Re: Judge Kozinski Responds

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 9:21 PM 9/16/96, Jim Ray wrote:

>I have been having a private e-mail conversation with Judge Alex Kozinski of
>the 9th circuit. Today he said:

>>Halloween, it only really works when the people dressed up
>>are about four feet tall.  In the rare instances where there
>>have been adults at my door that were so disguised you
>>couldn't tell who they were, I felt threatened--kept my
>>Glock handy before opening door.

I'll only comment on this one item, for now.

Any judge who talks about keeping his Glock handy has my vote.

(Of course, I've heard of such things many times before. Chief Supreme
Warren Burger once got a lot of publicity by answering his door--in
D.C.--with a revolver in one hand. I suspect that an awful lot of judges
fully appreciate the kind of perps that are out there, and know the threats
they could face, both from random acts of violence and home invasion and
from targetted acts of revenge. As they learn that perps they send away to
prison are requesting archived copies of "Assassination Politics," I rather
expect their paranoia will increase sharply.)

(Hint: One reason I seldom discuss AP is that to me it's just a special
case of the larger issue of untraceable markets for such acts, something
I've been worried about for almost a decade now. There is little reason to
engage in the fiction of a "betting pool" when a hit may be untraceably
contracted for and the standard fee ($1000 or less in some inner cities,
$5000 for ordinary suburbanites, $30,000 or more for high-profile
cases...so I hear) be paid with untraceable cash...as soon as truly
untraceable digital cash becomes a reality.)

--Tim May

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."