From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 14:40:38 +0800
To: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer <cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Subject: Re: Police & military access
In-Reply-To: <199705230204.VAA18264@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <19970522232331.08458@bywater.songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Thu, May 22, 1997 at 09:04:15PM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It occured to me that if the police have no civil liberties extending beyond
> that of a citizen and citizens are not legaly permitted access to military
> hardware then neither should the police.
[...]
> If a police officer can buy body armor and automatic weapons for self
> defence then so can a citizen.

[...]

> Do police have any civil rights not endowed to a individual citizen?

No.  But on the job, doing their state assigned duties, they have
access to instrumentalities not available to private citizens or
off-duty police.  "On" and "off" duty may sometimes be a little fuzzy
in practice, but the principle is clear.  It isn't a big deal, and
it's not a matter of civil rights.  A license to practice medicine
gives you the ability to prescribe morphine.  A certain class of
drivers license lets you drive a school bus full of children. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html