Re: COE Recommendation No. R (95) 13

[smithmi@dev.prodigy.com (Michael Smith)]

>
>>Forgive me if this point has already been raised, but couldn't an 
>>objection to such laws be based on the protection against 
>>self-incrimination? 
>
>There is no such right in most (if not all) european countries. In
>France there is not even the presumption of innocence.

[Further depressing news deleted]

Yes, this was my understanding. I guess the point I was groping 
toward was that while  we could hardly expect that our rights vis-a-vis
electronic privacy would be any _better_ than our rights in 
obviously analogous non-electronic areas, they might well be worse;
it's important to be clear, and to make clear, that what rights 
we have left have obvious extensions to our net.activities, and 
try to prevent the thin end of the wedge from being inserted in 
our portion of the perimeter.

Of course, this only applies to the set of people who live in 
countries where people _have_ any rights, and as Phill implies, 
that may soon be the null set.   

--Michael Smith
  smithmi@dev.prodigy.com