Dark Times Ahead

Predictions for the Year

1.  Encryption without "Key Escrow" will be outlawed.  The remailer
    network will be shutdown following highly public raids that 
    result in equipment seizures and prosecution of the remailer
    operators using RICO statutes after agents provocateur post
    terrorist threats to the Internet.
2.  Tobacco companies will cave in to the states on liability for
    medical costs and declare bankruptcy.  The few remaining small
    companies not party to the suits will see themselves targeted
    after prices on a pack of cigarettes rises to 1000% of the 
    current price.  Two years from now, cigarettes will be almost 
    impossible to get and result in smuggling on a scale that dwarfs 
    cocaine and marijuana trafficing.
3.  The NSA's prohibition on domestic surveillance will be lifted 
    following allegations of massive money laundering via the Internet
    and rumors that major American banks have been raided via the
    net by Russian mafia.
4.  The IRS will go to court to force the National Rifle Association
    to turn over its membership lists as the agency audits the books
    of the non-profit organization.  After obtaining the lists, the
    IRS will target the members for special auditing programs.
5.  The FBI will direct the implementation of the Digital Telephony
    Act after Congress finally caves in and provides the funding.  A
    new protocol for wiretapping will be implemented as provided for
    in the Act that does not allow for judicial review.
6.  The Supreme Court will surprise everyone by upholding the 
    Communications Decency Act in a 5-4 decision.  The FBI will stage
    widely publicized raids on the most visible adult web sites.

Pan D. Modium
pandemodium@nym.alias.net
"May you live in interesting times." -- ancient Chinese curse

On 23 Feb 1997, Pan D.Modium wrote:

> Predictions for the Year

> 2.  Tobacco companies will cave in to the states on liability for
>     medical costs and declare bankruptcy.  The few remaining small
>     companies not party to the suits will see themselves targeted
>     after prices on a pack of cigarettes rises to 1000% of the 
>     current price.  Two years from now, cigarettes will be almost 
>     impossible to get and result in smuggling on a scale that dwarfs 
>     cocaine and marijuana trafficing.

When I was a kid, we'd just grab a tobacco leaf in the barn and roll it up
in a piece of paper.  Informal cigarettes will always be easy to get.  But
the FDA will have an excuse to start fielding large SWAT teams.

Brad

attention:

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"Pan D.Modium" <pandemodium@nym.alias.net> writes, in part:

>2.  Tobacco companies will cave in to the states on liability for
>    medical costs and declare bankruptcy.  The few remaining small
>    companies not party to the suits will see themselves targeted
>    after prices on a pack of cigarettes rises to 1000% of the
>    current price.  Two years from now, cigarettes will be almost
>    impossible to get and result in smuggling on a scale that dwarfs
>    cocaine and marijuana trafficing.

Some state prisons (Utah? Minnesota?) are smoke-free. Cigarettes are
a choice smuggling item. I vaguely recall a price of $200 per
cigarette (but note that, in a prison economy, the "dollar" is
only loosely connected to reality.

I can imagine a National Smokers Association: "When cigarettes
are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigarettes" -- or, somewhat
more appropriately, "you can have my cigarette when you pry my
cold dead fingers off of it."

Martin Minow (non-smoker, other vices not discussed)