From: Jon Callas <jon@pgp.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 07:27:31 +0800
To: Charles Platt <jon@pgp.com>
Subject: Re: What's really in PGP 5.5?
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971007142710.00a22970@mail.pgp.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19971008161146.009e38c0@mail.pgp.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 11:35 PM 10/7/97 -0400, Charles Platt wrote:
   On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Jon Callas wrote:
   
   > Like it or not, government has a mandate to protect the people from
   > dangerous technologies, be they in foods, drugs, autos, or information
   > technologies.
   
   Please tell me where it says this in the U.S. Constitution.
   
   In particular, please tell me where the FEDERAL government is assigned 
   this power.
   
   Thank you.
   
There are a number of places. The usual one they abuse is what's called the
"commerce clause" which lets them regulate interstate commerce. They also
drag in "providing for domestic tranquility" or anything else that looks good.

If you'll look again at my next sentence, I said, "Many people believe that
the government uses this mandate as a rationale for acquiring power, many
people would prefer that they let us take our chances...." I'm one of those
many people.

One of the very sad things in our history is that limitations on Federal
power became hostage of the race issue a century ago. "States Rights" is a
real issue because the Constitution places severe limits on what the
federal government is supposed to do. Unfortunately, that term is nigh a
synonym for justification of slavery, racial segregation, and other odious
things. Limits on the federal government are a casualty of the War Between
the States.

Recently, the courts have been reversing this trend, tossing out some laws
that are justified by the commerce clause. A number of scholars predict
this will increase. We can only hope.

	Jon



-----
Jon Callas                                         jon@pgp.com
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