From: Blanc <blancw@cnw.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 07:32:19 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: LACC:  DEA Agents Accuse CIA of Tapping Phones
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970918162902.006888ac@cnw.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Brian B. Riley, CIA friend wrote wrote:

>>[...]     We've known for years now that 
>>the jackbooted thugs of the DEA are by far the most law-abusing, 
>>disrespectful, rights-sneering, down-and-dirty, life-threatening, 
>>hair-raising agents of the entire US Government. Bar none. They've 
>>got to be watched, because they're a nasty threat to individual 
>>liberty, and because they routinely interfere with the legitimate 
>>work of other American intelligence agencies. (And they've been 
>>monitored, by the way, since at least 1984, to my knowledge.) 
........................................................


Well, there's watching, and then there's Just Watching.   I would think
that if some agency known to be so untrustworthy that it requires
"watching", that it also deserves some action against its unacceptable
activities immediately as they are discovered.   It's rather ineffective to
just passively monitor/watch what someone is doing, and keeps doing.   This
becomes more like voyeurism.

Which recalls to mind the difference in the effect of surveillance upon
different kinds of people:  to those with personal standards for
self-control/self-government, it is highly disturbing; to those with none,
it is not even annoying.

Just a comment on surveillance in general.