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John Gilmore interviewed by Greplaw
mpawlo writes "I have just published another one of those Greplaw interviews. This time, John Gilmore had the courtesy of answering a wide range of questions on various subjects such as terrorism and security, spam blocking, censorship, secret laws in airports and of course - sarongs. Gilmore starts: 'I'm a civil libertarian millionaire eccentric.' Enjoy!"
Who isn't these days?!
Not powerful enough. Give me egreplaw any day of the week.
(let me just say, that I am a tech support employee and Mr. Gilmore is inspiration people like me need to keep striving beyond tech support's internship to a technology career).
****BEGIN ARTILE TEXT****
# Who is John Gilmore?
I'm a civil libertarian millionaire eccentric. I started out in my teens as a middle-class programmer, worked my way up to senior technical jobs, then learned business in Silicon Valley. A combination of luck and skill brought me through several successful startup companies and gave me the opportunity to decide what I want to do, rather than what I need to do. I decided I want to work to keep individual freedom alive and thriving. So that's what I'm doing.
# First, I think we need to establish your take on terrorism. Is terrorism wrong?
It depends on the definition of terrorism. I like the CIA's definition of terrorism from Stansfield Turner's book "Secrecy and Democracy". It was something like, "violence or force directed at a small group of people with the intent to influence a much larger group". By that definition, the US government practices terrorism every time it arrests a medical marijuana smoker "because it sends the wrong message to kids". Is that wrong? I think so.
(Of course, the US government has revised its definition of terrorism since then, to make sure that nothing the US Government does can be considered terrorism by its new definition. Terrorism is now defined as force applied for political reasons by people other than the US Government.)
# Speaking of drugs, aren't you doing something about the drug war?
Yep, I'm in the middle of a ten-year, ten million dollar program to end the drug war. The pendulum is swinging on that issue, after decades of wasting billions of dollars and mangling hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Cancer patients get thrown in jail for smoking marijuana to keep from throwing up their chemotherapy meds. Entire countries get overrun and their leaders toppled by the US because the US doesn't like how those countries run their internal drug policies (like Panama, Nicaragua, and now Colombia). Factory workers get tested and fired based on their choice of weekend recreation, regardless of how well they do their job. Schoolkids learn right away that the government blatantly lies to them about the effects of drugs, and also learn that the government can search them at any time without any cause, raising a generation both cynical and resigned to corrupt authoritarianism.
The drug war is an ugly, corrupt set of policies that were bad when Nixon set it in motion to bash the hippie students who were hounding his ass out of office. It was ugly and corrupt when the medicine marijuana was outlawed early in the 20th century as a way to bash brown-skinned people coming up from Mexico. It was ugly and corrupt when San Francisco passed the first ordinance criminalizing drug use in the 1890s; it outlawed the medicine opium, and was used to bash Chinese immigrants who'd come to build the railroad and then settled in Chinatown. Now 90% of the people serving time for drugs are black or Latino, even though white and asian Americans use drugs in the same proportions as blacks and Latinos. Drug warriors encourage parents to turn in their kids and kids to turn in their parents. It's destroyed most of the Fourth Amendment and is well on the way to destroying freedom of thought, which is even more fundamental and neglected than freedom of movement. They're attempting to outlaw entire modes of thought, by making illegal the tools that get you to those modes.
Open societies have plenty of mechanisms by which truly rotten policies can get discovered and corrected over the years and decades. The people who profit from the drug war (mostly cops, prisons, and forced-"treatment" scams) have managed to avoid this so far. I think I can see several ways where a bit of leverage at the right time and place can kick the props out from under the policy, letting the public see what is really happening. Like the Be
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
Here I am thinking I'm the only one that argues what he's arguing. The right to travel *IS* fundamental to a free society, IDs and driver's licenses be damned! I'm glad someone with money gets it (meaning that he has the means to do something about it other than speak up).
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
He's John Perry Barlow's less cool friend.
I've read many reviews of John. He is brilliant! He knows how to uphold the law theory "all are equal and equally under the law", which United States currently doesn't like to admit. John knows how to use their laws against them. Civil libertarian is somewhat a stretch; John is more of a Jeffersonian, or sometimes known as a Christian Anarchist. If anyone out there dislikes or even enjoys Eric S. Raymond, this John is the gapstop that keeps people together within reason.
PS: Moderators!
*Before you knock this user
*please recognize that Slashdot
*should at-least mirror these
*articles on *the server rather
*than having thousands of people
*click the URL. I happily read
*the article from the parent's post
You all just wait and laugh when Slashdot is charged for server crimes by the FCC. Even Yahoo News mirrors their stories for sake of all!
"I wonder when he will be taken out for thinking too much."
Would you care to post a list of other people that have been taken out for thinking too much?
For as much as some tend to complain about oppression in America, I'm not aware of such things actually happening.
Thanks
From the linked interview, on the subject of secret airport laws: (emphasis orthogonal's) "[i]t even worked at the District Court; our judge decided that if she couldn't see the law then it must by definition be constitutional (she ruled that I had no possible way to show it is unconstitutional)."
Is this the United States the Founding Fathers built, or Stalinism by way of Kafka?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Never mind sarongs, what about the banning of thongs in Florida and Louisiana!! this is going to far by the righteous far right.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Domain Name: GROKLAW.NET
Created On: 03-Oct-03
Domain Name: GREPLAW.ORG
Created On: 11-Apr-2002
Which brings me to the belief that I have had that if every deadhead in this country voted this would be a different place. I can't emphasize how important it is that everyone votes. Please in the national election, everybody cast a vote. Bush won by having less than 60% of eligible voters vote and then only a marginal majority of those choose him.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
"The drug war is an ugly, corrupt set of policies that were bad when Nixon set it in motion to bash the hippie students who were hounding his ass out of office."
the drug war was first created to get returning GI's , from vietnam off of heroin and originally focused on treatment over criminalization. Of course later Nixon was forced by the right to increase the drug war's focus on criminalization. Oh yeah just as an aside the hippies did not force nixon out of office...he won both terms of his presidency. It was his own criminal activities that forced him out of office....not a bunch of inefectual hippies. They had nothing to do with ending the vietnam war and nothing to do with forcing nixon out of office.
Guys like this, history revisionist, asshole really make it hard for libertarian minded people to support ending the drug war. I mean any time i say the drug war is a waste of money regularly open minded people close thier doors to the idea becouse they have heard all the other consperiacy bullshit guys like this asshole have heaped on to a fairly straight forward argument. What is the saying "With freinds like this who needs enemies"
stendec@gmail.com
Don't wear anything. Legions of naked pasty dorks will certainly change their mind.
Last August John Gilmore was on the cover of and interviewed in Reason. Good reading from a great magazine.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
We can start with Galileo.
Then we have Sherman Austin under the Patriot Act.
http://rwor.org/a/1217/austin.htm
With the Patriot Act, there is the distinct possibility of people being silenced and no one ever knowing.
The point is not how many are being silenced now, but how many can and probably will be in the future.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
See his posting history
'nuff said
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
"Terrorism is now defined as force applied for political reasons by people other than the US Government."
THis should read.
"Terrorism is now defined as force applied for political reasons by people other than the US or the Israeli Government."
Thank you.
evil is as evil does
I was over reading Corante.com's article because GrepLaw was going awfully slow for me.
...
Then, performing a taceroute on grep.law.harvard that was referenced by Slashdot (thanks alot you pricks), I found it timeout.
Yet, performing a traceroute on greplaw.org, it was barely handling the load for me. And I'm on Texas' Inet2 backbone!
traceroute greplaw.org
traceroute: Warning: greplaw.org has multiple addresses; using 207.44.244.117
traceroute to greplaw.org (207.44.244.117), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 * * *
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
Timeout
You are the troll, Esteanil! I bet you are so new to Slashdot that you don't even know what a troll is.
"Would you care to post a list of other people that have been taken out for thinking too much?
U s.gov and get the list. Oh wait a minute the US does not have a web site where they keep a list of people they assassinated. I guess that means the US govt has never assassinated anybody then.
For as much as some tend to complain about oppression in America, I'm not aware of such things actually happening."
Well if you are not aware of it then it probably never happened.
Here let me go the TheListOfPeopleWeKilledBecauseTheyDaredToQuestion
evil is as evil does
This would of course explain why you post at 0 by default. Certainly your karma didn't get so low by posting shit like this now did it? Oh wait, maybe you are a troll afterall.
Off the top of my head...
John F. Kennedy
Martin Luther King
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Jesus Christ
That is, of course, if he happens to have permission from the U.S. Government in the form of a drivers' license.
The point is not that airlines or private individuals don't have the right to choose how they wish to restrict access to their property. The point is that the government doesn't have the right to force airlines or private individuals, as proxies, to restrict access to their property.
Although the kidnapping example is technically in the same category of movement restriction, perhaps a better example would be if police set up checkpoints at every major intersection, and required the identification of anyone who wished to pass. This would differ from the current system only in degree, and has been thus far prevented from taking place by both popular opinion and by the logistical nightmare that would ensue, although with the advent of cheap RFIDs, I wouldn't place too much faith in the latter, and I've little in the lasting ability of the former, given the example that you provided with your own comment.
Arrgh. Now I'm all riled up.
Join the ACLU. It's safer than direct action against "the Man."
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Aw, come on. You could have found a better example than that!
PJ is a contraction of Pajamas (or pyjamas, take your pick.)
"A Jam Spa" would be an anagram of "Pajamas"
personally I prefer "Pyjamas"for its anagram "Jam Pays"
I feel pedanticulatedly sated...
--
The distinction you are failing to make is that Gilmore is speaking of public infrastructure. Now whether or not airports are private property (many are not) may be up for argument, but not many will deny the fact that they are still part of a public infrastructure system. Note, also, that the internet is a public infrastructure.
You also make the point of ones passage being inconsistant; and use that as an example against Gillmores arguments, I fail to see how millions of passengers flying in the United States, each one who had to show ID, are demonstrating 'inconsistant pasage'.
As for your statement about people wandering around nuclear plants; this is not what Gillmore is speaking of at all, he is talking about our transportation system, so stick to the point.
I could go on, deconstructing the rest of your arguments, but I just realized I was suckered into replying to a troll. Ill leave it as an exercise for the reader to eliminate the rest of this commentators arguments. I got the ball rolling you may as well do your part. . . . . .
I fail to see how millions of passengers flying in the United States, each one who had to show ID, are demonstrating 'inconsistant pasage'. [sic]
Let me explain, without further comment on your mangling of my statement. "...reserved for a particular purpose for which your passage is inconsistent..." means, for example, riding an ATV thought a nature preserve which bans motor vehicles. Doesn't seem that hard to understand. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of my statement. Try reading it more closely.
As for your statement about people wandering around nuclear plants; this is not what Gillmore is speaking of at all, he is talking about our transportation system, so stick to the point.
He plainly said that restricting one's movement is kidnapping, without qualification. The topic of transportation happened to be the backdrop for this statement, but that doesn't change the fact that he never qualified his statement. Rather he seemed to make it as a an overarching truth, for which his transportation issue is only an example.
I could go on, deconstructing the rest of your arguments, but I just realized I was suckered into replying to a troll.
Sorry to disappoint, but no trolling here. It cracks me up that you could accuse me of trolling, when Gillmore's entire interview comes off as one giant troll session itself. It's rife with absurd rhetoric like the kidnapping statement. I admit I don't like him at all, but that doesn't make me a troll.
You just can't just have anyone wandering about nuclear plants, or onto planes while carrying bombs.
Let's not even worry about the legalities, but let's think about the usefulness of your statement.
Nuclear power plants can and should restrict who enters. The list of people allowed in the plant is small and known. The list of people carrying bombs on airplanes is small and unknown. Therefore, checking ID's makes sense to keep people out of nuclear power plants and checking people's bags for bombs makes sense in keeping bombs off of airplanes. Since no one's ID says "I AM CARRYING A BOMB" checking their ID is worthless for the purpose of keeping bombs off but is useful for infringing on civil liberties by preventing people who disagree with the government from traveling, and even people who are part of the government from traveling (Senator Ted Kennedy was recently put on the no-fly list - read about it here.)
If you would care to explain how checking ID's will keep bombs off planes I'm sure it would be very illuminating for all of the readers.
If you would care to explain how checking ID's will keep bombs off planes I'm sure it would be very illuminating for all of the readers.
Did I say that? Let me check... Nope. The slashbot kneejerk is an amazing thing. I'm railing against his rhetoric, not his message. Maybe you guys should read my message more closely instead of just being a 'bot.
I prefer that hilarious one:
More people wear turbans in this world than the entire population of the United States.
Nope. The correct wording is now:
"Terrorism is now defined as force applied for political reasons by people other than any government included in the secret amendment to this regulation."
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Baby or bathwater? We distort, you decide. Some of our opinions and priorities are different, but John's arguments are always well thought out and interesting.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
That said, the ACLU is fighting a front of the war to protect our civil liberties. We have the NRA (among others) to worry about gun ownership rights. I haven't heard of any cases where the ACLU tried to promote gun control--they just don't protect 2nd Amendment rights. The good the ACLU does outweighs their lack of support on the gun issue, for me.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
He has some good insights in some areas, but in others he comes off as an opinionated jerk. yes, there are problems with centralized anti-spam. But the problem is the *spam*. The sheer weight and cost are one of the biggest 3 or 4 problems the internet faces right now. By his logic we should get rid of the police forces as well (granted that some of them need a revamp!) Then he can decide, when 50 people all jump him to take his millions, which of them he doesn't mind being stabbed by.
He's pointing out that just because you haven't heard of [insert action] occurring, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Additionally, just because the government doesn't talk about [insert action], doesn't mean that it does not also occur.
killjoe makes a credible argument.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
"Terrorism is now defined as force applied for political reasons by people other than the US or the Israeli Government."
wait, that is redundant. Isn't the US government a branch of the Israeli Government?
(that was a joke. We know it is the other way around.)
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
That list includes the Slippery Slope fallacy, which although it is *technically*, in *absolute* terms, a fallacy, it fails to apply historical reasoning.
For example, your Social Security Number was never meant to be used as a personal identifier when it was created during FDR's socialist reign in the 1930s. Today, the SSN is used to get a job, to file your taxes, even to buy a goddamn cellphone -- all because the people who run these programs want to personally-identify you. Yet, the SS card itself originally had a statement printed on it which read "Not for ID".
The slippery-slope argument -- which in theory would be a logical fallacy -- was that the SSN's use would be expanded to beyond the purposes of collecting Social Security. And you know what? What would've then been deemed a "logical fallacy" has actually proven correct, in fact.
I've seen the other logical fallacies before. Chances are, you're thinking of "Appeal to Consequences of a Belief" - that the great-grandparent *believes* the government is murdering people, but can't confirm it.
Again, this logical fallacy fails to contain historical reasoning. The U.S. government has murdered Americans before (if by no other example than via the death penalty), and it will kill again.
Could be "Appeal to Fear" though. Then again, with Bush in office, he has every right and reason to be afraid! (and yes, with that, I've made the "logical fallacies" of "Personal Attack" and maybe "Two Wrongs Make a Right". Boo fucking hoo; the latter is a logical fallacy, yes, but the former is not. Personal attacks have nothing to do with logic and are almost never intended to. They have everything to do with making the other guy look bad. I suppose Bush doesn't need the help though. "Appeal to Ridicule" would be another one I've committed here; again, ridicule has nothing to do with being an actual, logical, factual argument, and I never say such things as though they are serious, logical arguments. I just feel like ripping somebody a new asshole, that's all).
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
- Search people randomly, and people will complain that they're being treated like "suspects"
- Search likely suspects, and civil liberties types (like Gilmore himself) will complain that you're racially profiling people
. Not only that, but "innocent until proven guilty" - what's proof of guilt, a SUCCESSFUL hijacking?? Hey Sherlock, too late once it's proven, what you gonna do, call 911 at 30,000 feet?Being searched doesn't mean your a suspect, it just means you were there when the number came up. Gilmore's badge-wearing is just plain attention-seeking. Terrorism IS real, it IS a threat, and any inconvenience is the fault of the terrorists, not the check-in staff!
I was all ready to launch an emotional defense of my indefensible biologically revisionist opinion about crabs being insects, but John headed me off at the pass: he said "Insects are The Enemy, so we Must Eat Them!"
Gilmore has radical ideas about Insect Control. We agree on the general principles, but disagree about how to go about implementing it. Ewww gross.
I wonder if eating bullets would be an effective approach to gun control?
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
This quote is from the article, from the answer to the "What is this I hear about secret laws in airports" question:
If I understood this correctly, this means that the US officials can claim that there's a law which prohibits action X, and that the US courts will then enforce whatever the officials say the law says without seeing the law themselves.
Now, maybe I'm just paranoid, but it seems to me that this could be used to arrest (and condemn) anyone for anything. Because the court doesn't actually see the law, the law doesn't need to really exist or have the wording and meaning that the officials say it does.
"Your honor, ultranova posted a message questioning the US legal system into the Slashdot website. This is illegal and punishable by death penalty under a secret law - I'm sorry but I can't show it to you, you just have to take my word that ultranova really is guilty."
Please tell me that I misunderstood something, and that the US isn't really *this* FUBAR ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You're half correct. He was pursued by the FBI under the Patriot Act, but charged under the Anti-Terror law of Diane Feinstein.
a ti cians/Galileo.html
The example of Galileo was meant to show people being silenced throughout history, and he was indeed silenced by the church.
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathem
Get your shit straight.