Re: Is Anonymous Communication only for "Criminals"? (was: Re: UCENET II and Peter duh Silva)

[Rabid Wombat <wombat@mcfeely.bsfs.org>]

> 	War on (some) Drugs...  they don't want to, they have been asked to...
> 
> 	Most payphones can no longer receive calls because of this as
> well, and there are far fewer of them around in certain areas than there
> used to be ...
> 

More like simple economics; after the breakup, a lot of pay phones were 
operated by companies specializing in this type of service. Pay phones 
are high maintenance, and their operators can only turn a profit by 
charging very high rates; if you make a quick call and ask the other 
party to call you back at the pay phone, the pay phone operator doesn't 
make much money.

Can you site any legislation barring pay phones from receiving calls? I'd 
think that most pay phone operators would be glad to deny incomming calls 
if they were allowed to (as they often are), and wouldn't need to be forced.

(If you carry a pager only so a select group of people can reach you, you 
may want to block pay phone calls - beats having crack-heads paging you 
instead of their dealer by mistake at 4:00 a.m. - OTOH, you meet a lot 
of interesting people this way ... :)  )

-r.w.