uh oh.

Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption

I hate the implications of this. essentially anyone that chooses privacy is now considered a criminal? this has been brought up many times before: "if you've got nothing to hide, then what are you worried about?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy
that probably outlines the subject better than I could.

for the record, I think the guy did commit a crime. but I think that aside from that, the courts handling of the matter of him having PGP on his computer (aside from the fact that he didn't even use it) is terribly wrong.

choosing to use encryption in no way makes you a criminal.
the right to privacy isn't criminal.

the line of thought that choosing to exercise your right to privacy is proof of criminal intent is very dangerous indeed.

another way of putting it:
"guns are criminal because they can be used to commit crimes."
"knives are criminal because they can be used to commit crimes."
"filesharing programs are criminal because they can be used to commit crimes."
"cars are criminal because they can be used to commit crimes."
"water is criminal because it can be used to commit crimes."
"bricks are criminal because they can be used to commit crimes."
"computers are criminal because they can be used to commit crimes."

all of these things are legal things with valid uses. just because PEOPLE can use them as tools to commit a crime, doesn't make the tool criminal, it makes the CRIMINAL A CRIMINAL.

this kind of assosiation is generally made as an excuse to allow people to try to maintain control. police and government don't like the idea of not being able to know everything they want about you. they don't like the idea of you having REAL privacy... so they use things like this to try to demonize encryption etc in an attempt to have it outlawed, thereby maintaining their power structure.

this actually touches on quite a number of other topics, which I won't go in depth into here.. but things like the MPAA and/or RIAA calling "copyright infringement" "THEFT" in an attempt to justify their ridiculous actions, when that is NOT what it is... or the government bending the meaning of the right to bear arms to somehow mean simply the right to own a duck hunting gun, when it was meant to mean a cutting edge military grade automatic firearm etc... because of the threat that an armed populace could be to the government power structure. the government was never supposed to have a standing army... the people were meant to be the militia... every male from 17 to 45 was supposed to own and be proficient with a modern military class firearm in order to defend his country if need be while an army was raised. this has been downplayed, buried and whatnot ever since... the government has gone on to have a HUGE standing military and stripping the citizens right to bear arms beyond small arms and single shot or semi-automatic arms, generally for hunting or target shooting.

(more information here as well as other places)

control. maintaining the status quo.

to get a better frame of mind about this... I'd suggest studying what the founding fathers did during the rebellion against Britain... read things like the constitution, declaration of independence, the federalist papers etc.

our founding fathers were by todays definition, terrorists.

our country was founded on certain principles of freedom, liberty and neutrality towards it's people.

this is starting to segue into another post I had in mind... so I'll finish this one and move on to the next one as a separate post. (makes commenting easier etc)