Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Date: Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 8:29 PM
Subject: Re: [csail-related] Stay away from the space between Koch and 32

It is certainly possible to be "too cautious".  In the US, that's
standard practice.  How else can one describe what they did today,
paralyzing an entire large metropolitan area to search one
neighborhood for a fugitive?  In the US, just say the word "terrorist"
and lots of people start being way too cautious, and the TSA eats it
up.

Please don't promote fear of shadows.  It was sheer luck that the
shootout occurred near this building.  The bombers stole a car and
drove away, so evidently they had no plan to come into Stata.  The
people who hacked the doors were probably MIT people.  Maybe they
consider the pox locks an injustice, as I do (which is why this
particular lab member does NOT have the MIT pox card).

4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background
level of deaths in the US.  It's not as many as in the Texas
explosion.  Car accidents in the US kill around 100 people a day, and
surely grievously injure hundreds more.  Every death or injury is a
sad thing, but the fact is that many happen every day, and we should
not let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others.
Let's make an effort not to get bent out of shape about them, so that
we can resist when people try to cite them as an excuse for tyranny.
(This was already cited as a reason to vote for CISPA.  See
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/house-passes-privacy-killing-cybersecurity-bill-despite-white-house-veto-threat.)

As this week shows, chemical plants are the bigger danger.  It is
straightforward to reduce the danger if only we had the political will
to do it.  MIT people might be able to develop better monitoring
technology for preventing these explosions -- it is one area in which
"the Internet of things" might do good without violating any human
being's privacy.

--
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
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