An independent might be prohibited from using his methods of privately enforcing justice if: His method is too risky (“perhaps he consults tea leaves”) He uses a method of unknown riskiness. Nevertheless, an independent may be using a method that does not impose a high risk on others but, if similar procedures are used by many others the total risk may go beyond an acceptable threshold. In that case it is impossible to decide who should stop doing it, since nobody is personally responsible and therefore nobody has a right to stop him. Independents may get together to decide these questions, but even if they agree to a mechanism to keep the total risk below the threshold, each individual will have an incentive to get out of the deal. This procedure fails because of the rationality of being a free rider on such grouping, taking advantage of everyone else's restraint and going ahead with one's own risky activities. In a famous discussion he rejects H. L. A. Hart's "principle of fairness" for dealing with free riders, which would morally bind them to cooperative practices from which they benefit. One may not charge and collect for benefits one bestows without prior agreement. But Nozick refutes this. If the principle of fairness does not work, how should we decide this? Natural law tradition does not help much in clarifying what procedural rights we have. Nozick assumes that we all have a right to know that we are being applied a fair and reliable method for deciding if we are guilty. If this information is not available publicly, we have a right to resist. We may also do it if we find this procedure unreliable or unfair after considering the information given. We may not even participate in the process, even if it would be advisable to do so. The application of these rights may be delegated to the protective agency, which will prevent others from applying methods of which it finds unacceptable in terms of reliability or fairness. Presumably, it would publish a list of accepted methods. Anyone who violates this prohibition will be punished. Every individual has a right to do this, and other companies could try to enter the business, but the dominant protective agency is the only one that has the power to actually carry out this prohibition. It is the only one that can guarantee its clients that