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Re: FBI to inaugurate national DNA database
I'm not talking about whether the FBI/NSA is setting us up
politically; they may very well be doing just that. The point
is that we need to win wars by winning battles, but it's hard
to win battles by sticking to absolute principles and eventually
third parties looking no longer find you credible. If we can
stick to pointing out just how similar GAK/KR is to cameras in
every bedroom, then we can win the battles and the war. If
we just stick to either we get 100% of what we want or we
don't want it, then the FBI/NSA can manipulate the public into
thinking that we would never agree to anything the FBI/NSA
wants.
Remember ... we don't have what we want yet ... despite
some of the rhetoric on this list, and the FBI/NSA is trying to
win a war of attrition.
Ern
-----Original Message-----
From: Brown, R Ken <[email protected]>
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>; 'Ernest Hua'
<[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 1998 2:56 AM
Subject: RE: FBI to inaugurate national DNA database
>> I think it would be a very bad idea for civil liberties
>> groups to come out 100% against this. So far all they
>> have said is that they intend to log all convicted criminals.
>> If the C.L. groups complain about that, then it would be too
>> easy for the FBI to turn around and say, "Geez! These guys
>> complain about anything and everything we do!"
>
>I think you are falling for the old bazaar bargaining trick. The guy
>wants to sell you a carpet that is worth a shekel. He reckons he can do
>you for ten shekels. So he starts the bidding at a hundred and you
>think you've done well when you've beaten him down to fifteen. America
>is - cypherpunks tell me - a country where people worry about their
>social security number being kept on databases, where caller id on
>phones can be a hot political issue. This DNA business is far more
>intrusive and dangerous than any of that. Don't fall for it!
>
>Don't fall for the argument that it is only the bad guys who get tagged.
>They can define anyone they want as a bad guy. How many people do you
>know who have never done anything for which they could be convicted as a
>criminal? Never driven a car faster then the speed limit, never smoked
>dope, never ridden a bicycle on the pavement, never been drunk in a
>public place? To a large extent the set of "convicted criminals" is
>governed by police or court decisions rather than by the actions of the
>criminals.
>
>Over here in Britain we've had a long succession of intrusive, abusive
>laws promulgated in the name of public safety, law and order, peace on
>the streets. The previous government had their absurd "dangerous dogs
>act" which became a laughing stock before the ink was dry then their
>horrendous and evil "Criminal Justice Bill" with racist provisions
>allowing the police to persecute travellers and uttely useless laws
>against "music with repetitive beats" not to mention new rules to
>control "young offenders, bailed persons, squatters, travellers,
>ravers, protesters, trespassers, arrested persons, defendants,
>hunt-saboteurs, pornographers, video pirates, obscene telephone-callers,
>prisoners, racists, terrorists, ticket touts, cannabis-smokers, serious
>fraudsters and not forgetting gay men under 18."
>
>The current lot aren't as bad, and are certainly more well-intentioned
>but they haven't repealed any of the earlier stuff and are, bit by bit,
>filling in the few gaps in the wall of regulation and legislation the
>Tories built around anyone who wasn't a middle-aged white man who
>worked 9 to 5, living in a suburb with a car and a mortgage, who never
>went out.
>
>Our current Home Secretary (cabinet minister with responsibility for
>police anong other things) was probably the first person in such a
>position in any major country who was brought up by a single mother on a
>violent estate (what you'd call a housing project in America) and he
>thinks he knows - no he *does* know - what most ordinary people in
>environments like that want from life. So he proposes law after law to
>make things better, to tell people how they ought to live, all with the
>best of intentions. Curfews for children (you ask questions and he will
>just come back at you and say "do you *really* think 9-year-old children
>should be wandering around on their own at night, or in gangs?" to which
>the honest answer is "no, but it's none of your business if they do").
>Compulsory parenting education for parents whose children commit
>crimes. A national register of paedophiles - which is made public, so a
>couple of convicted child abusers, on being released from jail asked to
>be taken back in again because their life wasn't safe outside. Defining
>email that goes outside the country as "export" so that writing about
>bombs (or cryptography?) can come under the strategic arms export
>regulations. And so on.
>
>And all the while local councils put up cameras in every high street...