Previous Politech message: "SF Weekly columnist suggests surveilling John Poindexter at home" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04206.html --- Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 19:12:16 -0600 To: declanat_private From: Mickey Chandler <micklcat_private> Subject: John Gilmore advocates vigilantism? I guess I missed this when it was originally sent to Politech on 2 Dec because I sympathize with John Gilmore's stand on the dangerousness of TIA, but the following quote from the C|Net story you filed yesterday just screamed at me: "Even if some of the information that people end up revealing or using about such targeted scumbags is incorrect, such a public demonstration would highlight the damaging effects that incorrect database information can have on innocent peoples' lives, when used to target them for harassment without due process of law." It seems to me that John's argument when it came to his open mail relay was that the ends do not justify the means. Yet here he argues that the ends do justify the means, even with the knowledge going in that innocent people could get hurt. The main differences between the two scenarios that I can see is that the "damaging effects" and "harassment" are not aimed at anyone named "John Gilmore" and that "the damaging effects that incorrect database information can have on innocent peoples' lives" when used in the manner that Mr. Gilmore is advocating here (for harassment) are potentially far more damaging than forcing him to use UUCP for email (since he refused to secure his open relay). We don't need to engage in such an action in order to find the problems. There are already examples of the damage that could be caused if you only look at the effects of the "Megan's Laws" on innocent people. For instance, this story (http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53075,00.html), makes reference to a mentally handicapped man who was beat up in Dallas, Texas, because he lived at the address where a sex offender had lived at some point in the past (the offender had not updated his location information after moving). The examples of the dangers of such things as TIA are already there for John if he would only be willing to investigate, without the need to create more of them because he feels it to be educational, newsworthy, or entertaining (cf. his comments in http://www.politechbot.com/p-04206.html) to encourage people to engage in vigilantism. -- Mickey Chandler micklcat_private "USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population." David Letterman. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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