--- Sander Pool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > For the last few weeks, ARSA has received reports > of local or > state law enforcement > going into hobby stores requesting a list of names > and addresses of > buyers of rockets, rocket motors > and R/C airplanes. These reports have come from > various states and > local hobby stores as well as > national hobby store chains. The law enforcement > officials to our > knowledge have not received a list > of names and addresses. However, they did tell the > store owners to > start a list. > A law enforcement official who does not want his > name publicly > disclosed stated that he had received > a letter from a US government agency requesting that > local law > enforcement start collecting this data. He also > refused to identify > the US government agency. > There are no federal laws requiring the collection > of this type of > data and hobby stores have a legal > right to refuse.
Hmm. I'd heard something along these lines, but I dismissed it at the time as a paranoid rumor. Now I'm not so sure. What I'd heard was a scheme whereby people with access to stationary from certain agencies - maybe employees of said agencies, maybe not, but certainly acting without official sanction from said agencies (and, in fact, often against what the heads of these agencies actually wanted; the service being rendered to what these heads were falsely perceived as wanting) - would start making requests of certain businesses they'd like to see less of. The requests would be for something that they did not have to hand over - but something that the operators could get a third party to sue over. Say, handing over customer record lists, which would "violate customers' rights to privacy". Regardless of the outcome of the suit, both the third party (who was usually also someone they'd rather do away with) and the business would wind up poorer for the suit, and be that much closer to having to cease operations. Basically a variation on entrapment. Some targets would refuse to go along, but the intent was only to reduce their number and drive them towards consolidation like many other industries, not to eliminate them entirely. I'm still not sure that scheme wasn't just imagined, especially since the rumor did not identify which government agency, but dang if it doesn't seem to fit this case. _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
