[12022] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Fwd: Short substantive EFF policy question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stanton McCandlish)
Mon May 2 18:03:44 1994
From: Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org>
To: bruce@phantom.com (Bruce Fancher)
Date: Mon, 2 May 1994 17:27:47 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: karl@mcs.com, frezza@radiomail.net, farber@central.cis.upenn.edu,
djw@eff.org, com-priv@psi.com, stahlman@radiomail.net,
dbuck@world.std.com, ggilder@mcimail.com, gbolles@radiomail.net,
rre-maintainers@weber.ucsd.edu, Sam_Boyle@mcimail.com,
brodsky@radiomail.net
In-Reply-To: <9405022003.AA20577@mindvox.phantom.com> from "Bruce Fancher" at May 2, 94 04:03:38 pm
> The only worthwhile thing the EFF has done is to provide legal support to
> people like Craig Neidorf and Steve Jackson. Putting Mike Godwin on the
I beg to differ. Ever heard of Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet? Ever
seen our work on ISDN? Even Stahlman appreciated that. Ever noticed that
EFF worked to get the sentencing guidelines for "computer crimes" amended.
Etc. Please, don't simply trust what you read on the net as the be-all
and end-all of the facts. I find it a shame that you'd condemn our
organization as a one-hit wonder, when you appear to me to have not looked
at much of the work we've done, but simply listened to the rhetoric flying
about one issue, and concluded that those spouting it are 100% correct and
that their opinion of one of our missions accurately describes all the
rest of our work.
[...]
> As much as I appreciate that, it didn't stop me from cutting my
> membership card in half and mailing it to Mitch when he moved the shop
> down to DC. We've got enough "smart guys" lobbying the Government to
> tell us what's good for us. The EFF should have stuck to their
> (publicly stated) original purpose of ensuring that civil liberties
> extend into Cyberspace.
1) Would you rather have "dumb guys" do the the lobbying? Lobbying WILL
BE DONE. This is a fact of life. You can have the law-n-order types and the
social-program wheedlers and so forth do all the lobbying if you like. See
how you like the world then.
2) on what grounds do you base the assumption that EFF can only protect
civil liberties when residing in a city in Massachusetts? ACLU and CPSR
have offices in DC too. Does that suddenly mean they no longer support
civil rights? If you were a civil liberties organization in the UK, would
you base your operations in Inverness, or in London? If in France, would
you pick Rennes or Paris? The national capital is where the action is,
where a difference is made.
3) on what grounds do you base the assumption that all EFF does is lobbying?
As a matter of fact, very little of what we do is lobbying; that's the law.
If we exceed that quota, we lose 501(c)(3) status.
4) on what grounds do you base the assumption that getting involved in the
political processes that actually MAKE the laws we have to live with is
somehow antithetical to the goal of protecting civil liberties?
--
Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist
"In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich
Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of
phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps.
When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it."
- Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994
