From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunker@mail.phoenix.net>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:40:34 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: A Reality Check & the Full Citizenship Campaign
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19970913235944.00814c1c@pop.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <199709140946.EAA13017@raid2.fddi.phoenix.net>
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On 14 Sep 97 at 0:00, Vin McLellan wrote:

> 	Hmmm.  Isn't it time for a reality check?  Getting bent out of
> shape because the House Intelligence Community -- surely the legislators
> closest to the spooks and spies of the Permanent Government, and rather
> addicted to its product -- votes to outlaw cryptography without a backdoor
> seems to be excessive.

I disagree. "They" instinctively perceive that they have a PR
climate in which they have successfully elevated the Horsemen to
deities that no politician who values his reelection will challenge.
The whole situation has been engineered, in part for this moment.
They will do it this session if they can, otherwise next session.

If you haven't noticed, we are well down on the slippery slope of
acceptance of unconstitutional legislation and executive acts. 
With the substitution of outrageously unconstutional language for 
the original text of SAFE, the slope has just steepened dramatically 
and the edge above is pretty well out of reach.  

The problem is that no constitution has the power to enforce itself.
It depends entirely on a wide, usually mostly unstated agreement
that its principles are Very Important Things.  Liberia, you may
recall, copied the U.S. Constitution almost to the word, and it did
them no good whatsoever because the people were not imbued with the
spirit of the document.  It's quite remarkable that any semblance of 
our Constitution has lasted as long as it has, but it's pretty 
obvious that the general understanding and agreement that holds such 
things in place has passed below critical mass in the U.S.  The 
government is now moving into "anything goes" mode.  That's when the 
slope becomes nearly vertical.

> 	Declan or someone who tracks Congressional voting trends should
> double-check me, but I harbor doubt that the US Congress (or rather, the
> House of Represenatives) is about to vote and approve such a bill.

Some thought the same of the CDA. In a few years more some will be 
saying the same of some death camp bill. It's all relative, and the 
relative window in this step-wise game of incremental slavery is 
quite narrow these days.

> This Nation, and the rights of citizenship the state conceeds,
> were not defined and enumberated in terms of what will make police
> oversight and investigation most cost-effective.

Right, but it's illustrative of the problem that one writes, "and
the rights of citizenship the state concedes," because this nation
was founded on no such basis.  The state conceded nothing because the
state was considered to have no natural powers, unlike the
contemporary view in the rest of the world then, and for the most
part, now.  Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
make it pretty clear that the foundation for the U.S. government is
the delegation of powers from individuals endowed with natural
rights.  Most of the rest of the world still functions on the model
of a soveriegn state which graciously grants rights to its
citizen-units and can withdraw them by the same power.  It's a
fundamental differenc that few people outside the U.S. even
contemplate.

Also, as has been suggested in another post, this is about *money*,
not national security. Or it's about *power*. Or *money* as the
lifeblood of *state power*. I doubt there is a politician or 
bureaucrat above the level of Mayberry who actually fears *any* of 
the Horsemen. On the contrary, the Horsemen are the statists' best 
friends. Without the hyped dangers there would be little excuse for 
the stepwise evisceration of the Constitution and the construction of 
the most technologically advanced police state in the history of 
mankind.

This latest assault on the Constitution was inevitable. Only the 
timing may have been affected by pro-crypto legislative efforts. 

Major grabs of power are almost always preceded by a period of 
softening up by PR bombardment, exactly what we've been seeing for 
the last couple of years. Any time you see a concerted PR campaign 
to demonize something it's a lead pipe cinch that it will culminate 
in a move to grab power. Trace things back to the beginning of the PR 
campaign and that's the point in time when the ultimate objective was 
already in the sights of the movers and shakers behind the campaign.

TJ