Re: William Just doesn't get it.

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com>]

On Tue, 24 Jun 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


Gee thanks for quoting my entire message.  You know, I really love to see
the stuff I wrote before over and over again when I reply to it.  *NOT*.
If you reply, please don't quote the entire messages.  Just what you're
replying to.  


[Mass Snippage]

> How are you going to verify what the government *says* it is doing without
> a mechinism of authenticating of who they are doing it with?

Watch them carefully.  If they do what they're not supposed to do, word
will eventually leak out in most circumstances, not all, and most
certainly not in spool related things.  But leaks do occur.  Watching what
they say and do will give you that info.  Same as any of the reporters
will do.  Ask Declan if need be. :)
 
> How can you verify that the census reports are vailid if you don't know
> who is in the census?

Conduct your own independant census and see how big a difference there is.
If you can't, then conduct random but smaller spot checks and see how they
match.  Count the number of entries in the phone book.  You shouldn't be
too far off from the actual number of residents within an area though
you'd be missing unlisted numbers.

> How can you check and see if the party in power is stuffing the balot
> boxes if you can't confirm who is on the voting rolls??

Ask the voters to anonymously re-vote, take polls.  Etc.
 
> How will you know which John Doe is issued a Medical License without
> additional information being available?

These aren't done by Uncle Sam, they're done by AMA or whatever.  As I
said licenses should be available to you in terms of yes, he's had a
license, or no he ain't got one.
 
> How can you prevent criminal records from being known when all police
> arrests & court procedings are public knowledge?

Court procedings, not criminal records.  Hmmm, caught me there ya did. :)
Good question.  Any other suggestions as to how to protect the privacy of
someone who served their time?

> In your zeal to make public information "private" you are giving the
> government the perfect mechanism to hide all its activities from its
> citizens.

I'm not asking for laws to be passed to "protect" privacy.  I'm asking
that privacy be recognized as one of the inalienable rights.  In other
words, a constitutional amendment much like the 1st that says you have the
right to privacy.  Not necessarily what happens when it is broken.  If
it's broken, you sue Unlce Sam.

I'm not asking for public information to be hidden.  I'm asking for
information that is personal and should be private to be private- i.e. 
driving records, health records, addresses, phone numbers, and
relationship records to be kept private. I'm not asking to hide what the
government does.  

Not all information that is public is personal - such information should
remain public.  The actions of the state, the actions of public
corporations should be public.  Information on citizens should not be made
public WITHOUT their consent.

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