From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 04:28:00 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: "An who shall guard the guardians?"
Message-ID: <ae24db790002100463bd@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



The Latin maxim "And who shall guard the guardians?" has some relevance to
the headlong rush into converting the U.S. into even more of a security
state than it is now.

The investigation in Atlanta is now focussing on a rent-a-cop who may have
planted the pipe bomb and then "discovered" it. Check the usual Web news
sources for more details. Whether he is the bomber or not is not the point,
which is, "who watches the cops?"

A string of arsons up and down the north-south highways of California was
finally shown to correlate with the travels up and down those highways (at
those same times) by a Glendale arson investigator!

And cases where cops have planted evidence, drugs, and guns are almost too
much a part of our culture to even notice anymore.

My point is not that all cops are corrupt. Indeed, I suspect that they are
no more corrupt proportionately than is the general population...which is
not too reassuring to me, though.

ObClipper: "Who shall guard the guardians?" While the various Clipper
proposals have putative safeguards to limit access, think of Craig
Livingstone, a rent-a-cop the Clintons hire to work on their Enemies List.
And think of the dossiers of J. Edgar Hoover. And think of Nixon. And think
of what President Pat Buchanan would do with Government Access to Keys.

No thanks, I'll lock my own doors. I have no plans to "voluntarily escrow"
my door keys with the local cops. "Secure in one's papers and person" rings
a bell, doesn't it?

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."