Globally legal Netscape

If Netscape wants a global product that is completely legal anywhere,
all they have to do is eliminate all encryption.  The deal they are
cutting now is to claim that they provied privacy when they do not. 

The saddest part is that many people will believe they are secure:
-> the credit card companies and ecash banks will charge interest
   on every transaction to pay for the fraud rates,
-> the government will close its grip even tighter on individual
   freedom and get an even tighter stranglehold on free speech,
-> politicians and right wing demogogues will begin to expose
   individuals for having abortions and reading smut and thinking
   the "wrong" way.

I'm not asking you to believe this - only to look at history and see the
parallels throughout time.

	- The Russian revolution resulted in purges killing hundreds of
	thousands of innocent people because of their private, turned
	public, views as expoused in their private writings.

	- The Soviet government took away personal privacy to keep their
	stranglehold on their people.

	- The Chinese government used cameras and other similar
	privacy-removing techniques to track down the peaceful
	protesters who stood for free speech in Tien-a-men square. 

	- The Germans under Hitler used personal records to identify and
	murder millions of Jews and other peoples.

These are just four examples of selected from this century! There are
many more in each century.

Personal privacy - freedom from unreasonable search and seizure - the
right to bear arms - all of these tell me that the US constitution
secures the ability of Americans to have secure personal encryption in
the information age.

The president of the United States, each member of congress, and each
CIA and NSA and FBI agent swears to God that they will protect and
defend these rights as a condition of taking their offices.  Those that
fail to support the constitution in this way should be tried as traitors.

But instead, we see these people coercing Netscape into breaking the law
on their behalf. Breaking the law by cooperating with the government in
illegal search and seizure, breaking the law in preventing Americans from
attaining privacy, and breaking the law by defrauding the public with false
claims of privacy protection.

This is the time for Netscape to prove itself to the public by taking a
stand for the Constitution, for the law of the land, and for the people
of the United Stated and the world.

If Jeff the Netscape munitions expert sees this, I hope he forwards it
to his boss, and I hope his boss considers seriously that he may be the
instrument of a totalitarian state arising in the US and throughout the
world.

It's easy to say that you're not responsible and that it's the
government's fault, and that you're just following orders.  But there is
an old saying - evil flourishes when good people do nothing.

If money is what you worship, you can get it by standing on the dead
bones of your fellow human beings.  Hitler did it, it was done in the
Russian revolution, it was done in the Soviet Union, it was done in
China, and it will be done again and again, as long as the Netscapes of
the world fail to make a stand when it counts.

-> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net/
Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236

look, this is just a *bit* extreme.  having been one of those folks sworn
to uphold the Constitution, i can tell all of you that there is no master
plan to rid the American people of their rights and freedom.

this is not to say we should not keep a sharp and keen eye open for any
assault upon our liberties.  rather, having "BEEN THERE", i just do not
see any threat along the lines of, er, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, et. al.

let's try to keep this in perspective, Fred.  perhaps a little less
caffiene would help?  ;-)

regards,
--robert,
a former U.S. government employee...but i won't say where...;-)
--

o  Robert Owen Thomas:  Corvette pilot. Cymro ydw i. User scratching post.  o
o       E-mail: Robert.Thomas@pamd.cig.mot.com --or-- robt@Cymru.COM        o
o               Vox:  708.435.7076   Fax:  708.435.7360                     o
o        "When I die, I want to go sleeping like my grandfather...          o
o              Not screaming like the passengers in his car."               o

> look, this is just a *bit* extreme.  having been one of those folks sworn
> to uphold the Constitution, i can tell all of you that there is no master
> plan to rid the American people of their rights and freedom.

The problem is that there is no master plan to uphold it.  Freedoms are
rarely lost all at once.  Rather they are nibbled away in the name of
crime control, keeping people from hurting themselves, religious beliefs,
and the like.

> this is not to say we should not keep a sharp and keen eye open for any
> assault upon our liberties.  rather, having "BEEN THERE", i just do not
> see any threat along the lines of, er, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, et. al.

Nobody in power saw the threat of Hitler even after he invaded Poland. 
In the early days, the Jews thought that being identified as Jews was no
big deal.  The Chinese cameras were portrayed as a way to reduce crime. 
The files kept by Iraq on the Kurds were supposedly used to track
criminals.  Law enforcement is almost universally used as an excuse to
collect information on individuals in the name of helping society, but
this power is easily abused.

	- It was abused in the US in the 60s against blacks seeking equal
	rights - in the name of civil order.

	- It was abused in the 50s against Americans who were even
	peripherally associated with the Communist party - in the name
	of civil order.

	- It is being used today in the name of stopping white supremicists
	and drug dealers - in the name of civil order.

Just like in the 50s and the 60s, the FBI is the one pushing for more
wiretaps and less privacy, and just like the 50s and 60s, people are
buying the anti-crime claim when in fact, this is about political power
over the rights of individual citizens.

Now I don't necessarily support more than one of these three causes, but
I do know that when one person loses their right of privacy, we all lose
our rights as well.

> let's try to keep this in perspective, Fred.  perhaps a little less
> caffiene would help?  ;-)

I haven't had any Caffine lately, but I did go for a nice hike this morning.
It's a natural high.

-> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net/
Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236

fc@all.net (Dr. Frederick B. Cohen) writes:
> 	- The Russian revolution resulted in purges killing hundreds of
> 	thousands of innocent people because of their private, turned
> 	public, views as expoused in their private writings.

Correction: tens of millions were killed (including my great-grandfather).

> 	- The Soviet government took away personal privacy to keep their
> 	stranglehold on their people.

It's interesting to note that the democratic Russian government banned
all unlicenced cryptography this year. (I posted the translation of
Yeltsin's decreee to this list).

 ...
> 	- The Germans under Hitler used personal records to identify and
> 	murder millions of Jews and other peoples.

One conspiciously absent example: the Roosevelt administration used the
census data (supposedly confidential) to ferret out persons of Japanese
descent, who were then sent to concentration camps.

---

Dr. Dimitri Vulis
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

rthomas@pamd.cig.mot.com (Robert Owen Thomas) said:

ROT> look, this is just a *bit* extreme.  having been one of those folks
ROT> sworn to uphold the Constitution, i can tell all of you that there
ROT> is no master plan to rid the American people of their rights and
ROT> freedom.

	Oh, I'm glad that a senior advisor to the President of the
United States is reading this list.

ROT> regards, --robert, a former U.S. government employee...but i won't
ROT> say where...;-) --

	Oh, so you _aren't_ a senior advisor?  I didn't think I had ever
heard your name mentioned in any press reports.

-- 
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