Well, actually maybe that’s a bit of an exageration. But she does admire his stand for privacy and the principle that people should actually be allowed to read laws that they are required to follow. If you’re not familiar with John Gilmore, there’s a good account here of his suit against Mr. Ashcroft.
My wife also notes that Gilmore has $30 million, which is about $31 million more than I have. (She’s never met him, by the way; nor had she heard of him before reading the article.)
By the way, there was a fantastically funny and insanely scary book about the situation of being charged with something but never being told what it was. I refer of course to The Trail by Franz Kafka. Which if you have not read it please stop reading Wetmachine right now and go read it for otherwise you will continue to labor under a severe handicap in trying to navigate this world.
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hear, hear.
The article discusses Gilmore’s concern over the degree that privacy should be protected — independently of other concerns. There is little discussion, for example, of the relative value: how effective are ID checks. I can’t find my previous post or comment in which I quoted Technology Review in saying that although all passengers are screened, the air cargo placed on nearly all flights is not.
I’ll repeat my conclusion here: that the purpose of noticably harassing people is to keep them in a state of fear that lets certain political groups get away with other abuses. This raises a third issue: there’s right and wrong of privacy invasion; effectiveness of approaches; and motivation for these actions.
Personally, my gut feeling is that the ID search is wrong on all three counts.