Submitted by: Donald Hank
I have a few friends, both here and in Europe, who advocate writing coded emails that can't be read if intercepted. These are good people with good intentions, and in principle, encoding messages is a good idea in a totalitarian regime (and one can make the argument that our regime is well on the way to becoming totalitarian).
But here's the thing:
Firstly, we have a Constitution that gives me the right to write as I see fit. If I pretend I do not have that right -- by encoding my messages, -- then I am -- albeit unwittingly -- contributing to the erosion of that Constitution and the rights it extends to all Americans. I also thereby instill fear in the reader and convey to him the damaging message that the Constitution is no longer valid.
If I write it in plain language and make it available to everyone, including my enemies, I instill fear in them instead.
Secondly, Everything I write, for example, is intended to be within the law and is defiant of evil and evil people in high places. It is never directed against anyone because of their race and it is written in defense of universally accepted standards of justice.
If a writing is obviously and clearly defiant of EVIL and is couched in acceptable prose, it is my conviction that the writing itself is the author's best defense. The evil person to whom the message applies would be throwing caution to the winds if he chose to attack the message publicly or in a court of law, because its resonating truth would condemn him.
To hide behind a code such a writing that is intended to defy evil is in effect to defeat its purpose.
I defy the ruling elite to find fault with anything I write because it is, to the best of my ability, the unmitigated truth. To use my writings as a weapon against me would require distorting them or misquoting me.
Since all evil people have this option to distort and misquote, and most use it liberally, one might as well dispense with the code anyway, because the slandering detractor could simply invent something vile or biased and attribute it to the author, who would then still be in trouble.
I believe we walk best when we walk upright, like men. It is in this posture that evil people fear us, as they should.
Jim O'Neill, the author of the below article, whom I have read for some time, strikes me as the kind of stand-up guy who would agree with this assessment.
Don Hank
