From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 05:28:22 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Blurring the Chains of Causation
Message-ID: <ae2633210802100435c1@[205.199.118.202]>
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An unusual thread name, "Blurring the Chains of Causation."

What I mean is this:

- the U.S. legal system has been blurring, or confusing, the chain of
cause-and-effect in crimes

- Example: allowing suits by insurance companies and states against tobacco
companies. A smoker gets cancer by his actions, and it used to be that this
was his action, his responsibility. Now, we hold tobacco companies liable,
and perhaps will someday hold executives of these companies criminally
liable. (This for a product which is not illegal, mind you.)

(There are a bunch of related examples. "Civil liability" is a major way
this blurring is happening. Gun manufacturers being sued for crimes
committed with their guns, ladder makers sued by the families of criminals
who leaned ladders up against electrified fences, and so on. How long
before a bookstore is sued for "allowing" a book to be bought by someone
who later is "inspired" to commit a crime--actually, John Grisham ("The
Firm") is involved in a lawsuit against Oliver Stone for his film, "Natural
Born Killers," which Grisham claims "inspired" a murder. This has got to
stop, in my opinion.)

- "They made me do it" defenses. Hostess Twinkies are implicated in the
brutal murder of San Francisco's mayor and a city councilman. Childhood
abuse is exculpatory in other cases. Psychobabblers blather about what
caused people to behave as they did. A mass murderer says pornography made
him kill 25 women. A lawyer claims his client's son committed suicide after
listening to heavy metal music. And so it goes.

This blurring has links to cryptography, bomb-making instructions on the
Net, availability of porn on the Net, and many other things.

To cut to the chase:

- a librarian who "allows" a person to check out "The Anarchist Cookbook"
is *not* causing a crime, though much of the rhetoric one hears is
otherwise.

- the _author_ of that book (Powell, allegedly) is *also* not causing a crime.

- the _publishers_ of that book (Lyle Stuart, as I recall--my copy is not
handy) also have not committed any crime

To make things clear, some of the language being proposed in the
rush-to-law about anti-terrorism, wiretapping, anti-encryption, etc. As
Sen. Feinstein puts it, "We hope we can wrap up the repeal of the Bill of
Rights and have it on President Clinton's desk before the close of the
Olympics on Sunday." :-(

- if I _advocate_ strong crytography, avoidance of taxes, undermining of
government power, crypto anarchy, etc., I have not committed any crime
(Caveat: advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government apparently
is a crime, as are certain forms of conspiracy, a la RICO, tax evasion,
etc.)

- if I _use_ strong cryptography, I have not committed any crime, ipso
facto, nor am I necessarily conspiring to commit any crime

And so on.

Many of the proposed restrictions seek to further blur this chain of
causation, by making someone who provides access to materials which _may_
later be used in a crime, or which may "inspire" someone to crime, a kind
of criminal.

The trend picked up steam with the "deep pockets" precedents in the 70s
(*), was fed by the blame-passing psychobabble of the same decade, and has
now reached its present state by a willingness of the courts to hear such
cases.

People who actually commit real crimes are the criminals, not those who
sold them Hostess Twinkies without first checking their blood sugar level.
Not those who let a library patron look at a "dangerous" book. And not
those who provided strong cryptographic tools which _might_ be used by
terrorists, pedophiles, and money launderers.

--Tim May

(* "deep pockets" -- If there are N parties in a lawsuit, and one of them
shares only 5% of the (putative) blame but has 95% of the overall assets,
go after the party with the "deepest pockets." This forced Cessna and
Piper, the leading light aircraft firms at one time, to stop selling light
aircraft. The example with Oliver Stone being sued is a clear case of
this.)

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."