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1997-09-12 - Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights

Header Data

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
To: Glenn Hauman <declan@well.com>
Message Hash: e71e8d2abf3859fd751f83ccef3eb2f0cd3384cf5c9e849bef85481794924b6b
Message ID: <v03102800b03f2612ab6a@[207.167.93.63]>
Reply To: <v0310280fb03e85064817@[207.167.93.63]>
UTC Datetime: 1997-09-12 17:19:53 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 01:19:53 +0800

Raw message

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 01:19:53 +0800
To: Glenn Hauman <declan@well.com>
Subject: Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights
In-Reply-To: <v0310280fb03e85064817@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <v03102800b03f2612ab6a@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 9:13 AM -0700 9/12/97, Glenn Hauman wrote:
>At 1:42 AM -0400 9/12/97, Tim May wrote:
>>At 10:05 PM -0700 9/11/97, James S. Tyre wrote:
>>
>>>So, the last rhetorical question -- how do you convince someone who's
>>>never used a browser (the vast majority of the voting populace, I'd
>>>think) why crypto is important?
>>
>>This is back to where we were four and a half years ago, when Clipper was
>>dropped on us. "How do we educate the users?"
>>
>>Trust me, it's a hopeless task. We don't have the advertising budgets, the
>>staff for education, etc.
>>
>>And it ain't our responsibility to "save" the sheeple.
>
>True, but if it's war, we gotta get more troops. I don't want to save them,
>I want more troops on my side.
>
>Education is good. Exploiting FUD is probably better. (DoJ's learned
>something from dealing with Microsoft.) Luckily, it ain't that hard to whip
>up Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt against the US Government.

Fair enough. If you can launch an education program, well and good.

I'm just pointing out that we saw this situation several years ago with
Clipper. The list was, predictably, sidetracked with literally thousands of
suggestions about how best to recruit more public supporters. T-shirts,
gimmicks, and suggestions for songs about crypto, for getting t.v.
producers to put crypto, pro-privacy themes in their t.v. shows, and so on.
All pretty hopeless, wouldn't you say?

As Lucky Green just said, "Cypherpunks write code."

(This can be either direct code, or memetic code, or things related to
getting actual technological changes distributed. What Cypherpunks _don't_
do is try to play the Beltway game that Jerry Berman and his ilk play  (so
poorly, for our issues), or to try to play the Hollywood and Madison Avenue
games of swaying popular opinion.)

--Tim May



There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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