From: Arun Mehta <amehta@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 00:39:17 +0800
To: Bill Stewart <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "And who shall guard the guardians?" [NOISE]
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19960805124248.002f27d4@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 13:50 04/08/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
>>restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law
>>and are necessary:
>>(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
>>(b) For the protection of national security or of 
>>public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals. 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^        ^^^^^^           ^^^^^^^
>
>Lots of UN declarations of rights have this sort of exception;
>"protection of public morals" is something so blatantly vague
>and broad that if a government contends that such a concept exists, 
>as the covenant does, it could probably force the World Court
>to conclude that it permits them to declare as "necessary"
>just about anything short of burning witches and heretics,
>and humanely beheading heretics, drug dealers, and anonymous remailer
>operators is probably ok by this standard.

Heretics it depends, drug dealers no problem, but anonymous
remailer operators haven't been beheaded yet. Their persecution
will probably take much more subtle forms -- denial of government
jobs or contracts (lawbreakers and anarchists, after all),
whatever hurts most. There are many ways of manipulation in an
advanced, information based society that are no less cruel than
the torture of more overtly authoritarian ones.

International covenants aren't entirely useless: governments have
to report to the UN how much success they are having in
implementation, and are questioned closely. If indeed the fears
of many of you come true, cypherpunks will have far greater
awareness of human rights instruments and their usefulness (or
lack thereof) before the century is done.

Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta@cpsr.org
http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta/  finger amehta@cerfnet.com for public key