On Saturday, March 23, 2002, at 05:35 PM, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote: > On Sat, 23 Mar 2002, Declan McCullagh wrote: > >> If you are comfortable with your ability to publish code anonymously, >> and do this through the methods that have been oft-discussed here, >> including chained remailers, perhaps coupled with physical identity- >> shielding schemes, there is no need to consult a lawyer. >> >> In other words, if you think there is a near-zero risk of >> identification >> and subsequent legal action, why bother with an attorney? > > In fact, consulting a lawyer becomes dangerous in that situation. > Assuming > you are consulting a lawyer in meat-space, and he knows your true name, > you have just created a huge weakness in your plans to remain anonymous. > > (Assuming that your lawyer is On Your Side[tm], and respects the > Attorney-Client Privilege[tm], you still have to trust him to be > competent in concealing your identity from those who might not.)
This was part of the whole point about not consulting a lawyer. Lawyers can't possibly insulate one from legal action if something is fundamentally illegal, and consulting a lawyer starts one down the wrong track. So why bother? Further, many states and jurisdictions have laws requiring lawyers to break alleged attorney-client privilege if they know that an illegal act is being planned. A cheap and entertaining way to get a basically accurate--say lawyer friends of mine, and even some prosecutors I have talked to--education is by watching shows like "Law and Order" and several others in the genre. Every tenth episode, I would guesstimate, has a plot involving lawyers being required in one way or another to narc out their clients, or _choosing_ to do so. (Particularly common on the sleazoid show "The Practice," where liberal simp-wimp defense attorneys get wind of "immoral" acts by their clients and choose to get rapped on the knuckles for narcing their clients out. Me, I'd say the right punishment is fire-bombing the offices of the law firm and kiling the entire nest of shysters in the firm which narced me out.) The bottom line is what I said before: two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. Even a small programming team is not acceptable, for obvious reasons. Maybe if the team is controlled by the Mob or the KGB, and there have been graphic demonstrations of traitors being tied to planks and then slowly fed into a furnace, but for most Americans and Europeans the temptation to "cut a deal" is too strong. Never trust colleagues to keep critical secrets, even if you know where they live and have a good plan for incinerating their family if they betray you. > If you know something is illegal, and choose to do it anyway, placing > your > trust in available anonymity systems to protect you from jail, torture, > or > public disdain, there is very little a lawyer can tell you that will be > of > any use. Exactly. In fact, a lawyer is obligated by virtue of being an officer of the court, to not help you commit illegal acts and to notify the court if he has knowledge of such actions. (Yeah, I know there are lawyers for the Mob. But this is the theory, and lawyers will generally not be very helpful in conspiring to break the law. --Tim May "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound"
