[LINK] Is police spyware in your computer??

[Craig Sanders]

On Sat, Oct 03, 2009 at 09:31:37PM +1000, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-10-03 at 20:50 +1000, Tom Koltai wrote:
> > But if the police actions mean getting those kind of people off our
> > networks - well then, I for one don't really mind how they achieve
> > their results - as long as they get results.
>
> Really? So the ends justify the means, do they?
>
> What an incredibly foolish thing to believe.

that was my first thought when i read that.

if the end really does justify the means then it should be perfectly
OK for police to buy and sell real children to paedophiles in order to
catch them.

and it should be OK to arrest and torture random civilians just on
the off chance that they might be involved in child porn. if they're
innocent, they can be released.

if Tom disagrees with either of those things then he actually does mind
how they achieve their results.


> What if they make a mistake?
> 
> What if they make a mistake about *you*?

even if they're not mistaken, there should - MUST - be limits on what
police can do.


> What if "those kind of people" is modified to be "your kind of people"?
> 
> Civil rights are not a luxury, they have a purpose. They are all that
> stand between the Rule of Law and a police state.

it's disturbing how so many people fail to get that. i can't figure
out if they're terminally stupid or just terrified of being tagged as
supporting child-porn/terrorism/drug-dealers or whatever the witch-hunt
of the day is.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>