🚀 go-pugleaf

This does not strike me as patently counter-purpose to the goals of the EFF.
Control over value and knowledge has a long and fascinating history.  Some
of the West's greatest thinkers, among them Rousseau, have good reason to
believe that "certain kinds" (to borrow Inman's words) of technology and 
science undermine the social order.  There is a certain amount of logic
and reason to this train of thought.  Indeed, not all byproducts of scientific
inquiry have been entirely beneficial:  alcohol-abuse, drug addiction,
violence on T.V., enironmental pollutants, etc.  None of these discoveries
are inherently destructive, but the degree and intensity of destruction
is a value determined by society.  Narcotics are a medical necessity in a
modern society, but society deems narcotic addiction as destructive.

Religious institutions long have had an interest in controlling value and
knowledge.  Aside from the corollary for information control and power,
moral education routinely includes the exclusion of destructive influences.
It goes without saying that many products of science require social coding
and the inculcation of value:  use guns for good, not for bad.

Of course, "good" and "bad" are the basic units of value, and are subject
to much interpretation.  Church:  contraceptives are bad.  The religious
argument has grounding.  Opposition:  contraceptives are good.  Population
control and family planning are also well-grounded arguments.  The scientific
advancements in abortion procedures provides us with yet another case of
conflicting values.  It appears that many cyber libertarians do not realize
that cryptographic research will yield products that also must be inculcated
with value.  Guns are inculcated with value:  they are not toys; use only
for self-defense and recreation, etc.

In my last article, I tried to call attention to the issue of balancing
liberty with security, and again, I am trying to call attention to the
fact that the EFF should not assume that they are preaching to the converted.
It is certain that with more introspection and analysis, the issues at
hand are not as cut and dried as they appear.  Inman's statement is not
inherently threatening. Indeed, it describes the dialetic of fact and value.
There is some irony that this truism was articulated by an elite of the
CIA, an institution infamous for using information for purposes of dubious
value.  The EFF's position against the reality of this historical process is 
superficially confrontational and exploitive of recent political events.
Firstly, the citation is over ten years old and may not accurately reflect
his current views.  Finally, the EFF's position statement only obliquely
addresses Inman's point.  In fact, I do not think Inman and the EFF are at
odds based on these statements alone; however, it is apparent that we are 
supposed to believe that they are.

Dogma and rhetoric are not reserved to the government.  We should be more
careful, thoughtful and critical.  We should not allow ourselves to be
preached to simply because at one point we believed we shared some
principles in common.


Rich MacKinnon
Univ of Texas Govt Dept


|Society has recognized over time that certain kinds of scientific inquiry
|can endanger society as a whole and has applied either directly, or through
|scientific/ethical constraints, restrictions on the kind and amount of
|research that can be done in those areas."

|-- Adm. Bobby R. Inman (then CIA Dep. Dir.) in a February, 1982 article for
|_Aviation_Week_and_Space_Technology_ on why cryptographic research should
|be limited to government scientists.  Full text of this article is
|available for anonymous ftp from ftp.eff.org as
|pub/EFF/Policy/Crypto/inman.article.

|The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that individuals have the right
|to protect their private communications by any method they choose - without
|government interference.