Re: OFFSHORE DIGITAL BANKS

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Responding to msg by tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) on Wed, 
31 Aug  4:8  PM

>I'm not sure what John wants me to expand on here. 
>Others have noted  the same sorts of things. Here are 
>some random, brief points:

[Elision of US foreign interventions]

>Is this enough of an expansion?


As a newcomer to this list I'm interested your views, and those 
of others, on how crypto and related topics may be used in 
responding to US interventions abroad and their domestic 
consequences.  Blending these views into discussions on other 
matters is just fine; I'll continue to pick out the parts that 
catch my eye.

Much list discussion seems to focus on internal affairs of the 
US with periodic comments from those members outside.  My sense 
is that our laments about internal abuses of the USG will not 
be answered until we address the external policies that are 
used to justify these abuses.

Since so much of the power of the USG derives from "national 
security" responsibilities -- diplomacy, military, intelligence 
--  and because these have repeatedly been used to justify 
invasive policies, both domestic and foreign, I wish to learn 
more on what might be done through c'punks' activities to 
ventilate the secrecy cloak that shields such affairs from the 
public.

Most of my recent posts have tried to raise queries along these 
lines whether about crypto anarchy, digicash or varieties of 
government.

This follows my query a while back about how c'punks think US 
scientists and their technology may be redirected away from 
national security affairs, where the best and brightest have 
thrived in the last two generations, toward the needs of civil 
society, in the US and abroad.

So you won't think this is an idle interest, I'll mention that 
I've been pursuing these topics, with others, for some 27 years 
in the NYC area in a public planning and development context, 
as we have waited for the Cold War squandering of surplus 
wealth to end so that more of these resources might go toward 
dealing with civil shortcomings, especially through 
non-governmental programs.

Sorry for soapboxing, but this is from a long-time worker among 
NYC's richest and poorest wondering how long these worlds can 
be kept apart by the fictions of "national interests".


John