Subject: Re: A reply to Lessig's _Code_ Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 13:26:32 -0800 From: Brian Holtz Organization: Sun Microsystems To: Larry Lessig > > * "laissez faire will mean let government regulate"; > > did I say that? The quote is from the the Ch. 5 table-of-contents blurb on code-is-law.org. Perhaps there was not space to properly qualify it. > I guess I mean laissex faire will lead to an architecture > that will make it easier for government to regulate. Quite possibly. But government still has to pull the regulation trigger, which to a libertarian (or any dictionary user :-) is the exact opposite of laissez faire. > > * code can protect data IP more than law can; > > this I completely believe Downloaded any MP3s lately? :-) On the contrary, I think it requires Gestapo-style tactics, like at CMU recently, to stop theft of data: text, music, images, video. (Note that CMU's "Gestapo" only raided university-owned file servers. It would take actual Gestapo to raid private property.) > > * non-coercive free association can sensibly be called "censorship"; > > this too. censorware and all. If filtering and editing and otherwise declining-to-associate by readers and publishers and ISPs is "censorship", then we need a new word for when a legislature outlaws certain speech acts and contents, enforceable by guns and handcuffs and prison bars.