[3162] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: An Essay on Freedom, Anonymity & Financial
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Simmons)
Sun Aug 9 17:31:06 1998
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Date: 9 Aug 1998 15:53:42 -0400
"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:
>Freedom would also become largely impossible.
I'm going to make only two comments, and then will bow out of the
debate.
First, as Perry says but doesn't do, this is a cryptography list and
Perry's own response is primarily directed to the historical and political
issues of dictatorship and freedom.
Second, freedom is not synonymous with anonymity. Surveillence is not
synonymous with dictatorship. If all transactions were tracable, it
would *potentially* be the end of bribery, false accusations of financial
fraud, the IRS used as a tool of state harassment, etc. Abuse comes when
one group is allowed to hide actions when another is not.
--
"Where there's a will, there's a lawyer."
Kinky Friedman, `God Bless John Wayne'
