From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 00:56:01 -0800 (PST)
To: aga <aga@dhp.com>
Subject: Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
Message-ID: <199701300856.AAA27419@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


aga wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote:
> > aga wrote:
> > > On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote:
> > > > > > But seriously, I was just telling the folks over the weekend, if I
> > > > > > had my hand on the button, a lot of people would die very quickly.
> > > > > > As in The Day The Earth Stood Still, a single act of aggression would
> > > > > > suffice to be immediately terminated.
> > > No trial, huh?
> > Good question.  The law we have right now already assumes that there
> > are situations where a criminal will not go peacefully, if at all.
> > In some countries (years ago?) such as England, bobbies were known
> > to not carry firearms for ordinary street duty.  Am I right?  But
> > here in the USA, that would be unthinkable.
> > So my proposal doesn't eliminate the responsibility portion of law
> > enforcement.  I'd say, if a target were eliminated thru negligence,
> > malfeasance, or other wrongdoing under "color of law" or whatever,
> > let the courts handle that as they do now.
> Just who is doing the eliminating?
> > My suggestion would give the law enforcers the ability to dispense
> > the first level of justice expeditiously, which they cannot accomplish
> > now due to all of the red tape and the corrupt legal system (lawyers
> > specialize in getting chronic offenders off, particularly "traffic"
> > offenses).  By transferring a major portion of the bureaucracy to
> > the pencil pushers, we can free up the street cops to do what they
> > do best, namely bust or eliminate criminals.

> Cops can never be trusted to "dispense justice," and half of the
> cops are themselves criminals in what they do.  Most cops steal
> evidence and lie like crazy in Court.  All they want is a conviction,
> and it mattters not how it is obtained.

All true.  But I'm not suggesting the creation of anything new here.
Cops already carry guns and kill people.  All I'm suggesting is that
they be empowered to kill when:
1) The crime is aggression against another person or persons;
2) The evidence is so solid (recorded?) that the officer (who risks
   being prosecuted if he kills unjustifiably) can carry out the
   enforcement without undue apprehension;
3) These things are reviewed by the elected representatives of the
   people, to make sure there's no hanky-panky going on.

> > I dare say that the downside of this is much less pleasant than the
> > virtual anarchy (in the bad sense) we suffer now.  If the police get
> > out of control, A.P. will arrive just in time to plug a few of those
> > holes, so to speak.  Ideally, future robotics should be able to
> > provide something like Gort (sp?) to take the place of human officers,
> > given advances in the kind of pattern matching needed to deter
> > aggression and the like.  Those who don't make it past the robots,
> > well, the rest of us can learn to behave, and we'll be much better
> > off when we do.
> 
> I would trust robots more than humanoids.

The Gort (sp?) robot is a perfect example, and I don't think it's
all that many years away.