From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 15:16:42 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Scoring Politicians on Digital Liberty Issues (Re: Net Politics)
Message-ID: <ae4916c905021004240c@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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(I have no idea where the virtual nexus of this debate is taking place...I
see these addresses copied on the message to which I'm replying:
fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu, cypherpunks@toad.com, brock@well.com,
telstar@wired.com, shabbir@vtw.org, jseiger@cdt.org (Jonah Seiger), Declan
McCullagh <declan@eff.org>. I despise such massive cross-contamination of
lists and duplication of messages, so I will delete all but the list I am
part of, and Jonah Seiger, out of courtesy, as it his message I am replying
to.)

At 2:23 PM 8/27/96, Jonah Seiger wrote:

>"One more round of 'work within the system' vs 'up against the wall!'," he
>said.
>
>This is an important debate that unfortunately seems to be dividing the
>net.community when we most need to be united. All of us working on
>net-policy issues share a common vision and goals - promoting the free flow
>of information, preserving and enhancing First Amendment values and
>protecting individual privacy. There are, for better or worse, many
>different views on the best way to accomplish those objectives, and the
>debate over who has the right tactics seems to frequently escalate in to
>religious war.
>
>Meanwhile, our opponents are well organized, determined, and do a much
>better job of keeping their internal strategic differences to themselves.
>Perhaps this is part of the reason they keep kicking our butts all over
>town.

I think it laudable that CDT has chosen to remain in D.C. to "work within
the system." Personally, I could never stomach doing this. Nor do I think
the Cypherpunks group per se should do it; technological monkeywrenching of
the best-laid plans of Leahy, Swinestein, and all the other "mice and men"
is so much more effective and satisfying.

Yes, as far as legislation goes, the politicians are constantly on the
offensive, proposing new and more draconian legislation on a continuing
basis. Maybe they hope to wear us out, to create battle fatigue (some say
it worked with EFF, but I've heard various reasons given as to why EFF left
D.C.).

But technology also is winning, in its own way. Web proxies defeat national
governments in their plans to limit access. Remailers have transformed the
Net. Digital pseudonyms have restored anonymous commentaries to their
once-honored place. And the sheer growth of the Net, the Web, and the vast
number of connections has made Leahy- and Exon-style control essentially
hopeless to enforce.

On the specific issue of whether Sen. Leahy is or is not a "friend of the
Net," to use him as an example here, I suggest a different approach.
Instead of classifying Leahy as a friend or an enemy, or Burns as a friend
or an enemy, etc., why not a *ratings system*? As with the "perfect 100%"
liberal ratings that the ACLU or somesuch puts out...

Thus, we can say "Conrad Burns has scored a 67% on Digital Liberty issues,
Patrick Leahy has scored a 42% on these issues, and Dianne Feinstein scored
17%."

Determination would have to be made on what the important issues, but this
has been done successfully in the past, as with the liberal groups and
union groups (and conservative/NRA/family values groups) who "score"
candidates.

A scoring system has the advantage of looking relatively impartial, and
avoids the "friend/enemy" naming, at least in terms of personalities. Thus,
one can say to Leahy, "Sorry, Senator, this is just how you score. If you
want to score higher in the future, take careful note of what our community
thinks is important and vote accordingly."

The issues for a scorecard might be accumulated on the Net, with inputs
from CDT, VTW, EFF, Cypherpunks, and other interested groups. It could be
messy, but perhaps not. Even a *simple* set of principles, picked by almost
any of these organizations, would likely be enough to get a reasonable
scoring system...it's not as if we all don't know that Leahy's support for
the Digital Telephony Bill was a major downcheck--whatever the realpolitik
issues were--and that his support of Pro-Code is a major upcheck. The value
of scoring is that it takes out the often-painful issues of classifying
politicians as "friends" or "enemies."

Objective scoring means never having to say you're sorry.

--Tim may


--
[This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency
Act of 1996]
And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why
don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll
just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said:
"Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck."
So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure
enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan
really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant
while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he
came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your
brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course
God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular
Translation, TCM, 1996]