From: rlglende@netcom.com (Robert Lewis Glendenning)
Subject: Re: Estimating Wiretap Costs/Benefits
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Lines: 61

In article <1993Apr20.203756.20667@kronos.arc.nasa.gov> hanson@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Robin Hanson) writes:
>I'm attempting to write a serious policy paper examining whether the
>proposed wiretap (or "Clipper") chip is a cost-effective tool for
>police investigation.  That is, ignoring concerns about government
>intrusions into individual privacy, is the value of easy wiretaps to
>investigators greater than the cost to the communications industry,
>and their customers, to support this wiretap technology?  
>
>A rough estimate suggests that wiretaps are worth about five million
>dollars per year to U.S. law enforcement agencies.  (In 1990, 872 U.S.
>wiretaps led to 2057 arrests, while total police expenditures of $28
>billion led to 11.25 million arrests [ref US Statistical Abstracts].)
>I'm working on estimating this wiretap benefit more accurately, but
>I'd like to ask hardware experts out there to help me with estimating
>the costs of the new proposed wiretap technology.
>
>Please send me quotable/citeable estimates for:
>
>- How many chips which would need to be made per year to keep all
>  phones with wiretap chips?
>- How much would it cost to make each chip?
>- How much did it cost to develop this technology in the first place?
>- How much more would supporting hardware, people, etc. cost, per chip?
>- What percentage cheaper would encryption chips and support have been
>  if private enterprise could compete to meet customer encryption needs?
>- What percentage of phone traffic would be taken up by the proposed
>  "law enforcement blocks"?
>- What is the total cost of handling all phone traffic per year?
>
>Put another way, the question I'm asking is, what if each police
>agency that wanted a particular wiretap had to pay for it, being
>charged their share of the full social cost of forcing communication
>to be wiretap compatible?  Would they choose to buy such wiretaps, or
>would they find it more cost-effective to instead investigate crimes
>in other ways?
>-- 
>Robin Hanson  hanson@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov 
>415-604-3361  MS-269-2, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035
>510-651-7483  47164 Male Terrace, Fremont, CA  94539-7921 

First, what the fuck is NASA doing wasting my tax dollars doing
policy papers on stuff far outside of their purvew/mission?
                                                                         
Second, this isn't a problem of economics.  This is a problem of
the incremental accumulation of police-state powers by our government.
 
How, exactly, do you put a price on the loss of freedom of a society?
Maybe use the dollars/life lost calculations for the extra people
killed by the gov.  The pain and suffering cases for those tortured.
The dollars/life lost caused by the inevitable collapse of the economy,
and all the secondary effects of diseases, diet, etc.  Plus, the
inevitable collapse of the economy as the gov controls it, becomes 
corrupt, etc.

Do us a favor.  Resign rather than right this paper for NASA.  Go
do useful work for the society.

lew
-- 
Lew Glendenning		rlglende@netcom.com
"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points."	Niels Bohr (or somebody like that).
