Hacking In a Private Property Society

Bob Murphy has come up against hostile comments here and here for his use of hacked emails to support his anti-global warming stance. Part of the confusion over use of hacked emails appears to be the result of failing to understand what I call, "Private Property Society" (PPS) versus government rules.

I believe we live in a PPS (Indeed all countries do) but that it is distorted by government rules, which are like a blanket thrown over parts of PPS. The full discussion of PPS versus government rules would certainly require a book to cover fully. However, I want to touch upon PPS to shed some insight into the email hacking incident related to global warming, fully realizing that some of my broad stroke comments about PPS will raise many "what if" questions. Those will have to wait for the book, which is a way off, since my intellectual property book is still in its finishing stages and the book following that will be about economic forecasting.

Here are three facts which must be understood to understand hacking in an unrestrained PPS world:

A. global warming regulations are implemented by governments

B. any fraudulent activity would be dealt with by government (if at all)

C. all hacking (unless done under set circumstances by the government) is considered illegal

Let's look at how these factors would play out in an unrestrained PPS world.

For example, and I am just going to make a quick point and move the entire debate on (remember this isn't the book), in an unrestrained PPS world, if Macy's wanted to implement the death penalty for shoplifters, they could. That is, in an unrestrained PPS world, the owner of the property has full rights to set any penalties he chooses for violations of property rights on his property.

Of course, Macy's would never implement such a Draconian penalty, since it would scare customers fearing being dragged into a shoplifting charge by accident.

For those who would implement such a policy, an individual would simply have to be vigilant where he goes to avoid such, in the same way a person has to be vigilant as to where he walks at night now.

I further advance that if a person creates a crime impacting a given private property, the owner of the private property (and that private property does include himself) has the right to use any means at his disposal, short of physical harm, to prove that he has been damaged. Of course,if in his pursuit, he damages property or infringes on a persons privacy, he must pay damages if and only if, his allegations prove false. He will not be liable for any damages if his allegations prove correct.

With this understanding we can now look at points A,B and C.

First Point A. From a PPS perspective governments are interlopers (mostly uninvited) and thus, from a PPS perspective each property owner has the right to deal with interlopers the way he chooses, including government infringements.

Point B is obvious to handle. Since in a PPS it wouldn't be government but private property owners that would decide on the penalties for damage from given interlopers. The governments wouldn't be involved.

Point C. Hacking would not be outside the bounds in a PPS if the hacker was trying to prove a damage to his property and did so. Thus, in the case of the hacker who hacked into the emails of global warming advocates, he could justifiably argue that he was being damaged by all the new regulations fraudulently being put on his property by government interlopers in cahoots with the Global Warming Alarmists via fraudulent science. From a PPS perspective, he has thus done no wrong because his hack proved his case of the evil doing of the Global Warming Alarmists. The hacker is thus not a criminal. He is simply responding to a steady attack on his property by Global Warming Alarmists in cahoots with government rule makers. He has uncovered crime, and he has done so at some risk to himself because of current government laws. In my book, uncovering crime that is being perpetuated against most of humanity, and doing so at personal risk, makes one a hero, not a criminal. And, Bob Murphy has every right to use such emails in his arguments that point out the doctored data being used Global Warming Alarmists.