At 9:27 PM -0400 7/23/00, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
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>On Fri, 21 Jul 2000, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
>> My point, though, is a simple one: What is good and what is bad
>> does not depend on majority vote. For instance, I'd say that
>> most Americans would say that police should have the ability
>> to descramble documents when investigating kidnapping cases, etc.
>>
>> Would that make it right?
>
>The majority is often wrong.
>
>The issue we keep hitting with this particular series of events can be
>summed up as follows:
>
>What is more important? The right to privacy, or freedom of the
>press? Sometimes the two are in direct opposition.
As Judge Bork correctly noted, there is no "right to privacy."
What there _is_ is the Fourth Amendment, for example, which says the
government may not barge in to your house just to look around, that a
court order/search warrant is needed. Though this is not always
followed, pace the War on Some Drugs, it is generally the case that
one is secure in one's papers and possessions.
Which says _nothing_ about what other people may remember, write
down, gossip with neighbors about, etc.
And there are the other enumerated rights which relate to a perceived
"right to privacy." (The right not to be compelled to give testimony
against oneself, the right to due process, etc.) But these are not a
"right to privacy" in the sense nearly everyone who uses that phrase
means, i.e., a right to stop others from using or publishing
information they gathered noncoercively.
Really, you folks out there need to get up to speed on what the
Constitution says. All this blither and blather about rights to
privacy, about data base laws, about the legitimate needs of law
enforcement, about the rights of the uncles over the rights of
fathers...
There is no contradiction or collision between the rights spelled out
in the Bill of Rights.
--Tim May
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Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
