Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi

2004-07-03 Thread bgt
On Jun 26, 2004, at 23:56, J.A. Terranson wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER
phone?
Mine, an Samsung I330 PDA/Phone (actually a rebranded Handspring) 
allows
you to selectively *disable* non-lea queries.  Based upon this, I do 
not
believe that the system is broadcast-based, but rather operates solely
upon a query-response model.

 Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location
(to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)?
Mine does not, but I understand that there are models now coming into 
the
market which do.
I'm a little late to this thread, sorry...
AT&T m-mode models have had this kind of functionality for quite awhile.
http://www.mobileinfo.com/news_2002/Issue25/ATT_Finder.htm
"With a few keystrokes on a wireless phone, a m-mode subscriber is  
given the approximate geographic location of his friend, such as a  
street intersection. The two friends can then exchange messages,  call 
the other, or choose a place to meet from a directory of nearby  
restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and bookstores."

I'm pretty sure they don't use GPS for this... I think they do some 
form of triangulation from the cell towers.

--bgt


Re: Palm Hack?

2004-06-05 Thread bgt
On Jun 3, 2004, at 9:50, Tyler Durden wrote:
Actually, this is really my threat model. What I really want to know 
is that, given the above possibility, is there a "fire wall" for a PDA 
for this kind of attack? (Yes I know it's possible to put a Password 
on stuff in your Palm, BUT I bet that would be about a vaulable as 
WEP...)
(Note, I'm not familiar with the changes in Palm OS 5, so all this 
would apply to 4.x and prior).

The built-in security on Palm OS is notoriously hideous. The password 
to protect your Palm databases really just translates to a bit in the 
header section of the database that applications are supposed to check 
for and respect.

One thing you can do to help protect yourself from this threat is use 
PGP for palm.  It's not perfect, but it does add a decent layer of 
security, and I think would normally stop this kind of attack (given a 
good passphrase for PGP, of course).   The way PGP for Palm works is 
you select all your databases you want encrypted, and it encrypts them. 
 When you want to access any one of them, you enter your passphrase and 
it decrypts them all, until you turn the unit off at which time it 
re-encrypts all of them.  This seems to work pretty well (it's not as 
slow as it sounds... you barely notice any lag time when it's 
decrypting).  When you are done using your secret data (and preferably 
before you run any other potentially trojanized programs), you turn off 
your unit.  If someone finds a way to steal your data (via mugging, via 
trojan, via beaming magic, whatever), it'll be the encrypted version.



Re: message, but also test

2004-05-03 Thread bgt
On Apr 29, 2004, at 20:03, An Metet wrote:
I'm a big user of anonymity systems, and the worst problem I've had 
with
proxies is remembering who I am supposed to be at the time.  Several 
times
with Freedom and more recently with other proxies, I have done stuff
using my real name when I was in the mode where my nym was being used,
and vice versa.  Oops.  That's a pretty big mistake to make and can
totally destroy your pseudonymity, both at the time and throughout the
past lifetime of the nym.

What I'd like would be some kind of big, glaring indication that I am
in "anonymous" mode, like overlaying some kind of color display on the
screen, or maybe a crawling animation around the edges, or something.
I realize that this is out of scope for most efforts of this type, but
from my experience it's a big problem.
If I recall correctly, (and it's possible I don't), the ZKS freedom.net 
client had
features to pattern match strings (that you configure) when you were 
using your
nym, and warn you with a popup message box when it detected them in 
outgoing
traffic.  So you could be sure you weren't inadvertently sending data 
that could
compromise your nym (like your real name, or your other nym's names, 
etc).

--bgt


Re: The Gilmore Dimissal

2004-03-30 Thread bgt
On Mar 30, 2004, at 13:22, Bill Stewart wrote:
Greyhound demands ID at some locations as well;
my brother got surprised when his trip,
which hadn't demanded ID on the way out,
got routed through Chicago on the return and they did demand 
ID.
I was curious about that.  I notice now that Amtrak requires ID as well:
http://www.amtrak.com/idrequire.html
Does anyone know when this happened, or have experiences with having to 
show ID on Amtrak?

You need ID to drive, bus, train, or fly... I guess all that's left is 
walking and possibly biking. :P

--bgt



Re: Anonymizer employees need killing

2004-03-28 Thread bgt
On Mar 28, 2004, at 9:05, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

Anonymizer is set up to prevent *businesses*, stalkers, and
small-time crooks like spammers, from seeing your behavior on the net
and annoying you there.
What's he going to do when uncle Fed shows up with guns? Have a
shootout or something?
This is exactly my point.  You and I are saying essentially the same 
things.
Anonymizer cannot be trusted with your life & liberty. It is the 
equivalent of
"kid sister cryptography".  Lance, however, does not seem to view it 
this way.

And, if you're upset that you can't *surf* anonymously, sure as hell
don't blame Lance.
What I'm blaming Lance for is snake-oil marketing. When someone posted
"Anonymizer revealed the identity of a customer to the FBI", Lance 
posted
"Anonymizer would never do such a thing".  But *of course* he would,
because there's a metaphorical (if not real) gun pointed at his head.

I'm not "pissing and moaning that a single-hop anonymity service doesn't
provide perfect anonymity", I'm calling Lance and Anonymizer on their
false claims.  Lance and Anonymizer should both be upfront and honest
about exactly what level of "anonymity" Anonymizer /can/ provide.
Then I would not have anything to say on this thread.  I agree, the 
service is
certainly useful for some things, and the world is better with it than 
without
it.

And, finally, one last thing. After 5 or 6 years of it from Tim, who
started this list, and the original physical meetings, it's no secret
I've gotten really tired of the "need killing" chest-puffing
*I* did not say anyone needed killing, so I'm assuming this part of 
your rant
was targeted at someone else.

--bgt




Re: Anonymizer employees need killing

2004-03-27 Thread bgt
On Mar 27, 2004, at 23:13, Lance Cottrell wrote:
I hope at this point the retractions by the Register have been well 
circulated. Just to make it absolutely clear, we have never and never 
will sell out a customer. This is simply shoddy reporting at its 
worst.


I would have hoped that my years of working on free open source 
privacy tools (such as Mixmaster) before founding Anonymizer would 
lend my reputation some weight, or at least give me the benefit of the 
doubt until the matter was clarified. I am deeply troubled to see 
death threats against my employees (and I would assume myself) without 
anyone taking the trouble to even ask us to comment.

It has always been easy to contact me directly, next time I hope 
someone will do so before assuming the worst.
Alright then, since you're here, maybe you could answer a couple 
questions:

- If given a court order, would you be able to provide the FBI the same 
kind of information that Surfola did, which could be used to track down 
the customer in meatspace?  (From the article, we can assume it was his 
paypal email addx and/or the IP addx he was using, either one of which 
was probably sufficient).

- Assuming the answer is yes: from the customer's POV, in the end what 
does it matter whether you were given a court order or not... the 
result was the same, they were caught because they trusted your service 
(the fact that, in this case, the crime was despicable, is beside the 
point).

- Can you explain the contradictions inherent in the following excerpts 
from your user agreement?

"Usage logs are usually kept for forty-eight (48) hours for maintenance 
purposes, monitoring Spamming and monitoring abuses of netiquette. Any 
relevant portion(s) of such logs may be kept for as long as needed to 
stop the abuses."
"We maintain no information which would identify which user had sent a 
given message or visited a given site"
"Abusers of the Anonymizer can expect no anonymity. We regret the 
necessity of this policy, but without it abuse will force the shutdown 
of the Anonymizer."

Even if we leave aside the question of whether one should trust a 
service which /could/ betray you if it were run by an untrustworthy 
operator, you state openly in your policy that you're not to be 
trusted!

--bgt



Re: Anonymizer employees need killing

2004-03-26 Thread bgt
On Mar 26, 2004, at 9:13, petard wrote:

On Fri, Mar 26, 2004 at 01:32:43AM -0500, An Metet wrote:
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36485.html :
"To download the online picture, he used the Anonymizer.com service,
believing the companys privacy policy would protect him. Not so. Dutch
The article got it wrong. He used Surfola. They've since corrected it.
Of course, anyone trusting their lives & liberty to these commercial ip 
addx
obfuscators are incredibly stupid anyway.  Anonymizer states plainly 
that
they store usage logs "usually for 48 hours" and will use them to combat
spam or other "abuses of netiquette".  Even if they didn't state it, 
how can you
stake your life on them not doing so?

Any company that /can/ comply with a court order to reveal your 
identity,
probably won't need a court order to be convinced to do so.

 Just as a point of curiosity (because I think it's irrelevant, for the 
reason
above),  An Metet, how are you sure there was no subpoena or court order
involved?

--bgt



Re: How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web

2004-03-05 Thread bgt
On Mar 4, 2004, at 10:49, Major Variola (ret) wrote:

At 10:30 PM 3/3/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:


The New York Times

March 4, 2004

How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web
And that, boys and girls, is what traffic analysis is about.  You don't
need to know the surname of the endpoint of a communication to
know that said endpoint is interesting.
Also, of course, Al's mistake of thinking that the handset is the
endpoint, instead of the SIM.
.. And, leaving a plaintext telephone directory of the whole  
organization
lying around in his house probably wasn't the smartest thing either.



Re: Lunar Colony

2004-01-15 Thread bgt

On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 12:00, Tyler Durden wrote:
> Even more importantly, we can basically make the entire moon the perfect 
> model of American culture in action, without any other nation to contest our 
> policies there. It could be a paradise, and since no terrorists or ragheads 
> will be allowed, we can also take the opporutnity to make sure that no other 
> undesirables ever get their either, if you catch my drift.

(Or that they all /do/ go there, to stay)

I had wondered how long it would take for the inevitable U.S.
announcement of a renewed push for lunar and mars colonization after 
the Chinese announced their plans to colonize and mine the moon 
awhile ago.  

--bgt




Re: Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey

2004-01-14 Thread bgt
> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 00:20, bgt wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 10:48, cubic-dog wrote:
> > > in force, because, we finally get slave, indentured servants who
> > > will either take the 90 cents and hour or be deported. 
> > 
> > This kind of rhetoric is extremely irritating.  If they can
> > be deported, they are neither slaves or indentured servants. 

.. Anyway... "be productive or be deported" does not constitute
slavery, and neither does the fact that someone is willing to work
for substantially less than you.  In fact, it is only Free people
who can sell their product (including their own labor) for whatever
they want (and, obviously, that someone will pay). 

--bgt



Quartering soldiers

2004-01-14 Thread bgt
On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 12:48, Tim May wrote:
> On Jan 13, 2004, at 8:41 AM, Steve Schear wrote:
> 
> > At 11:23 PM 1/12/2004, Tim May wrote:
> >> "But if I own a computer and I rent out accounts to others and the FBI
> >> comes to me and says "We are putting a Carnivore computer in your
> >> place," how else can this be interpreted _except_ as a violation of
> >> the Third?"
> >>
> The pure form of the Third (in this abstract sense) is when government 
> knocks on one's door and says "Here is something you must put inside 
> your house."

For this to make sense, we have to interpret Soldier to mean not
just agents of the armed forces (military), it has to mean 
law-enforcement as well.  I can accept the idea of abstracting the 
Third beyond humans to software/hardware agents, etc... but I'm
not so sure about the military vs. law enforcement distinction.  
Can anyone point me to some founder's writings that may help 
support the interpretation of Soldier to mean any agent of the 
government?

Even if we did extend the Third to mean law-enforcement... since
Congress has repeatedly ceded their authority to determine when
the country was "in a time of war" to the Executive, and as such 
we are now in a perpetual time of war, any quartering has to be
prescribed by law, rather than prohibited outright.  For these
reasons, I have to agree with Tim's earlier referenced post, to
the effect of "the only solutions now available are Technology 
and Terrorism." 

> By the way, there have been a bunch of cases where residents of a 
> neighborhood were ordered to leave so that SWAT teams could be in their 
> houses to monitor a nearby house where a hostage situation had 
> developed. (It is possible that in each house they occupied they 
> received uncoerced permission to occupy the houses, but I don't think 
> this was always the case; however, I can't cite a concrete case of 
> this. Maybe Lexis has one.)
> 
> If this takeover of houses to launch a raid is not a "black letter law" 
> case of the government quartering troops in residences, nothing is. 
> Exigent circumstance, perhaps, but so was King George's need to quarter 
> his troops.

I think someone in this case would have a much better argument for
a Fourth amendment violation (unreasonable seizure of their home, 
albeit temporarily), though probably, today, still unsuccessful in
a court.  

--bgt



Re: Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey

2004-01-14 Thread bgt
On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 14:15, cubic-dog wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, bgt wrote:
> > ... Anyway... "be productive or be deported" does not constitute
> 
> I don't think I said that, you put it in quotes, implying I did.
> It's an okay paraphrase though, so we'll take it like that.

Yes, it was intended as a paraphrase. 

> More like I said, without regard to what you DEALT for, the is
> no impetus on the "man" to pay what was agreed to. If you don't
> like it, you will be deported. This does a nice job of creating

For currently illegal immigrants, you're right: the contract (the
agreement to do x work for y money is a contract, however 
informal) is illegal and so unenforceable. This leaves these 
workers open to theft by "stiffing" as you put it. 

The guest worker program will legalize these immigrants (for a 
period of time), so the contract will be legal and become 
enforceable.  Why do you think the guest worker program will
make it worse in this regard for currently illegal immigrants?  
This is the weakest objection to this program I've heard yet. 

> The ditch diggers in question, were -as a group- being paid
> (I asked) $500 to put in that run of conduit. As there 
> were six of them, and it took a couple of days, well, do the
> math. 
> 
> Much cheaper than renting a ditchwitch and operator.
> 
> They had done this before, and would do it again. Some runs go
> better than others, and I'll be some days they might actually
> make as much as a 7/11 clerk. But not many.

If both parties agreed and adhered to these terms, I see no
problem with any of that.  Employers and employees should be 
free to negotiate their own terms without the coercive 
interference by the State (via minimum wage, overtime, maximum 
work week, etc regulations). 

> What happens when the "man" arbitrarily decides to stiff them
> from their payment? 
> 
> Will the labor department come to mitigate? Or will immigration
> come to deport? 
> 
> What's more likely under the proposed "guest worker" rule? 

See above for my answers to this.

> > for substantially less than you.  In fact, it is only Free people
> > who can sell their product (including their own labor) for whatever
> > they want (and, obviously, that someone will pay). 
> 
> Who can sell their labour for whatever they want? 
> I am only aware of folks who can sell their labour for what
> the market will bear. 

Oh please, did you not read the last 6 words of my sentence?
"(and, obviously, that someone will pay)" means "what the 
market will bear".  Of *course* there has to be a willing buyer
to complete the transaction. 

--bgt



Re: Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey

2004-01-14 Thread bgt
Aargh, damn computer...  I apologize for my incomplete post. 

On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 00:20, bgt wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 10:48, cubic-dog wrote:
> > in force, because, we finally get slave, indentured servants who
> > will either take the 90 cents and hour or be deported. 
> 
> This kind of rhetoric is extremely irritating.  If they can
> be deported, they are neither slaves or indentured servants. 
> 
> If they voluntarily came to this country, and voluntarily accepted 90
> cents/hr, 



Re: Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey

2004-01-14 Thread bgt
On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 10:48, cubic-dog wrote:
> in force, because, we finally get slave, indentured servants who
> will either take the 90 cents and hour or be deported. 

This kind of rhetoric is extremely irritating.  If they can
be deported, they are neither slaves or indentured servants. 

If they voluntarily came to this country, and voluntarily accepted 90
cents/hr, 



Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment

2004-01-12 Thread bgt
On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 01:26, Tim May wrote:
> > Have you done this since 9/11?  I know that in my [red]neck of the  
> > woods, I
> > would without question be spending a few days in the system for this.
> 
> That's what sniper rifles with low light scopes are for: kill one or  
> both or all of the cops who arrested you in this way. Cops who abuse  
> the criminal system and violate constitutional rights blatantly have  
> earned killing.

This has probably been mentioned here before, but another interesting
approach is what justicefiles.org used to do (I'm not sure what
the status of the site is, it seems to be down now). 

They collected the names of police officers (particularly ones
known to be abusive of their authority) in King County, WA and
published that + all public information they could find on them
(including SSN's, addresses, phone numbers, etc).  

Of course the police tried to take the site down but the court
upheld the site's right to publish any publicly available 
information about the cops (I believe they excepted the SSN's).

--bgt



Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment

2004-01-12 Thread bgt
On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 01:07, Tim May wrote:
> On Jan 11, 2004, at 2:12 PM, bgt wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 13:57, Tim May wrote:
> >> I don't know if he did, but of course there is no requirement in the
> >> U.S. that citizen-units either carry or present ID. Unless they are
> >> driving a car or operating a few selected classes of heavy machinery.
> >
> > Many states do have laws allowing the police to detain a person for
> > a period of time (varies by state) to ascertain the identity of that
> > person, if they have reasonable suspicion that they are involved in a
> > a crime.
> 
> Duh. Yes, "arrests" are allowed, and have been in all states and in all 

Perhaps I wasn't very clear. That is (in many states, probably
not all), a cop may stop (detain) someone on "reasonable suspicion",
but it would still be illegal to arrest the person (since this would
require "probably cause").  In these states, at this point the person 
is required by law to identify himself, and in some states even to
provide proof of identification.  If the person cannot or will not do
this, it is legal in those states (though as we know, blatantly
unconstitutional) to further detain or even arrest the person until
their identity can be determined.

Nevada's version of this has been ruled unconstitutional by the Ninth
Circuit and the case is still pending in the US Supreme Court.  

> need carry no such pieces of documentation. There is no "national ID," 
> nor even "state ID."
> 
> Period.

You must mean /mandatory/ "state ID".  Every state I've lived in have 
State ID's that are (voluntarily) issued to residents that can't get 
or don't want a driver's license.  All of these states grant their ID
the same status as a driver's license for identification purposes
(anywhere that accepts driver's license as valid ID must also accept 
the state ID).  

> Read up on the Lawson case in San Diego.

(Thanks Steve for the links).  The Lawson case appears to be another 
example of the Supreme Court abdicating their responsibilities.  There
were no fourth amendment objections to CA's law in their decision.  
The Court said the law was unconstitutional because it was not
specific enough, leaving too much discretion to the cop about what
satisfies the identification requirement, when of course they should
have ruled that the identification requirement itself is
unconstitutional.  There were no real objections to the principle 
behind the law, which is a damn shame.  The closest I could find 
was in the dissent:

"Of course, if the statute on its face violates the Fourth or Fifth
Amendment--and I express no views about that question--the Court would
be justified in striking it down. But the majority apparently cannot
bring itself to take this course."

--bgt



Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment

2004-01-11 Thread bgt
On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 13:57, Tim May wrote:
> I don't know if he did, but of course there is no requirement in the 
> U.S. that citizen-units either carry or present ID. Unless they are 
> driving a car or operating a few selected classes of heavy machinery.

Many states do have laws allowing the police to detain a person for
a period of time (varies by state) to ascertain the identity of that
person, if they have reasonable suspicion that they are involved in a
a crime.  

I'm not aware of any laws that specifically require a person to
actually carry ID, but when I was stopped in NV several years ago,
walking back to my home from a nearby grocery store at about 3am,
supposedly because a 7-11 nearby had just been robbed, I was told 
that if I did not present a valid state ID I would be arrested, 
taken to the precinct HQ, fingerprinted, and held until I could 
be positively ID'd.   

The constitutionality of these laws are being challenged. In 
Hiibel vs. NV, Hiibel refused 11 times to identify himself to 
police before he was arrested (illegal under NV statute).  The
NV Supreme Court has upheld the law, with a few dissents:

"The dissent then pointed out that the Ninth Circuit federal appeals
court not only upholds the right to refuse to provide identification to
an officer before arrest, but has specifically found Nev. Rev. Stat. B'
171.123(3) unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. The dissent
opinion criticized the majority for "reflexively reasoning that the
public interest in police safety outweighs Hiibel's interest in refusing
to identify himself," noting that no evidence exists that an officer is
safer for knowing a person's identity. "What the majority fails to
recognize," the dissenting opinion continued, "is that it is the
observable conduct, not the identity, of a person, upon which an officer
must legally rely when investigating crimes and enforcing the law."

The US Supreme Court has agreed to review and is scheduled to hear
arguments this year.  

http://www.epic.org/privacy/hiibel/default.html

--bgt



Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment

2004-01-10 Thread bgt
On Sat, 2004-01-10 at 00:22, bgt wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 10:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > That made Silveira the law of the land, you see.
> > That means that no American citizen, since December 1, 2003, has a fundamental 
> > right to possess a firearm.
> 
> Only in the 9th circuit.   

I should've said: only in the 9th circuit, in states that
don't have a state constitutional provision regarding right
to keep and bear arms.  I believe the only state that falls
in that category is CA. 

Every other state in the 9th circuit has a constitutional 
provision that is usually even more explicit than the 2nd ammendment. 
Most explicitly state the /individual/ has the 
right to keep and bear arms (as opposed to "the people" which 
some courts have interpreted to mean "the state" or
state-approved/regulated militias). 

For example, NV is typical: "Every citizen has the right to keep 
and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and
recreational use and for other lawful purposes." Article 1, 
Section 11, Paragraph 1.

--bgt



Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment

2004-01-10 Thread bgt
On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 10:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> That made Silveira the law of the land, you see.
> That means that no American citizen, since December 1, 2003, has a fundamental right 
> to possess a firearm.

Only in the 9th circuit.   

The 5th circuit (in 2001) has previously given an opinion in direct
opposition to the 9th circuit's finding.

http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-10331-cr0.htm

"We find that the history of the Second Amendment reinforces the plain
meaning of its text, namely that it protects individual Americans in
their right to keep and bear arms whether or not they are a member of a
select militia or performing active military service or training."

and

"We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights
models for interpreting the Second Amendment. We hold, consistent with
Miller, that it protects the right of individuals, including those not
then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military
service or training, to privately possess and bear their own
firearms..."

and

"In undertaking this analysis, we are mindful that almost all of our
sister circuits have rejected any individual rights view of the Second
Amendment. However, it respectfully appears to us that all or almost all
of these opinions seem to have done so either on the erroneous
assumption that Miller resolved that issue or without sufficient
articulated examination of the history and text of the Second
Amendment."

So in the 5th circuit, the individual right to keep & bear arms is still
explicitly recognized and upheld.  The Supreme Court will eventually
have to resolve this discrepancy amongst the lower courts, it's unclear
what kind of case it will take to push them to it though, given their
historical extreme reluctance to hear any 2nd amendment cases.  And it's
very dubious what the decision would be.  

--bgt



Re: Sources and Sinks

2004-01-04 Thread bgt
On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 07:09, Michael Kalus wrote:

> > Where there is no governmental police force, their is demand for
> > private enforcement. And you know what? They regularly do their jobs
> > better than the police.
> 
> Of course there is no oversight body, so if they use "excessive force" 
> well, It's all part of doing business and after all they didn't smash 
> YOUR skull so what do you care, right?

The only necessary "oversight body" is the courts. Both public and
private police (should) operate under the Rule of Law just like everyone
else.  As with the public police, if private police have public
perception problems related to excessive force, abuse of power, or
whatever, they may opt to use a third-party interest to do
"self-policing" by fining, firing, etc (much like pro sports
organizations do... contractually).  This is strictly a business
management decision however, the only "legal" oversight should be 
the court.  Police (public or private) should be judged and punished 
(in the legal sense) in the same way any other citizen is.  
  
> > Show me a company that doesn't pay a dime in taxes, please, make it one
> > that actually has employees and does something useful and makes profit.
> > Amuse me and try it out.
> 
> I don't have a link ready right now, but there were several US 
> corporations as well as some in Germany who did NOT pay any taxes for 
> the past couple of years because of either "breaks" they got so not to 
> leave, OR because they posted such high losses that they did not post 
> any profit on the books, thus not pay any taxes.

Purely for the sake of argument, even if this is correct (which I'm not
conceding), a company that is truly in business to make a profit by 
doing something useful (creating a product, providing a useful service,
etc) pays employees who pay taxes, pays employee payroll taxes, pays
shareholders who pay taxes, and produces something (product or service)
which is almost always taxed, usually in several ways. Just because a
company does not pay an income tax DOES NOT mean it isn't heavily taxed
in other direct and indirect ways.  

> But all of you who seem to think that social services et al, should be 
> run on a profit maximiation basis, tell me this: How much are you worth 
> in Dollars and cents (or Euros)? I would like to know how much you 
> think you are worth to your friends, family, kids, spouses etc.?

I'm not sure what that's got to do with it.  (We're talking about 
"essential social services" meaning services designed to protect lives,
right?)  How I value my life is measured by exactly what I will do to
protect and enhance my life.  I am worth to other people exactly what
they would do /voluntarily/ to protect/enhance my life.

What that's got to do with whether these services should be privatized
or not I'm not sure.  Unless you're arguing that (by that definition)
I'm not worth very much to very many other people, and since that 
leaves the responsibility for my life squarely on my own shoulders 
(and on the shoulders of people I voluntarily engage to start caring
about me!).  Well, that's the only fair way... coercing other people
to care for and by extension pay for my own welfare is immoral and
evil.  If you care so much for everyone else's welfare, there's plenty
of charities you can voluntarily donate your money to that will be 
happy to look after everyone else.  Oh, most people are selfish and
wouldn't /voluntarily/ give 30-50% of their money away to total
strangers (favoring their own families and close friends instead)?  
Then please explain how it's moral to FORCE them!

(Jeez, I just recently got back onto this list after a several-year
hiatus.  How the hell did so many statists ever get the idea that
ubiquitous cryptography would ever further their goals?  Or are they
just here to distract us with statism vs liberty type political 
debates so we can't get any real work done??)

--bgt