Who's Most Receptive to Our Message?

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Matthew Landry writes:


>         In fact, NPR has a very good journalistic record, and many of its 
> reporters have proven themselves willing to take on the government when they 
> feel the government is wrong.

Though my sympathies are not "leftist" and though I often grimace when
I hear the slant given by NPR, I suspect the NPR/left/ACLU side is
more amenable to crypto and crypto privacy than the Right/American
Heritage/Falwell side is.

(As most of you know, whether you agree or not, the libertarian axis
is generally orthogonal to the axis defined by Left and Right.)

My point is that I think liberal left reporters are likely to be more
sympathetic to our views--even when they involve such libertarian
"extremes" as crypto-anarchy--than are right wing reporters. I'm not
sure why this is (I have some guesses), but it seems to be the case.

I can imagine a right winger saying "You mean your system will allow
faggots to plan their crimes in private? You mean enemies of our
country will be able to to use electronic black markets to trade
military secrets untraceably?"

So, while I don't place much faith in converting the masses--this
despite the interviews I gave for "Wired," "Whole Earth Review,"
and "The Village Voice"--I suspect that NPR is in fact a more
receptive place than, say, the Rush Limbaugh show would be.

(If I don't favor converting the masses, what *do* I favor?
Technology. It was technology and markets that created the revolutions
in personal computers, fax machines, VCRs, whatever, not proselyting
in the media. Strong crypto is like strong locks: if cheap enough and
easy to use, it will be used automatically by many people.)


--Tim May


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