Re: All the BATF's (was: Re: The Weavers)

Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Thu, 18 Sep 1997 22:11:36 +0000


On Thu, 18 Sep 1997, Arjen Kamphuis wrote:

> The interesting question (If you want this to stop) surely becomes: Why you
> need a BATF (some sort of SWAT-team I suspect) so much in the first place?

No-one knows... it just seems to exist because noone is powerful enough to
kill it, though various people have tried; from what I remember the last
time it failed because no other law enforcement agencies were prepared to
take on the BATF personnel and the government weren't prepared to sack
them. Of course that's just the reality... the *intention* was that they'd
enforce all those gun control laws that you love so much.

> We have 'big' governement, it spends a lot of money (almost 50% of GNP), it
> makes mistakes (they *are* human). I can think of many reasons to be
> critical toward them, some quite personal. But I have no reason to mistrust
> them in the sense that they are 'out to get me' or have big hidden agenda's.

The Dutch government was one of the first to propose banning private use
of encryption. Doesn't this worry you at all?

> Holland is now the most healty economy of the EC, and one of the
> best coutry's in the world to invest in, because of it's stability,
> according to a recent survey.

And how much money does the Dutch government get from the EC? Ireland is
also supposed to have a great economy, but as far as I'm aware that's
largely due to the billions of dollars they receive from the EC every
year.

Mark

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