Re: Something we can all agree on


John Larkin wrote:
>
> There is, as George Will points out, not a slippery slope, but rather
> a continuously shifting equilibrium between civil liberties and public
> safety. The more we are seriously threatened, the more we must intrude
> on things like "privacy." He points out that when threats decline, the
> boundary has always shifted back.
>
> What's wrong with that? Too reasonable to justify shrieking?

Legislation is rarely revoked, and this particular threat will never
decline, since the enemy will never be identified let alone defeated.
Do you think that if we caught bin Laden today (or expand the scope as
far as you like - all his deputies, everyone that's ever spoken to him,
whatever), we'd have a National Freedom Day tomorrow and revoke all
these power-grab laws?

Anyway, the issue at hand is that there was an established legal
process for doing this type of monitoring. Bush ignored the legal
process and signed an order saying "I am above the law and
unaccountable to anyone, and here is a 45-day pass that makes you above
the law and unaccountable also".

The thing that baffles me, however, is how anyone could believe
electronic communications to be private unless securely encrypted (and
by this I mean an end-to-end secure system including key management,
not merely a "secure" code used for the bulk channel). Regardless of
how this debacle plays out, you should assume that any electronic
communication channel is being monitored by _someone_.

.

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