Big Brother, Rights to Privacy and Broadening Horizons?

[fergp@sytex.com (Paul Ferguson)]

Greets, all.
 
After taking a few days off for the pomp and circumstance of my second
wedding (no, I'm not a polygamist -- I was divorced first)(genuine
thanks to all who sent your congratulations and best wishes), I finally
waded through all of the e-mail that had piled up in my "in-box" --
some 800 kb worth, no less.
 
Anyway, to the point --
 
This morning I was watching CBS's early, early morning news "Up to the
Minute" over a cup of Joe before heading to the airport. An interesting
spot came on that interested me very much, because of the correlation
to several law enforcement agencies' "loose cannon" style of persecution
which many of us have witnessed.
 
This particular report spotlighted the DEA's heavy-handed and
questionable practice of targeting legitimate gardening store
consumers under suspicion of growing marijuana. It just so happens
that the DEA had been watching several gardening supply stores which
sold hydroponic gardening equipment in some particular area of
California. (For those of you who are not familiar with Hydroponics,
it is a gardening method which uses water instead of soil. The plants
usually grow twice as fast when grown hydroponically and has become a
popular method of indoor gardening with marijuana enthusiasts.) In
fact, the DEA had gone as far as to place monitoring cameras in place
to record the identity of every customer or prospective consumer that
went in and out of these legitimate businesses, solely because of
their suspicions that some of the customers may be (gasp) growing
marijuana.
 
Additionally, a particular instance was cited where a gentleman went
into one of these gardening supply stores and bought a couple of lamps
for his aquarium. (This young, family-man had some coral in his
aquarium at home that he wanted to illuminate.) Later that evening,
agents from the DEA burst into his home while he and his family were
having dinner, saying that he was under suspicion of growing marijuana
and that "reliable witnesses" had tipped them off. After thoroughly
searching his home, they apologized and left.
 
Now -- you may ask yourself, "What in the hell does this have to do
with me? Or computers?" ("This is not my beautiful wife ....")
 
Well, this may be the same scenario, with the same LEA, but with a
different premise. Cryptography.
 
If the Clipper/Capstone implementation has a hidden agenda (I believe
it does), then tough restrictions on other "non-sanctioned" crypto
methods may not be far behind.
 
Personally, I don't have much of a problem imagining this, given the
recent escapades of the SPA (Rusty & Edie's), the Secret Service (SJG)
and all of our other beloved governmental law enforcement appartchiks.
In fact, I find it down-right disturbing that in many instances, this
is done without a warrant.
 
George Orwell is probably rolling over in his grave...
 
-----BEGIN ??? PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.2
 
mQCNAiuk0/8AAAEEALqlLc+x9lmgiJCRSpu/aPhQdi0hMjwiGlN2B/GJQqgZPhTb
pR+u5/blGogqT+WwcXZ2XfEdIV19FrJY4BXGGn4+4TjdVN3XuuCHuueoygBAmOQD
IloU6SJuDqJa0kFA5X/i/1ELn86I5+8A4Hx88FiYJIVUBR6SApRLcZSdHMBNAAUR
tB9QYXVsIEZlcmd1c29uIDxmZXJncEBzeXRleC5jb20+iQCVAgUQK9g8HY4wrq++
1Ls5AQHwVAP/dCsOV1dXBrQMj0wavZymzDdECXlv8auDNcSpxAUFgLdwXm5OuE4Q
nOPHryN0UMq5RN2rvC2QJdxIW7gPeXN1RK2so9aGXJtSiip3QS0bN2JCH1sPcYIX
NmRQ3Z7J/zqppG7IYlcafUpj0V+GsL6lqLzB8JtBGQER9DAYapvQRR0=
=FcQR
-----END ??? PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
 

Paul Ferguson                  |  Uncle Sam wants to read
Network Integrator             |       your e-mail...
Centreville, Virginia USA      | Just say "NO" to the Clipper
fergp@sytex.com                |          Chip...
-------------------------------+------------------------------
         I love my country, but I fear it's government.