🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov2.084229.1@zodiac.rutgers.edu> leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu writes:

>But there's another
>situation where the case is different:  Encrypted record keeping.
>Imagine that Richard Nixon, [. . .]
>Or imagine that Ollie North's famous deleted mail messages had been encrypted.
>Or, to take a recent example, that Caspar Weinberger [. . .]
	This is really cute.  You want more sweeping powers for the 
	government so it can protect us from the likes of Nixon and Ollie
	North.  Shoot, they WERE the government!!  Any time you give the
	feds more power they will use it to help the Nixons and Ollie Norths
	of this world to step on folks like me and you.  Go ahead, give up
	your freedom to our mommy the government.  I'll cast my lot with
	the Tom Paines and Ben Franklins of this world.

>Oh, and if you think "well, it'll be better for me to refuse anyway - it'll
>just be a couple of days in jail" - think again.  A judge can hold you in jail
>essentially indefinitely.  (There was a celebrated case of a woman who refused
>to reveal the whereabouts of her child, claiming her ex-husband was abusing
>her.  She was in jail for several YEARS, and was only freed as the result of a
>new law that, for the first time, placed a limit on such jailings.  This law
>was passed in direct response to this case; I don't know how broadly it is
>drafted, but even when it applies, it still could leave you as a guest of the
>government for quite some time.)
	You sound like you approve!  No one wants to go to jail but I hope
	that when push comes to shove our generation will contain some
	people like the people who wrote the U.S. constitution.  Freedom
	often requires sacrifice.  It was that way in Tom Paine's day and
	it will probably always be that way.


							smg