From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 11:41:25 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Contempt" charges likely to increase
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960406233612.00c9b6fc@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 08:26 PM 4/5/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>Jail term for contempt of court has certain resemblances to trial by
>ordeal: if after some period of time of ordeal one has not talked, the
>ordeal is over.

Also, such a penalty will be pretty rare.  One doesn't stop driving because
one might be killed in a car accident.  The number of people who will be
jailed annually for contempt for "failure to decrypt" will always be small
and a rapidly declining percentage of total world transactions will lead to
such jailing (as transaction numbers double and redouble as more of the
world's people enter the Market and the Net).  Coercion is a dull tool
because people have an incentive to avoid it.  Reward is a sharp tool
because people seek it out.  One of the reasons markets beat governments.

DCF

"Well, say what you will but Right Wing Mad Bombers kill more people than
Left Wing Mad Bombers."