They're reading our mail

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:02:58 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 25, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
They're reading our mail

Congressfolk from both sides of the aisle unloaded on the FBI in Washington hearings Monday, airing concerns about the agency's ability to tap into just about anyone's e-mail by deploying the new "Carnivore" sort-and-read software in the offices of any Internet Service Provider (ISP.)

FBI Assistant Director Donald M. Kerr testified Carnivore has been deployed 16 times this year -- and 25 times since it was first developed two years ago -- primarily to investigate suspected cases of folks using the Internet to organize ventures in child pornography, terrorism, and credit card fraud.

But are we to believe an FBI unit with a warrant to investigate some specific person or organization for planning "terrorism" won't end up sorting and reading the e-mail of scores or even hundreds of innocent Americans -- perhaps because they merely receive mail from the party being investigated, deleting it unread?

And if, as their voracious software sorts for and locates "key words" referring to taxes, firearms, interest rates, or sexual activities, they stumble across correspondence not under the original purview of their investigation, but which their finely-honed "law enforcement instincts" tell them appears "suspicious" or merely "interesting" ... we're expected to believe their supervisor will tell them "No no, purge that message from your system, and all record of who sent it; we're only authorized to investigate this one porno ring, not to take note of people moving their income offshore out of sight of the IRS," or "We're only looking for this one particular set of terrorist bombers, that cross-talk e-mail from someone mentioning he's come across an unregistered Thompson gun is none of our business"?

Oh. Sure.

FBI and Justice Department witnesses stressed to committee member John Conyers, D-Mich., that it would be a violation of federal law for an agent to abuse the intelligence-gathering ability of Carnivore to collect information about non-suspects. "They're not going to unilaterally break the law," promised Tom Talleur, a former federal law enforcement official. "If they do, they're going to jail."

Well, don't we all feel safer now? Like that incident in which the Clinton White House hired a couple of barroom bouncers to pore through hundreds of secret, raw, FBI files on the Clintons' political enemies, looking for anything that could be used against them -- remember that?

How many people are now serving time for that violation? How many FBI personnel have ever gone to jail for listening to the wrong phone conversations while engaged in an authorized wiretap? How many IRS agents, for perusing secret tax records on their lunch hours, just for fun? Refresh our memories, Mr. Talleur.

This technology is insidious. The question is not whether it will be misused to purposely create a chilling affect on political dissidents -- or to enforce the unconstitutional monopoly of the FDIC over many commercial and banking activities -- or to gather information of a sexual nature for potential political blackmail -- or to help the IRS track down those with new strategies for tax avoidance. So long as federal agencies are authorized to investigate such things, the question is only how often, and when.

And for all their bellowing and table-pounding for the benefit of the galleries, we shouldn't hold our breaths expecting Rep. Conyers' committee -- or any other current power in the Congress -- to much shorten their chains.

The Constitution never envisioned any federalized domestic police force. We are now learning why.

Few genies are ever put back in their bottles. No technological "fix" is likely to pull the teeth of "Carnivore" for long. If the congressmen mean to restore our privacy, they must vastly reduce the number and size of these federal agencies, back to the minimal level necessary to deal with actual, documentable, incidents of foreign-based terror and espionage.

Until that time -- though encryption for privacy is probably worth a try -- the best advice in today's America, unfortunately, is to assume that someone is, indeed, "reading your mail."

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $24.95 postpaid by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair