TO: Friends of Freedom,
Friends of Truth
FROM: Paul Andrew Mitchell
DATE: June 21, 2001 A.D.
SUBJECT: The Torch of Freedom Worldwide
I have been asked recently to give, in my own words, some of the many reasons why certain Internet resources have become rather strategic to human survival in our modern world.
What came into focus, as I pondered many possible answers, was a memorable experience I had as a guest speaker at a Harvard conference on geographic information systems, in the Fall of 1977 A.D. At that time, I was deeply involved in developing computer mapping systems on minicomputers costing $250,000 and up. Yes, there was once a time when a color monitor was $50,000 ‑‑ each!
The good people at the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis had taken a keen interest in my work for the regional planning agency in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The National Science Foundation had funded the Laboratory’s plans for a conference of experts on the subject, so off we went to the beautiful fall colors in the vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts ‑‑ the State of my birth on June 21, 1948, the same day on which the U.S. Constitution had become the supreme Law in America.
I was one of the youngest to attend this conference and, most of my company were men and women several years, even decades, my senior.
There was one event that has remained prominent in my memory ever since then. The people from ARPA ‑‑ the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration ‑‑ were giving their presentation, when a number of senior conference attendees stood up, to protest loudly. Their protest stemmed, in part, from their expectation that ARPA technology would inevitably be used to oppress Americans, rather than to liberate them, just as the atomic bomb had to be used, once invented.
When I asked for more details, a whole new world opened before my eyes. That “New World” was one in which Big Brother had immense computing power at its disposal. This power was being used to do electronic record matching on unprecedented scales ‑‑ a capability that was sure to evolve from the Census Bureau’s basic program to automate the 1980 U.S. Census with Geographic Base Files.
The challenge facing the Census Bureau at that time was to create Geographic Base Files of every county in the nation, so that census forms could be automatically “matched” to their corresponding census blocks and tracts, for tabulation purposes.
The conference attendees were protesting a government plan to generalize this record-matching capability into a universal matching system ‑‑ or UNIMATCH ‑‑ whereby electronic records could be merged and collated on any number or type of “keys”. Clearly, for anyone with a modicum of computer programming experience, the existence of any unique “keys,” or electronic record “fields,” would make such a universal matching system entirely simple and easy to program.
Since that fateful conference experience, where my paper was well received, I have enjoyed many years of professional experience and diligent study; both now convince me that those conference protestors were exactly correct. The rapid, almost miraculous evolution of computers and networking technology are now creating such serious threats to privacy, even they could not have anticipated such threats with any accuracy in 1977.
Happily, when I was at the peak of my computer career, as a senior systems and database programmer at a major investment bank in San Francisco, California, a mystical and powerful force motivated me to leave that job on very short notice one day.
Ostensibly, I told myself I was motivated by discovering their blatant violation of a vendor’s copyrights to important software that bank was licensed to use, on their powerful minicomputer network. Years later, I would also fall victim to widespread Internet copyright infringement, but that is another story, for another day.
Soon after my abrupt departure, I came to realize there were other, more important reasons why I abandoned that high-paid position. For, I had already begun an earnest overtime study of the U.S. Constitution, and the pertinent statutes and court cases which have considered the federal income tax and related questions in excruciating detail.
I wasn’t long into my self-education in this complex area of law, when I learned that privacy is the fundamental Right of all Americans, and fundamental Rights are decidedly the most important Rights any human being can enjoy.
One of the stated purposes of the U.S. Constitution, of course, is to ensure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, and privacy is one of those essential blessings.
Now that you have come this far with me, you are likely to be one of the many people now enduring this brave new world who fully appreciate the following observation: governments have lately undertaken an unprecedented assault upon our fundamental Human Right to privacy. Computer technology is the prime technological mechanism they are using to mount this assault.
It
is for this reason that we need to be armed with defense mechanisms that are
equal to the task before us.
Self-defense is not only our Right, it is also our duty ‑‑
to ourselves, to our families, and to our Creator.
This is not the place to itemize each and every method or avenue you might pursue, to protect and defend your fundamental Right to privacy. In fact, it would be a violation of that Right for us to expose certain techniques which you may have already developed on your own and you are keeping to yourself ‑‑ for good reason!
What we do want to stress here is that the power of the Internet is like a precision machine tool with two cutting edges. In other words, the door swings both ways.
Many of us who understand the serious magnitude of the political problems summarized above, also happen to have an extraordinary amount of professional experience in computer programming and database development, in addition to proven knowledge of the real Law in America – “American Law never repealed,” as one writer once phrased it.
We have taken it upon ourselves, over the last 11 years, to press that experience into public service (if you will), by developing one of the most comprehensive digital law libraries America has ever known ‑‑ the Supreme Law Library. At last count, this library stores more than 35,000 documents that are readily available to any standard Internet browser.
It is not quantity that matters most in this business, however. The quality of the materials we have developed for your careful study and utilization is, by design, as consistently high as human resources are capable.
We must, of course, give credit to the Most High and living God, for pointing us in the right direction, and intervening on more than one occasion to keep us safe from harm, with regular miracles. Yes! The Supreme Law Library is a miracle of God’s loving power and grace. On Him you can rely, because His Law is eternal, and His words are always true.
It is with this lengthy introduction that we invite you to help us in keeping the Supreme Law Library alive and well, by joining our electronic mailing list and permanent email archive at SupremeLaw eGroups.
By assigning only US $40 to our e-gold online account, you will not only have access to a growing archive of accurate commentaries on fundamental Human Rights; we will also do our best to ensure that you maintain personal contact with the one who has authored many of the most important documents in that Library ‑‑ this writer.
Please help us to keep the flame of freedom glowing brightly, with the fuel that comes from dedication, commitment, and superior knowledge of the challenges directly ahead of us.
If we may leave you with any one thought, we would hope that President John F. Kennedy’s historic words ‑‑ during his only inaugural speech in January 1961 A.D. ‑‑ will move you as deeply as they have moved us, on many occasions:
In the long history of
the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending
freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would
exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which
we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it -- and
the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
[President John Fitzgerald Kennedy]
[Inaugural Address, January 1961]
And to you, our fellow countrymen, we carefully entrust the torch of freedom, that you may tender it with loving care and keep it glowing brightly, with love without end. Amen.
Sincerely yours,
Counselor at Law, Federal Witness,
Private Attorney General, Author,
Webmaster: Supreme Law Library and
Moderator: SupremeLaw eGroups:
http://www.supremelaw.org/index.htm
http://www.supremelaw.org/egroups/subscribe.htm
Authority: James 1:25 (The Perfect Law of Liberty)
Confer also at “Liberty” in Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition
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