Saturday, November 11, 2006

Wiretaps

I have been watching and participating in an online discussion of minarachy vs. anarchy. The minarchist is overly concerned (from my perspective) with what to do about cybercriminals who (he believes) will not be easily caught and punished in an anarchy.

Perhaps in a ZAP compliant anarchy (a ZAParchy?) wiretaps and similar shady "law enforcement" techniques would still be used. There would be no governmental "authority" for such nonsense, though. If the investigators are caught, they could be punished for overzealous persuit of the bad guy. I think I could even embrace this in today's US. Wiretap all you want, read my emails, or whatever, but if you get caught doing it, you will go to jail even if I am guilty of some crime that you uncover. It might cool some of the police state infringements we are subjected to everyday.