From: TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 22:44:53 +0800
To: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Subject: The Right to Work for Nobody / Re: New PGP "Everything the FBI ever dreamed of"
In-Reply-To: <199710061355.OAA01789@server.test.net>
Message-ID: <3438F7E2.7BAE@dev.null>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Adam Back wrote:
> Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> > I agree that an employer has a "right" to read employee mail, sent on
> > company time with company resources.
...
> > Further, while businesses have every right to monitor their workers (Hey,
> > I'm not saying I _like_ this, just that the alternative of banning such
> > monitoring would be abusive to a property owner's rights)...

I hate to inject too strong a note of reality into arguments that I
would like to agree wholeheartedly with, but I believe that there has
been so much thievery of both property and rights (individual and
corporate) that it is extremely difficult to make a strong case for
any pure argument any more.
First, the federal government gives a business confiscated land to
support a failing industry, the state gives them huge tax breaks
to move from elsewhere, the city does the same, while taxing you
even more to support the grand growth schemes that the mayor and
council members are getting rich on, and then the company announces
that you can 'choose' not to work there if you don't like their
rules.

> Your "choice" not to work for a company which uses software like
> pgp5.5 is likely to become ever more limited if corporates adopt this
> type of policy.  They will be conditioned to expect this.  Governments
> will of course encourage corporates to use such software.

In Canada, one could 'choose' not to work for Safeway Stores, but the
chain would come into a community and undersell everyone until the
locals were run out of business, then raise prices dramatically.
In theory, you could choose to *not* work for Safeway, but in reality,
there was no one else left *to* choose to work for in the grocery 
business.

TruthMonger