Cortland Klein

Wired: Cops Watech Sex Offender’s Blog

As much as one might dislike things like the Patriot Act, this is a case where death may have been prevented had it been used in a proper and timely matter. I’m just thinking about the possability that the lives of these people could have been saved if authorities were able to trace the publisher of said blog to the source where it was published. This would be moderately trivial provided the culprit was not using an anonymizing solution such as Tor.

Now while I support the right of privacy, I rarely utilize it personally, finding it more a nuisance to others than a benefit. I still think the freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to use encryption, is important, and wouldn’t argue that anyone not be permitted to use it, PGP or otherwise.

But again, I just look at this event, and think to myself, “This could have been prevented, could’nt it have?”