution, law *enactment*
> is ("Congress shall make no law...").
Read the fourth amendment. :)
> 
> "Libel" also carries very specific  specifications that must be met. Does 
> anyone here think that a libel suit is a restriction on free speech ?
Most legal limitations (outside of indecency/obsenity) on speech are 
concerned not with the speech itself, but when speech becomes an action.
Yelling fire in a crowded theater is NOT A CRIME. Insiting a riot in 
which hundreds are killed, just for the hell of it, is a crime. 
(Just clarifying)
> 
> Thus it would seem to me to be (not a lawyer or a politician so what do I know
> - we used to have an ordinamce near here requiring alligators to be leashed)
> very difficult to legislate anything concerning crypro since first crypto
> would have to be defined and second it would have to be able to be detected -
> a requirement for all text to be in third-grade flat ASCII won't fly.
A good point, but I don't know if those who want to ban crypto will think 
about it that way. They will assume that it will be obvious who is using 
crypto and who is not. They will leave it to the courts to determine 
what is crypto and what is not. Obviously they are wrong, but thats not 
gunna stop them from enacting laws. Of course, as another person 
responding to my post pointed out, *good* stenography cannot be 
identified, so laws are not gunna stop people from encrypting, it will 
just make it kinda difficult to get away with. 


-- 
        */^\*  Tom Cross AKA Decius 615 AKA The White Ninja  */^\* 
                    Decius@montag33.residence.gatech.edu

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