From: <djc2106@columbia.edu>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:17:41 -0500

Re: Anonymity - Yes, I do care, but then what?

I tend to share the general sense of futility and accompanying
malaise that Kenny alludes to.  But to dispense with the cliches
early on - I also think that Prof. Moglen is right - we need to
strike while the iron is hot.  If not now - when? seems to be the
operative question.  It's almost as if the administration is
handing out written invitations to open the can of worms.

The more I read about the NSA, Iraq, Katrina, the AIPAC
investigations, Valerie Plame (and the list goes on and on), the
more it angers me that our government has completely dispensed with
the rule of law altogether.  It just doesn't apply to this
administration - they create their own "reality."

This begs the question - what are we, as lawyers, to do about an
administration that is not persuaded by legal arguments?  An
administration that controls a lapdog Congress where the "maverick"
and "independent" Senators will sell our civil liberties for $1
billion dollars in money for her constituency, as Senator Snowe
did.  But I suppose we sell our civil liberties everyday for far
less.

We could campaign to get a new Congress - though frankly the
Democrats are hardly better - and that is not a special role to be
served by future lawyers.  I guess my concern is - what use is law
when law is irrelevant?  That overstates the question, but not by
as far as one might think or like.

I'm rambling and not offering any useful ideas, but I have one thing
to add.  I know that we focus primarily on the negative aspect of
the blogosphere, but there is certainly a positive populist element
to it as well.  And perhaps we have touched upon it a bit.  I don't
know, let's just say that for every 1000 inane, bubble-gum "I
kissed Matt Norwood with tongue" blogs, there are investigative
journalistic blogs uncovering the lies that the MSM propogates for
the administration.  I'm not convinced that the best thing at this
point isn't just to keep pushing and talking and telling and using
this sort of technology as the amplifier.  As legal experts, we add
credence (deserved or not I won't say) to our opinions.

I think that ignorance is the first and largest obstacle to
overcome.  Luckily or not, the current administration is helping
with that one.  The next problem is over-coming our little
articulation problem - the one we've talked about - how do you
explain to a law-abiding citizen that they should be afraid of this
phenomenon.  Nobody's claiming this isn't an uphill battle.  And I
agree - it's hard to know where to start.

Quoting Kenneth Canfield <ksc2103@columbia.edu>:

>
> I wanted to follow up on today's class with some thoughts about
> the
> anonymity issue.  I do care about anonymity.  I would prefer that
> Columbia didn't track our Internet usage in any way, and that
> commercial
> ISPs also refrained from doing so.  I didn't raise my hand to say
> anything, because I couldn't think of much else to say--yes, I
> want
> anonymity--so then what?  I guess I never really thought about it
> as
> something I would "take action" about, perhaps because (1) I've
> never
> been the politically-active type (not saying that is a good
> thing, just
> that it's true), (2) I'm not aware of the full extent to which
> Columbia
> and commercial ISPs evade our privacy, and/or (3) I might not
> care quite
> enough even though I care and want to care.
>


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