On Tue, 6 May 2008 23:34:28 +0100, "William Black"
wrote:
>>>With a very few exceptions private individuals cannot keep secrets from
>>>major governments.
>> Of course they can. Provided that (a) the government is unaware that
>> the private individual in question has any secrets in the first place
>> and/or (b) the government is not very interested in the secrets in
>> question, it is extremely easy for a private individual to keep the
>> government in ignorance.
>Perhaps I should always qualify my augments so it always excludes an
>absurdist position.
>Or perhaps you could behave like a rational individual and exclude them
>yourself.
I put it to you that it is *you* who has the absurd position in
claiming without qualification that "with a very few exceptions"
private individuals cannot keep secrets from the government. In the
vast majority of cases the government is both ignorant of and
completely uninterested in the secret.
Thus the people who cannot keep secrets from the government are the
exceptions. The vast majority can do so easily. And the people who
the government are interested in knowing their secrets will often
*know* that the interest exists, and so are likely to take
extraordinary measures - which may well be sufficient to ensure that
the government does not discover the secret.
--
Cynic
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