Re: Extremely Disappointing: Political Cryptography

[f_estema@alcor.concordia.ca]

Rant ahead.

On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Benjamin Grosman wrote:

> > I'm not saying I _want_ an agency making decisions for us; only that
> > it would be slightly less hideously exasperating than our present
> > situation, where technoliterates are being ruled by technoilliterates.

> I would totally agree with you here...having an agency is definitely the
> best of a bad set of choices.

Doubtful. Under the current situation our technoilliterate oppononents are
passing demonstrably unworkable and heavy-handed laws, which, if the CDA
was any indication, have a high chance of being at least partly
neutralized in the courts and the benefit of being a headache to
implement technologically and commercially. 

If our opponents institutionalize the regulation of the Net, including a
GAK law, on the other hand, the policy will have the benefit of an entire
federal bureaucracy working behind it day by day to make it workable and
turn it into something acceptable to the judiciary and to those who are
seeking compromise. 

We will then have another FCC, but this time with its own pet FBI, and
given enough time (these people are essentially government employed
full-time lobbyists) everyone but us nutty libertarians will regard their
methods as common practice and something without which the Net would be
unlivable. Society will once again fall for the fallacy of government
necessity and we'll get divided and conquered.  Just ask the average
person what they think of abolishing the FCC and you will see what I mean. 

In the long run a new dedicated bureaucracy would be the worst of all
possible choices, first because it would actually function and second
because it would never go away. 

> > corrupt. We might get two or three good years out of a Federal
> > Internet Agency, depending who was appointed to run it.

3 semi-bad years instead of a couple of scary years of GAK being fought
head-on, in exchange for a permanent problem. 

> And that would probably be a major problem...finding someone with whom
> both the government and industry are happy.

Locking the rest of us out. Divide and conquer.