From: "Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 15:26:34 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Cellular phone triangulation
Message-ID: <199701262326.PAA27242@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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On Sat, 25 Jan 1997, Toto wrote:

>   So far, as a result of the plethora of laws passed to enable law
> enforcement agencies to 'catch drug dealers', I have seen only a
> few minor criminals who are claimed to have been brought to justice
> as a result of these laws, while seeing documentation of hundreds
> and thousands of ordinary citizens being harassed and having their
> human rights violated by these same laws.
>   And still, we have people like Mark, who seem relatively intelligent
> and informed but who still echo the party-line of Big Brother when
> He proclaims that the average citizen must be subjected to new and
> better ways to monitor the movements and activities of His citizens
> in order to 'protect' them from 'drug dealers'.

Somehow, I thought my original post was ambiguous enough to be interpreted as
support for the government's expansion of surveillance capabilities or the War
on Some Drugs.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I believe that the
original intention of requiring cell phone providers to have the ability to
triangulate all the signals they receive was so that drug dealers and other
Enemies of the People could be caught easier.  Since, drug dealers frequently
use cell phones to avoid tracking, I thought that this was probably the primary
justification.

Just like the current GAK proposal, the government has found another way to
justify a proposal to fool people into thinking that it's really for their own
good.  Many people have grown tired of hearing about the government's
"compelling interest" in fighting "crime."  The government claims that GAK is
not only for violating people's rights by trying to get people to believe that
it is a valuable service because it will allow people to recover their crypto
keys if they ever lose them.  In the case of the cell phone proposal, the
promise of better 911 service is used to justify this latest violation of civil
rights.


Mark
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