A reminder: Big Head Press offers free online graphic novels by the inimitable libertarian-likes of L.Neil Smith and Scott Bieser. Click here to access.

On Labor Day, open-access crusader Carl Malamud struck a blow for the little guy. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, he posted the entire 38-volume California Code of Regulations, which includes all of the state's regulations from health care and insurance to motor vehicles and investment. (His site also offers codes from almost every state along with some federal and county ones.)

How does e-publishing government regulations help the little guy? Because the state claims a copyright in those laws and, so, it makes people pay to read the measures they must obey. The government "dictates how you can access and distribute them (the laws) -- and therefore how much you'll have to pay for print or digital copies. It forbids people from storing or distributing its laws without consent....To purchase a digital copy of the California code costs $1,556, or $2,315 for a printed version.[/i] In order to obey the law, you must pay an exorbitant fee to the state because the law is not in the public domain. And yet...ignorance of the law is no defence?

Malamud believes the public should have access to the law, especially in the Internet Age when a document can be scanned and available for download at next to no cost to the provider. It is not clear whether California will legally challenge Malamud for milking the state's cash cow. Perhaps because his cause is so obviously just, Malamud has a good track record at prevailingmatters outside of the courtroom. In 1994, he pushed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to post corporate filings online, opening the door for companies such as Google and Yahoo to create elaborate financial Web sites. In June, Malamud helped convince the state of Oregon to stop claiming copyright over its laws. If his publication of the law goes to court, however, legal experts are not clear that he will win.

It is difficult to believe anyone still cleaves to the notion of "government by the people, for the people"...but I know they do.

In an earlier blog post (August 23), I reprinted part of Chapter 15 from my book The Reasonable Woman: Arguing in the Absence of Good Will. The following excerpt provides balance: Arguing in the Presense of Good Will.

From The Reasonable Woman...

One reason arguments become adversarial is that few people know how to argue well. Even when you become skilled at argumentation, your exchanges will be complicated by the fact that arguing is not a solitary pastime. In other words, you have to deal with the other person's psychology and with the fact that she will probably not be as skilled as you are, or embody the habit of reason.

This is where showing respect for the other person comes in. You should enter every argument by assuming that the other person is a reasonable human being and an intellectual equal. Extend the same courtesy to her that you hope to receive in return. If the courtesy doesn't flow both ways, you can always cut off the conversation after giving it a good try.



The main feature of this skill is a display of fair play on your part. Although good will can be expressed in many ways, the following rules of argument etiquette will certainly help to establish it.

[ Read the rest ... ]

It seems that the credit card companies don't want Mythbusters to do a show about the security of RFID chips. When the episode was early in production, the crew decided to call Texas Instruments for some information:


Which strongly suggests that (a) RFID chips are easy to hack (no surprise to anyone in the tech industry), (b) the credit companies know this, and (c) they're determined to deploy this technology in credit cards anyway.

Time for me to get working on that RF-shielding wallet.

Update: Savage has now recanted and says he reported the conference call (of which he was not a part) incorrectly, and the decision to cancel was "bizarre and convoluted" but was not made by Discovery.

19th century libertarianism is replete with efforts to structure free market institutions that could replace the valid social functions being usurped by government or by corporations heavily regulated and privileged by government. The following By-Laws constitute one such effort. Working men and women were often unable to secure life insurance policies or, if they did, they were prone to being defrauded by insurance companies. Yet poor working class families needed more financial protection than most in the case of a bread winner's death. The New England Mutual Life Relief Association is one of the many organizations that sprang up around The Word (1872-1893), published and edited by the individualist anarchist Ezra H. Heywood.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Yesterday I posted John William Lloyd's classical essay on Anarchist Socialism (click here to access). I consider this to be a companion piece.

Anarchist-Mutualism

My old-time comrade and dear friend, C.L. Swartz, has sent me a copy of his new book, "What is Mutualism", for review. I have unlimited respect for C.L. Swartz, his ripe scholarship and sincere idealism, and if I am compelled by an equal sincerity to differ with him, I hope our valued friendship will not be affected.

I make this review with pleasure, because it will incidentally afford me an opportunity to explain myself to my old comrades, who, I know, regard me as a sad renegade. In 1884, or thereabout, I became a disciple of the school of Proudhon and Tucker. Tho never very orthodox, I passed for a pretty straight Individualist-Anarchist for some 20 years. Tucker was a gentleman and a scholar, and his personal charm held me as well as intellectual and moral conviction. But at last my critical faculties were turned on the cult itself and I had to come out. I am no longer an Anarchist, but perhaps on many points I might fairly be called a Near-Anarchist still. I no longer label myself an Anarchist, or a Socialist (except in the large use of that term), but a Humanist, and the one principle I subscribe to is the greatest benefit to the greatest number. But I want all the personal liberty it is possible to have, for myself and others, so far as it is consistent with social benefit. I say all this because this new cult of Mutualism is simply the old cult of Tuckerism, of Individualist-Anarchism, under a new name and very wisely supplemented by the constructive principle of cooperation. As such it is far more attractive to me, as Co-operation is the most saving word in the language.

For the full article in the archives click here or click on [ Read the rest ... ] below.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Before you rush right out and install Google Chrome on your PC, you might want to read the fine print in the End User License Agreement...and make sure that Google did, in fact, change it:


I first learned of this from Knappster, who is not worried. I am less sanguine. The "do no evil" Google manages to do quite a lot of this kind of evil, as I have reported in the past. And I have two questions based just on this latest article:

1. Is Google saying that for this major product release -- with which they hope to rattle Microsoft's cage -- no one in their legal department bothered to read the contract and consider its implications for the end users? I find it hard to believe that they couldn't afford the legal help -- and I'm sure the implications for Google were thoroughly considered -- so this smacks of a complete disdain for their "customers."

2. Is Google saying that this is their "standard" contract for all of their other services? If so, what does this mean for users of Gmail, or Google Docs? Does Google have license to anything you create with those services as well? Or did they, on that occasion, review their "universal" terms of service and modify them?

You may, if you wish, choose to install Chrome, and use Gmail and Google Docs. Not for me, thanks. I've too recently escaped the clutches of one domineering computer megalith, to want to sign my rights away to another. If I try Chrome, I'll take Ars Technica's advice, and compile it from source code under the BSD License. (Although I don't know if that will escape the advertising which Google reserves the right to display.)

Update: Google claims to have fixed the license now.

* To explain the title: "all your X are belong to us" is a recurring in-joke among techies. Its ancestry can be traced back to a badly translated video game several years ago.

Question: Staying entirely off all government computers and databases used to be a major PT strategic objective. Why isn't it any more?
Answer: Big Brother is profiling and hassling a different gang of suspects these days just because they are NOT on computers.

I am ambivalent about the foregoing advice from Grandpa, author of the personal-freedom guide Bye Bye Big Brother, which I do recommend. I think staying the hell out of government databanks is still a wise move but Grandpa raises a valid point that might well influence how you decide to approach specific databases or activities. Governments are targeting people who fall outside the norm -- for example, those who pay for plane tickets with cash -- and the people targeted include those who are suspicious simply because they do not appear in a specific database. For example...when a national ID becomes mandatory in any nation, those without such a document fall under immediate, automatic suspicion. Privacy-loving people will have to decide for themselve if it is advantageous to appear within a specific database...keeping in mind, of course, that there is no longer such a thing as appearing in one database..

Equally, certain other privacy protections of the past may become red flags because they constitute unusual behavior of which the government has taken note. Grandpa states, "Commercial mail drops become suspicious." He recounts an investigation in Italy -- allegedly aimed at terrorists -- that began cross-referencing "mail drops...and various utility and voter records** to check for addresses with inconsistencies and anomalies. Any one who used a mail drop was an automatic suspect." If the mail drop information was not valid -- and virtually all such services in the EU and North America require proof of ID to open an account -- then the Italian police already had the boxholder on several felonies, including "fabricating fraudulent proof of address documents." Such felons received 'special' attention, including the content-monitoring of all mail and surveillance of boxes for the purpose of arresting scoff-laws. Grandpa suggests, instead, that you seek an alternate method of receiving mail you wish to remain private. Chapter 26 of Bye Bye Big Brother is entitled "Secure Internet Communications."

I am ambivalent about the mailbox advice as well. BUT I think at least one aspect of Grandpa's position is quite valuable: you should no longer assume 20th century tactics for preserving privacy are still viable in the 21st. One of the main reasons: "Information is being cross-referenced as never before...You may be doing nothing wrong [indeed, I presume readers of this blog are NOT doing anything beyond protecting their privacy/freedom] but if you do anything that appears unusual to Big Brothers computers, you are inviting extra scrutiny. And, then, it is Hello Hello Big Brother.

**as an avid non-voter, I can't resist pointing out that police use of voting records is yet another reason to stay out of this entirely voluntary database.

I just chanced upon "Consumerist's 4 Most Frequently Given Ways To Kick Ass":


Follow through the "Get Started" links to learn how to use each technique. Of the four, I've used Executive Customer Service and Chargeback in the past...and they can make a difference.

The latest addition to this site's archive is the essay "Anarchist Socialism" by John William Lloyd -- a frequent contributor to Benjamin Tucker's individual anarchist periodical Liberty (1881-1908) through most of its lifespan.

“Anarchist Socialism” is undated but it seems to be have been written in the 1920s or '30s. The piece is unedited (by me) except for the deletion of passages with material that would confuse the reader: for example, the mention of Lloyd's obscure acquaintances. The punctuation and grammar is sometimes antiquated and remains so due to my reluctance to edit the work of someone deceased.

Despite the word “Socialism” in its title, the essay should be of interest to libertarians. First, it includes a retrospective of Lloyd’s own experiences with the 19th century Anarchist movement, including memories of Tucker and commentary on luminaries such as Josiah Warren. Second, Lloyd was the author of several works, mostly of poetry, that were heavily promoted by Liberty; they included The Anarchists’ March, The Dwellers in Vale Sunrise, and The Red Heart in a White World. To the extent there is a poet laureate of individualist anarchism, it is surely John William Lloyd.

Third, the term “socialism” as used by 19th century individualist radicals differed in meaning from the word today as dramatically as the word “liberal” today differs from its 18th century usage. As used by Lloyd and his contemporaries, socialism per se – as opposed to State Socialism -- did not negate private property or the primacy of the individual but referred more to voluntary, co-operative ventures through which a just society could be achieved. Thus, many of the voluntary communities of early libertarianism could be viewed through either a socialist or individualist lens. To the extent that individualist anarchists who sometimes used the label “socialist” had a point of overlap with collectivist-socialists, it is that they agreed with the labor theory of value. Since individualist anarchists also insisted on the primacy of contract, however, their position devolved to the statement: interest and rent are invalid practices, nevertheless everyone has the right to make a foolish contract, and no third party has the right to interfere.

To access "Anarchist Socialism" click here or click on [Read the Rest} below.

[ Read the rest ... ]

This blog's ongoing discussion of the radical personal-freedom guide Bye Bye Big Brother has a salutary side effect: it spotlights the fact that there is no one or pure path to personal freedom. We are discussing strategy, not morality. What constitutes useful advice to X (as opposed to Y) will depend on highly variable factors such as personality, life goals, finances and other circumstances.

A good example, of this variability sprang from the post in which I explored the idea of Disposable Attorneys. I wrote, Use a disposable attorney to ask sensitive questions that should not be asked of your permanent legal advisor. What questions are those? Anything so private that you wish to take it to the grave. An attorney -- who is both a friend and reader -- blasted me in an affable manner for the very idea of withholding what might be necessary information from a permanent adviser aka attorney. He offered a real world experience of a court hearing in which he was blind-sided by damaging information that his client had not disclosed. My friend had a point and Grandpa (the author of Bye Bye Big Brother) had warned that lawyer would hate his advice. To some significant degree, however, the reader and I were not discussing the same scenario. I actually agree that a competent defense in court usually requires the rendering of all necessary information -- which, BTW, doesn't preclude going to a pre-attorney to evaluate for yourself and privately what is "necessary". The scenario for which a disposable attorney seems most valuable is one in which you are structuring your "affairs" -- e.g. preparing to move your person and assets outside of the States -- and you are testing where the limits of law and enforcement may lie. When speaking to an attorney, you must always remember that he or she is an officer of the court and -- even if confidentiality is maintained -- you may be placing your permanent lawyer in an awkward situation, a situation that could backlash against him or her if you are ever charged with a crime. Grandpa gives the example of an attorney who provided assistance on getting a second passport; the passport seeker was busted; the attorney escaped only because the arrested man did not rat her out. Readers of this blog would not violate the law in such a manner -- and I would discourage them from doing so -- but we all need to consider the possible consequences of making untraditional arrangments in our personal lives and finances.

Another example of variability came from feedback from a woman whose writing I've enjoyed for years. I advocate a mild form of practical sustainability. That is, I will not give up my ethernet or Satellite TV but I put in some tomato plants and I make my own bread rather than trudging to the grocery store for the pre-packed tasteless stuff. By contrast, the woman adamantly rejects any strategy that requires her to grow a plant. Fair enough. She is not me... This is a friendly disagreement in which there is no right or wrong, only solutions that are highly variable.

Perhaps the problems of personal strategies should be discussed as much as their value. In that spirit, let me address the main problem I have with maintaining strong privacy.

[ Read the rest ... ]

The best take I have yet seen on McCain/Palin comes from Sinfest:
Imperil the World 2 and
Imperil the World 3. I also got a laugh from John Sherffius' "Oh, Never Mind", and Lisa Benson's "He's taking it quite well".

Last year I was fascinated when a presenter at our Linux Users Group showed how to connect to a Motorola cell phone with a USB cable, and access all the data stored in the phone. Well, what was once a task for a techie has now been simplified for cops and random crooks:


This means that you don't want to loan your cell phone to someone you don't know, because in seconds they can grab all your address book, instant messages, emails, and whatever else you keep there....without your knowledge. Of course, if you're crossing a border or flying on a plane, you don't have a choice about surrendering your phone for examination. So please purge all data from your phones that is the least bit sensitive! (Hat tip to Bruce Schneier.)

And the smart just keeps coming...

The San Francisco Chronicle reports, The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. Levi Johnston's mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy's mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant. "This is just a bonus," Johnston said.

This is exactly what Palin needs to do -- embrace the young man as family and publicly glow about the expected grandchild as wonderful news. Make the liberals (and not the conservatives) be the ones to cry out "OMG, a teenager had sex! The horror! The horror!" Make them look petty and ridiculous, anti-family and anti-forgiveness. Let them take the rap for politically exploiting the sex life of a 17-year-old; let them be the ones to smirk with glee or foam with faux outrage over a child that is wanted and welcomed. Meanwhile, as long as Palin's daughter carries the fetus to term and marries the father, conservatives will show compassion and applaud the manner in which a commonplace -- albeit unfortunate -- family situation is being handled. This kid's pregnancy is a plus for the GOP.

I wouldn't be surprised if Palin literally embraces Johnston on the GOP convention stage. What a photo op that would be! Not that Palin needs to draw media attention by dangling enticements. The woman has accomplished a near-impossible feat. She's made Obama 2nd-page news.

Like everyone else, I was stunned by John McCain's choice of VP: Sarah Palin. I fall on the "stroke of brilliance" side of the debate on whether his choice was wisdom or folly. Why? With one announcement, McCain changed the election dialogue -- something he needed to do because the conversation wasn't going at all well for Republicans. He established a wow factor for his campaign; the spotlight shifted from Barack; the evangelical GOP base consolidated and opened its wallet; women voters are likely to be more receptive; the Dems are scrabbling on exactly how to lambast Palin. Even the mud being flung at Palin is not likely to stick. Her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy is not alienating the conservatives who are applauding the daughter's decision to carry the child to term and to marry the father. Meanwhile, the liberal criticism re: the pregnancy revealing Palin's hypocrisy about teens abstaining from sex is strange; as one blogger commented, "[it is] as misguided as asking a non-violent person why her spouse is violent toward her." And, even if the scandal about her arranging to have her brother-in-law fired from his government post is true, the apparent circumstances are such that Palin may become a heroine in the eyes of other women. Those circumstances apparently include the man's tendency to brutally beat Palin's sister. As for her inexperience...frankly, I think that is a selling point. She is not an insider, she is a fresh voice and a new force. What's Barack been running on and for?: CHANGE.

BTW, I am not exactly what you'd call "a fan" of Sarah Palin. Nor of McCain or the GOP. But McCain is making some wise moves. Another example...his decision to hold a minimalist GOP convention and to tour the expected devastation of Hurricane Gustav instead of being "man of the hour" in Minneapolis. This move accomplished several important goals:

1) Bush and Cheney had an acceptable excuse to NOT attend the Convention and, so, kept a salutary distance away from McCain,
2) the Republicans gave the appearance of putting the American people before party politics;
3) the much, much smaller GOP Convention could not be unfavorably compared by the media to the massive Dem-fest; the almost empty convention center looked like an expression of compassion rather than of unpopularity;
4) on his tour, McCain both acted and looked Presidential; he was "on site" to take credit for the vast improvement over Katrina in terms of co-ordination, police presence in New Orleans etc.;
5) objectionable aspects of the GOP Convention almost entirely escaped media attention -- e.g. the platform's resolution to ban abortion with no exceptions for a woman's health or rape.

As unbelievable as it seems after 8 years of Bush, McCain could win. The world could get Frick instead of Frack and still be f*cked in the process.