Replies

1) Until a Howard Mcghee CD is made illegal, I am safe.

Your membership to Free Republic alone effectively categorizes you for political consideration. We have politicians in office right now that have used the IRS and other government agencies to harass political opponents, some of these people seek the presidency. This is from 1997, before he was personally Big Brother:

By Senator John Ashcroft Republican, Missouri

Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism

[Senator Ashcroft takes issue with administration views on the Internet and the use of encryption technology.]

USIA Electronic Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, October 1997

excerpt:

"The FBI wants access to decode, digest, and discuss financial transactions, personal e-mail, and proprietary information sent abroad -- all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like government agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software and Internet communications.

This proposed policy raises obvious concerns about Americans' privacy, in addition to tampering with the competitive advantage that our U.S. software companies currently enjoy in the field of encryption technology. Not only would Big Brother be looming over the shoulders of international cyber-surfers, but the administration threatens to render our state-of-the-art computer software engineers obsolete and unemployed.

There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?"

Wrong address cases get thrown out of court in a hardbeat. The guilty are punished, the innocent absolved.

Sometimes the innocent are buried instead. Makes the cops mistake a little more difficult to live with.