From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 04:47:29 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Net and Terrorism.
Message-ID: <199607051652.JAA15062@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 07:29 AM 7/5/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:
>At 2:37 AM 7/5/96, vinnie moscaritolo wrote:
>
>>>There is no cure for the "revolutionary" terrorists ..
>>> If we do not even print their obit, there is no glory!
>>
>>Tim, you are asking for the liberal media to act responsibly.. what were
>>you thinking?
>
>I did not write that.
>
>However, I wouldn't think that "not printing their obit" is acting
>responsibly. As far as I'm concerned, I want the full news, or at least
>some reasonable approximation of it, not propaganda.
>--Tim May

Well, whoever wrote those two lines above, he hit upon something I've long 
believed: The ability to force other people to (in effect) ignore dissent up 
to and including "terrorism" is extraordinarily valuable.  Remember the old 
philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody 
there to hear, does it make a sound?"  Scientifically, the answer's obvious. 

But _politically_ it isn't so obvious:  If an act of "terrorism" occurs and 
the government can cover it up (or merely cover up the terroristic cause), 
the government is probably actually better off (considering _only_ the 
government's own interests) ignoring it and not exposing an embarrassing 
vulnerability, or possibly an embarrassing guilt, which induced the 
terrorist to attack. 

  The government would probably have much preferred, for example, for 160+ 
people to be killed in an airliner that just happened to disappear off the 
radar screen and fall into the ocean, than the bombing in Oklahoma City, 
because the latter incident puts a powerful onus on the government to "do 
something" while an unexplained event  (or one where the cause is covered 
up) has no such imperative.  And I'm not talking primarily of retribution or 
punishment, either:  Today, the government's under some pressure to simply 
stop doing things that would be expected to lead to retribution, like Waco 
and Ruby Ridge, and the government's  misbehavior is highlighted by 
incidents such as the OKC bombing.

In addition, a potential "terrorist" is less likely to try something if the 
government is likely to be able to cover it up.  Ironically, this probably 
tends to induce such people to do things (like huge bombings) which _can't_ 
be covered up, rather than smaller, more individualized strikes.  That makes 
the non-governmental public less safe, which is a serious conflict of 
interest between the government and the citizenry.

I consider it axiomatic that whoever bombed the OKC building, he would have 
preferred killing one to two dozen people most responsible for Waco or Ruby 
Ridge than those who actually died.  The public has every reason to prefer 
this alterative as well.  The only people who can be expected to disapprove 
are government employees, who don't want to be held responsible (legally or 
"illegally") for what they did.

If anything, I think the public would be far better off if there was a 
mechanism to allow even these "terrorists" to speak directly to the public, 
without censorship by the governments or heightened risk of capture.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com