John Gilmore interviewed by Greplaw 164
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!"
Server is going down fast... here's the text (Score:1, Informative)
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# 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
Earlier interview (Score:4, Informative)
Server up and fast, parent troll (Score:3, Informative)
'nuff said
Re:wrong wrong wrong (Score:1, Informative)
Nixon is firmly responsible.
Re:And I thought I was alone... (Score:3, Informative)
Too bad the "privilege" argument is pure propoganda:
CASE #1: "The use of the highway for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common fundamental right of which the public and individuals cannot rightfully be deprived." Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 169 NE 221.
CASE #2: "The right of the citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city may prohibit or permit at will, but a common law right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thompson v. Smith, 154 SE 579.
CASE #3: "The right to travel is a part of the liberty of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment." Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 116, 125.
CASE #4: "The right to travel is a well-established common right that does not owe its existence to the federal government. It is recognized by the courts as a natural right." Schactman v. Dulles 96 App DC 287,
225 F2d 938, at 941.
Note #3 especially. It specifically precludes the use of prior restraint tactics by government entities. Oh and by the way foidulus, I want to make you wear your SSN on a big white panel over your clothing, so in case you kill someone all the bystanders and any cops can easily identify you. And I don't want to hear that this would violate any of your rights!
Re:wrong wrong wrong (Score:5, Informative)