----- Original Message ----- From: "John Scrivner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:31 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] WHY? ----- ooops!!!!
> I still think we need to keep this discussion going for a bit. I have a > question for you guys. Which do you think is better for all concerned. > Do you think we should portray a false sense of security and anonymity? What is this "false sense of security and anonymity?" I have always told my customers that > Do you think we should tell our customers, "Hey do whatever you want > online, nobody is tracking anything". Then when a customer trips up on > an online resource that is a trap by the feds they get a court order and > beat on us with subpoenas and the like until we give them whatever data > we might have. I have always told my customers that << I >> don't track what they do, but that should law enforcement get a court order, I will assist in any way possible. > > I can tell you what I do online and on the telephone. I assume I am > being monitored all the time. (No...not in that paranoid "they're out to > get me" sort of way). Why should anyone think otherwise? It is not as if > the legal system cannot listen in or watch if they really want to. All > it takes is a court to approve a tap. It is not that big a deal to the > legal system. > > I am not advocating that we help the government strip away our civil > liberties. If I did not think they were part anti-Christ I would likely > join and support the ACLU because our government is chiseling away at > our civil liberties one by one, a piece at a time, slowly and > methodically and none of us are really doing anything but watching it > happen and whining about it occasionally. Just like that boiling frog > analogy someone expressed on here recently (I really liked that analogy > by the way). Relax, John, they aren't the "anti-christ", but they do so precious little for our real rights, I think it's counterproductive to ever support them... maybe sometimes a particular action, but never "them". > > What I am saying is it would probably be a better service to our > customers if we simply tell them the facts. Let them know that if they > do something out of line on the Internet that there is a very good > chance they will be tracked and caught. There are in fact legal efforts > online setup to trap folks who are doing bad things. They exist and they > catch lots of people doing bad things. I cannot help but think that part > of the reason for this increase in criminal behavior is born from a > false sense of security people have that they can go do things on the > Internet that nobody will ever catch them or see them doing. They think > they are invisible or somehow that the laws do not apply while they are > online. > > Maybe if we warn our fellow citizens of the false sense of security > about anonymity then maybe they will curb some dark repressed desire to > go find little girls to chat with or try to setup that date with the > hooker or download that bootleg copy of Snakes on a Plane. I do think > people need to start using a little more self-control or they will > actually bring on more erosion of their civil liberties. If we all work > toward a better culture online then maybe the government will have less > grounds to erode the open nature of this wonderful medium. This all has > very little to do with how we might lobby for our own objectives > involving the tracking of online activity but it makes for good debate > none the less. > Scriv I do not want the legal liability of being responsible for having such logs, keeping such logs, and having to prove such logs are absolutely accurate. That's just that part. I wholeheartedly believe that keeping such things is definitely wrong, from a constitutional and moral standpoint. -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
