sappho@SRI-NIC.ARPA (08/10/86)
Keith is right, I was too vague in saying that the government should not have power to do vague things. Let me reword it: the government should protect people from concrete dangers, not nebulous ones, e.g., rape, not the possibility that rape might increase because of a nebulous thing caled "pornography", child abuse and neglect, not being an unfit parent in some more nebulous sense, violent revolution, not "subversive publications". Yes, secrecy for national defense was what I had in mind when I talked about the dangers of the government doing things in secret. I can see, even as a pacifist, that we need spies; knowing about other countries weapons and policies is as necessary for effective arms control as for building an effective military. And of course spying involves secrecy. But when the NSA can spy for years on the likes of Joan Baez (who, whatever you think of her politics, is not violent) without people knowing about it, then the ability of the government to act without our being able to know and control what it is doing has gone too far. I want to be sure that the government is not using national security as an excuse to harrass people who are peacefully objecting to its policies. I also do not see why the government should be able to covertly do things like bombing Cambodia or organizing ex-members of Somoza's National Guard to overthrow the Sandinista government. I think that the government is now able to do more things covertly than it legitimately needs to be able to do for national defense. In response to someone else's comment on insurance, I don't see why people whose jobs don't provide life insurance are a problem. They are free to switch to a job which does provide life insurance, or they can buy their own privately. Why should everyone even have life insurance? If you have no dependents, it isn't all that necessary. Lynn Gazis sappho@sri-nic ------- -------