🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1e0vrvINNr3t@transfer.stratus.com>, cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com
(Carl Ellison) writes:
> In article <1992Nov12.202330.22580@cactus.org> ritter@cactus.org (Terry
Ritter) writes:
||
|| Inevitably there must be limits to all rights.  What are the limits
|| on the individual's right to secrecy?
||
| What are the limits on an individual's right to keep a thought inside
| his own head?
| 
| I would assume that there are no limits to that right.
| 
The thing that makes this whole debate so frustrating is that the same point
has to be made again, and again, and again.

Carl, you are wrong.  You can assume anything you like about the privacy of
the thoughts in your own head, but no such privacy right has ever existed,
in the US or anywhere else I know of.  What we hav in the US is a right not
to be forced to testify against yourself.  Every thought in your head on any
other subject is in bounds.  You can be compelled to testify as to your know-
ledge of matters of fact, as to your opinions, as to your likes and dislikes,
so long as they are held by a court to be relevent to its business at hand,
and do not serve to incriminate you.

Sure, you can lie.  You can claim you "don't remember".  Maybe you'll get
away with it; maybe you'll be convicted of perjury.  The same is true of
stealing cars.

Always keep in mind that conviction requires a prosecuter to convince a jury
of your peers, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you lied.  "Beyond a reasonable
doubt" is not mathematical certainty.  To take a trivial example, you can of
course claim in court that you don't remember your mother's name.  It's quite
true that no one can read your mind and know with certainty that you haven't
somehow forgotten it.  But if it comes to a jury, you'd better have something
stronger than your simple claim (like, you were adopted and no one ever told
you the name - but then why did you say you don't REMEMBER it, rather than
that you don't KNOW it?) or you WILL be convicted.
							-- Jerry