From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:23:20 +0800
To: tomservo@access.digex.net (Scott Fabbri)
Subject: Re: rhetorical trickery
In-Reply-To: <v02130500ad68b25e6f1a@[205.252.17.19]>
Message-ID: <199603112135.NAA20486@netcom5.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>A standard attitude among LEOs is: "if you're not guilty of something, what
>are you hiding?" Skilled ones use this lever to get suspects to allow
>searches of their property on the flimsiest of pretenses.

sigh. it seems I am still being misunderstood. 

SO WHAT???

so a nasty policeman thinks I stole something from my grandma.

SO WHAT???

look, in life, if you are someone who can be walked on, it doesn't
take a POLICEMAN to take advantage of your lack of backbone/spine.
you are going to be exploited by a lot of people other than a policeman.
if you don't know your rights, OF COURSE you can be taken advantage
of.

I can't comprehend all this silliness in response to my messages.
"sure, you can do [x], but the police may still SUSPECT YOU". well,
@#%$%^&* so what?!?!? doesn't anyone understand that if we are
in a civilized society, that's completely irrelevant to the law???

>"Innocent until proven guilty" is at best an abstraction to most police.
>Given the amount of time they have per case, on average, they're more
>interested in slorking up whatever evidence they can against a suspect and
>making a bust. Didn't Ed Meese say something along the lines of, "if they
>weren't criminals, they wouldn't be involved with the police"?

but don't you understand? their ATTITUDE is completely irrelevant.
in regard to the law, we are considering only what they have authority
to do. a policeman cannot get a conviction if he breaks the law in
obtaining evidence. this is my basic point. this is a very powerful
factor in favor of anyone who wishes to use cryptography without 
harassment.

now, there are all kinds of cypherpunks who are going to write me
back, because the mere fact that I used the word "police" in this
message, which attracts flames here with approximately the
same magnetism dead carcasses do flies.

my posts are not about Nasty Police Urban Legends about how the Pigs
are oppressors and have done [x] to my friend [y] who did ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING to provoke it.  in fact I am attempting to pierce some of
these Urban Legends of Police Fear, but instead they continue to
pop up around my posts, somewhat spurred by them.

>ObCrypto: Having a fair amount of encrypted stuff around makes any given
>piece stand out less. A couple dozen PGP-encrypted files with names like
>"1994 1040 Schedule A" and "Business Contact List, 1Q 1995" is a hell of a
>lot less suspicious than a single encrypted file called "detonate.pgp." :^)
>
>Furthermore, if they don't believe me and I choose not to give them the
>plaintext, isn't that my Fifth Amendment right? Or has that been waived in
>cyberspace for our convenience?

these are pretty much the point I'm making that is obviously
not making it through to everyone who responds to me.