From: hapgood@pobox.com (Fred Hapgood)
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 05:12:55 +0800
To: jf_avon@citenet.net
Subject: Re: Real issue of crypto controls: security or taxation loss?
In-Reply-To: <199709131600.MAA22590@cti06.citenet.net>
Message-ID: <341cfde6.4510695@192.74.137.5>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




>I think that *this* debate should be injected in the population and 
>the *bogus* "national security" debate should be dismissed as, 
>just that : bogus.  

Never underestimate how weirded out people can get about "security". 
You don't know about this, living in Canada, but nobody in America can
use a mailbox to mail a package now, just because one guy mailed a few
bombs.   We live in a time in which rocks in the parks have warning
labels bolted to them ('Caution: Slippery when wet').  I could go
on forever and so could you.  Health and security are the governing
superstitions of our age. 

Allowing uncontrolled encryption not only seems to open the door to
specific bogeymen, but frustrates the power of the 'security
apparatus' in general and across the board.  Nothing is scarier than
rhetoric about the police being helpless to protect you.  Few
politicans are willing to leave themselves open to the charge of not
standing by the police or tying the police's hands. I think 99 out of
a hundred politicians 'thinking' about encryption never get past this
point.  Most of them don't know enough to know that tax collection is
even an issue.  (Not that it probably is; governments used to raise
most of their money by taxing atoms -- real property and capital goods
-- and nobody I know has thought of a reason why they can't do it
again.)  

>
>For most peoples, privacy in itself is worth something only if 
>if they have some *value* they want to preserve.  Most of the 
>time, this value concretizes itself as "money".  So if we talk to 
>them in terms *they* understand, we run a much better chance to make 
>them understand why spreading crypto is a tool we believe will 
>greatly enhance human's life quality.
>
>Any comments about why we should *not* put most emphasis on the 
>financial aspect of crypto?


What are you saying here?  That we should be arguing that encryption
should be permitted because it will allow people to avoid paying
taxes?  I'm afraid the set of people that would respond well to that
argument is not was large as you would hope.

Fred
www.pobox.com/~hapgood