From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:36:41 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: New Add-On Law / Re: Freeh's Testimony (FBI Seeks Domestic GAK)
In-Reply-To: <199707111954.VAA02222@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.970713003511.347B-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>   Am I totally out of my mind, or has life become tremendously
> fucking scary, and nobody but me has noticed?

This list is quite simply the only place I know of where single sentences 
as perceptive and straight to the point as the quote above are made on a 
regular basis. I am sure many potential revolutionaries have ended up in 
asylums over the years as a result of the consequences of the above 
effect, if the "terrorist" retains their sanity they are put in an asylum 
as a dangerous lunatic, more normally the total stupidity and blindness 
of those around them drive them to genuine insanity. This same effect can 
likely be used to explain the high rate of insanity in the late years of 
many of the pasts great philosophers.

>   Sometimes I feel like the guy on the plane in the "Twilight Zone"
> movie, who is the only one who can see the monster on the plane's
> wing that is endangering everyone's life. 

Small question: I seem to remember this film, is it the small green 
monster which keeps dancing and fucking with the planes engines?


> And if you shoot at the
> monster nobody else can see, then they strap you down and take you
> to the rubber room. (Obvious analogy to McVeigh and Death Row 
> purely unintentional.)

Of course, and anyone who saw such an analogy without it being pointed 
out would probably be a dangerous terrorist anyway.

>   Yes, and one day, even our private thoughts will be considered to
> automatically make us guilty criminals unless we allow LEA's access
> to them. (The "lie detector" is a case in point, and it has in the
> past come dangerously close to being afforded the same status as
> the breathalyzer, even though it represents "voodoo" as much as it
> does "science.")

How much confidence do US courts have in polygraph tests? I believe UK 
systems qualify the tests as evidence to be considered as ancillary to 
the other evidence rather than relied on as a major part of a case.
Not really relevant though, polygraph tests are hopelessly innacurate, 
any good poker player or general good liar could beat one, or indeed 
someone who practiced one of the many forms of meditation in which ones 
blood pressure, respiration and pulse may be consciously controlled.

> TruthMonger

BTW, one of the many Mongers of several sorts uses toad.com for all 
messages, I`m sure it is now just a forwarder but just to point it out, 
it may still be censored.

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"