Re: Crime and punishment in cyberspace - 3 of 3

[Blanc Weber <blancw@microsoft.com>]

From: Jim choate

"Rights are the items of a citizens characteristic which are outside
the ability of that government to control within its charter. Rights
come before a government forms. If they didn't then you would not be
able to give it a charter."

	This is true in the sense that one has the right to exist and to 
function and in general to be oneself independent of artificial 
government  operations.

In Nature, you have a "right" to anything you like, but there may be no 
one besides yourself there to appreciate that fact and to deliver it.  
When a group of individuals associate and create agreements/charters, 
the delineation of rights serves to protect their separateness -  their 
property,   their privacy, their character - against encroachments from 
the group, by defining consciously where the boundary lines are to be 
drawn  -   what the individual can expect to keep, in exception to what 
everyone expects to share.

Once a group considers itself an official "society" of like-minded 
individuals, they often begin to demand "rights" which do not naturally 
belong to them or their society - or which they have not explicity 
agreed to share:

.  the right to have what others have created/produced
(like a service which nature does not automatically arrange for 
delivery  -  ex:  optical cables & the internet at 3200 bps)

.  the right to access what is not their own
(outside of what nature has naturally endowed them with  -   ex: computers)

"Self protection is a requirement in general against another individual and
not a society."

	A society of like-minded individuals can also be a threat to the 
safety of non-conformists, depending on how the group decides to 
respond to those who are not exactly like the others.

Blanc