Posted 9:46 AM

Because We Should, not Because We Can

Politics doesn't run in a straight line from left to right (as we might think as we grow older, and more conservative). It actually runs in a circle, frequently seen head on. For most of us, the "center" is in the front, trailing off to the left and right - but those two seemingly disparate ideologies eventually meet. The meeting place is hidden from our view, though, as we look at the center. Nevertheless, we can see evidence of this meeting in, of all things, ideas about technology.

Both the right-wing ideologists (the ones the left call "neo" or "crypto" fascists) best identified with US Attorney-General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have similar thoughts about technology best exemplified in the formerly proposed "Total Information Act" (TIA) to collect, collate and characterize electronic activity as an aid to identifying terrorists and criminals. The same mindset can be observed in the attitude of those involved in the Napster/Kazaa-style music downloading issues.

No, not the RIAA, although they do want to know who's doing what and when. No, I refer to the millions of people infringing copyrights by pirating music and film.

Ashcroft wants to violate our privacy, Napster's Shawn Fanning wants to violate our property and both could agree on why they should be allowed to do so. Its simple, they believe that because something is possible then it follows that its OK to do it.

Technology makes many things easier including both the peer-to-peer swapping of files ripped or recorded from other media and the mining huge volumes of data from disparate places and come up with very complete individual dossiers.

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it..

Its time for us all to re-discover ethics, the study of the principles of proper conduct. Ethics is what separates man from the lower animals. Our ethics tell us which activities are right to do of the myriad of possible things we are able to do. Ethics are the basis of society.

If Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Fanning and all who support either don't begin to consider their activities in an ethical light, then we might just as well move back into the trees - armed with a shotgun and an MP3 player, of course.