From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 13:01:20 MDT
Samantha wrote:
>
> So how are you going to get to the place where you have
> symmetric transparency? How will it be insured? I keep asking
> but I don't see much in the way of answers.
### Vote for the right people. Talk to people. Convince them about the
virtues of transparency. Write letters to newspapers. Proselytize. Organize
a million cameras march. Wear a camera. Scream loudly when they take it from
you. Insist on your right to know. Gain a 30% voter share in favor of
transparency.
Wear a camera.
And how will transparency be maintained?
Once there is transparency, it will be a largely self-maintaining mode.
Trying to hide will be visible, and punishable.
------
>> ### Yes. We will clean the legal Augean stables.
>>
>
> How? Why should the power holders allow you to? How will you
> force it or otherwise get around them, especially as they gain
> keener tools to watch and block would be agents of change at
> every step? I am not cynical. I am just the opposite. But
> frankly I am at a loss as to how this can be done without
> something equivalent to a revolution or starting a new country.
### All accounts to the contrary, the American people are the power holders
in the US. It isn't the optimal solution, because 50% have by definition
below average intelligence, but all you need to get anything done, be it
evil, or good, is a suitable block of determined voters. No need for a
revolution, just masses of people making the right choice.
Do you think that the success of the civil rights movement is due to
revolutionaries, and activists? I don't think so. Civil rights prevailed
because a sufficient number of previously apathetic voters grew weary of the
evil the used to condone by their inactivity, and goodness won. Martin
Luther King and others were catalysts but the true force were the morally
motivated voters.
-------
>
> In practice cops confiscate cameras and slap on extra criminal
> charges that are upheld by the courts. It is actually illegal
> to film "public" officials acting in their "public" capacity in
> many circumstances
### Be a martyr. Call the local college. Organize students in defense of
gargoyles. Appeal to a higher court. Write an article on Law Review, or ask
your lawyer friend to do it for you.
It took only one courageous woman who wouldn't yield her place in the bus to
start the transformation. Maybe it will take the one person who won't give
up the camera, to transform this country again.
Wear a camera.
Rafal
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