Re: Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy

[Marc Rotenberg <rotenberg@epic.org>]

>At 6:05 PM -0700 5/31/97, Marc Rotenberg wrote:
>
>>What examples do you have where privacy is included in
>>a contractual arrangement?
>
>
>- a lender agrees to transfer the information provided only to specified
>parties, and not to the newspapers . . .

Good examples. Many are codified in statue, created by common law,
industry practice, or professional obligation. Virtually none are
tied to specific, negotiated contracts.

One of the biggest problems with libertarian theories is that
they are descriptively flawed as applied in the real world. In
practice, perfect markets rarely exist, laws do protect rights,
and there are a lot of efficiencies -- economic, technological,
and otherwise -- in promoting the highest level of safeguards
across similar activities, e.g. you get into a car, you expect
that the brakes will work. You don't express a negotiated
preference for how much you want your brakes to work.

I don't mind the criticism if you think we're saying or
doing something that really is bad for privacy, but
a bunch of political rhetoric isn't worth much. And if
you don't think we're not busting our butt to protect
the rights of people to use strong crypto, you have no
idea what's going on.

Marc.