From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 17:18:06 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Contempt" charges likely to increase
Message-ID: <m0u5mjb-00090mC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 12:27 PM 4/6/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>This model, is, I contend, the model with which courts are familiar. They
>know that Alice can retrieve the funds, so they simply order her to. If she
>does not comply, contempt of court. Q.E.D.
>
>What of a different model? What if, say, her funds are in a "time lock
>deposit," with the bank unwilling or even unable (cryptographic protocols
>involving multiple key holders) to retrieve the funds until, say, 2010?
>Even if she is being tortured to death and pleading with the
>Gemeinschaftbank of Zurich to please, pretty please, release her funds,
>they cannot.
>
>It may take some convincing, and some education of the court (a la the
>education that is slowly happening, as in the CDA case), but eventually it
>will be realized that "contempt of court" is not applicable.

I look at it this way:  It is inappropriate to look just at the desire of 
the court and its sanctions, it is necessary to study what kind of "crimes" 
are normally dealt with in such a fashion, and why they need to be crimes in 
the first place.

Over time, technology is dramatically increasing our protections:  From 
locks to alarms to monitoring systems to remote cameras, with bank accounts 
that are secure from ordinary criminals, we are becoming less and less 
dependant on government for our security.  Since the ostensible purpose of 
courts is nominally to protect us, if those protections begin to be replaced 
by technology the logical conclusion is that courts will become less 
numerous and less powerful.  The problem is, that isn't happening, and the 
reason is that organizations tend to act in ways to protect their own power 
and influence.  In fact, the average citizen is subject to far more theft of 
his assets BY THE GOVERNMENT than by common criminals, so at some point we 
have to realize that the government is now a net problem, rather than being 
a net solution.

I think that most crimes that subpoenas  would normally be used for are 
probably not crimes at all, and are probably "malum prohibitum," not "malum 
in se" crimes. And in the future, they would likely be used to harass 
political enemies, as harassment was done in the 1950's and 60's.   This 
means, for anybody of a libertarian bent, that it would actually be better 
if the government could be rendered incapable of enforcing them.  Naturally, 
governments and courts will resist, but that will be irrelevant.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com