January 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Dear Declan
by Anonymous Coredump 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

mattd recently babbled incoherently: "Liberty without socialism is privilege,injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality." Bakunin. Another dead russian. Why not Stalin? "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Still trying to define anarchy by your own anti-social agenda, eh matt? "Let's all be anarchists, just like me!" -- mattd twit.

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Re: Re: End of the IRS??
by F. Marc de Piolenc 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

Hey folks - you need to keep in mind that the "not ratified" argument is not what will be discussed, and for obvious reasons. The IRS is not competent to comment on whether their marching orders were or were not properly ratified by the People. It is the actual content of their statutory authority that is in question. What WILL be discussed is the simple fact that, to make the current internal revenue code constitutional (two previous attempts having been overturned by the courts), those framing it simply omitted to require people to do any action that government had no authority to require. Instead, taxes are collected from multitudes who don't owe them by suckering them into "voluntary" self-assessment. Once they have declared themselves "taxpayers" - usually by declaring themselves "US citizens" (federal subjects who have no Constitutional or Common Law protection) on an SSN application - the courts use tricks of equity contract law (which apparently doesn't require knowing consent) to force them to file information returns and pay tax. Various strategies for undoing the damage have been tried with varying degrees of success. Irwin Schiff is the most successful of the strategists, having successfully practiced what he preaches for decades. The best strategy for most individuals is not to rely on courts (staffed by beneficiaries of the fraudulent tax), but simply to drop out of the system. Nobody pays any attention to notices of SSN revocation, but if you simply stop using the one assigned you - that does work. Few employers have the courage to refuse an IRS Notice of Levy, however obviously illegal it is - so employ yourself. And so on. As time passes, Atlas shrugs; the smartest and most productive get out first, leaving sheeple as both beneficiaries and sole contributors to the fraudulent system that they inhabit. It has been happening in my lifetime: people who, forty years ago, would have had no choice but corporate employment with all the liabilities that implies, now would not consider working for anyone but themselves. Hang 'em high? Why bother. Make 'em ineffectual! Marc de Piolenc Petro wrote: > > On Monday, January 7, 2002, at 09:00 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > I've never quite understood how the > > amendment-not-ratified-properly-in-1913 > > argument is supposed to play out.

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Shoe bomb (fwd)
by Eugene Leitl 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.leitl.org 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 22:32:31 -0500 From: shivers(a)cc.gatech.edu To: silent-tristero(a)world.std.com Subject: Shoe bomb At 1:02 am -0800 12/26/01, Talley, Brooks wrote: >This guy, for example, tried to light plastic explosives with a fuse >(10% success rate at most), using a smelly match rather than a lighter, >and did so while sitting in his seat rather than in a lavatory. Was he >asking to be caught, or just incredibly stupid? He was seated close to the fuel tank. The explosive is essentially just a primer for the fuel. The following article is pretty unsettling, in that it makes the case that - the technique is carefully thought out, and - there will be more of these attacks, and - there aren't good ways to stop them. -Olin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/06/MN222117.DTL Shoe-bomb flight -- a trial run? U.S., British officials fear similar attacks in the works Simon Reeve, Special to The Chronicle Sunday, January 6, 2002 London -- As investigators gather evidence about possible links between alleged airline shoe-bomber Richard Reid and the al Qaeda terrorist organization, intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic are floating a disturbing theory: that Reid's bombing attempt may have been a "trial run" for future, simultaneous attacks against passenger jets to be carried out by supporters of Osama bin Laden. U.S. and British intelligence officials believe that the British citizen on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22 was a "foot soldier" sent to check the destructive power of shoe bombs against civilian targets. One senior British intelligence official said there are indications that "more than a few, but less than a dozen" individuals may be preparing similar attacks in the near future. These officials cite similarities with a weapon developed by Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who plotted a series of simultaneous attacks on U.S. airliners in the mid-1990s. "There is a definite pattern here with Yousef's past attacks that we would be foolish to ignore," said one highly placed intelligence official. "They have tried this before, and they are trying it again." During the flight, Reid allegedly tried to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes with a lighted match. Crew and passengers averted a disaster by jumping on the 28-year-old London-born suspect. "MOTHER OF SATAN" BOMBS Preliminary studies by the FBI indicate Reid's black suede basketball shoes contained between 8 and 10 ounces of the explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP -- called "The Mother of Satan" by Palestinian militants, because its inherent instability makes it dangerous to both the victims and bomb maker. The TATP in Reid's shoes was "blended" with an explosive called PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which can be ignited with a normal cigarette lighter. PETN is a key ingredient of Semtex, the Czech-made military explosive used to down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. "These bombs are sophisticated devices," said the British intelligence official. "They would have been difficult and dangerous to produce. Reid could not have done this himself -- he would have trouble tying his own shoelaces. It seems we may have an expert bomb maker on the loose in Europe." LINKS TO 20TH HIJACKER Among the links being pursued by investigators are telephone conversations, known to British intelligence, between Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so- called "20th hijacker" who was indicted on conspiracy charges in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, and reports that the two worshiped at the same mosque in London. Moussaoui's attorney entered a plea of not guilty for his client in Virginia last week. Investigators are also probing the origins of the money used by Reid, who has no visible means of support, as he traveled to seven different countries last year. Among the cities Reid visited was Amsterdam. The Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (BVD), the Dutch security service, is trying to reconstruct Reid's movements and to establish whether an al Qaeda cell there may be plotting attacks on passenger jets. Reid has told FBI agents that he contacted Dutch arms dealers via the Internet and paid $1,800 for the explosives. But intelligence sources speculate that Reid obtained them from an al Qaeda explosives expert in Amsterdam, who adapted the shoes in preparation for Reid's attack. FBI agents and British anti-terrorist officials, meanwhile, have concluded that the shoe-bomb plot originated with the ideas of Yousef, an early al Qaeda operative who suggested flying passenger jets into buildings. 'PROJECT BOJINKA' SIMILARITIES After instigating the 1993 WTC bombing, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000, the British-educated extremist was on the run from the FBI for nearly two years before being captured. He is currently serving a life sentence plus 240 years. While on the lam in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Far East, Yousef trained other bin Laden terrorists in the use of explosives and told them of a plan he code-named "Project Bojinka" -- "bojinka" means "explosion" in Serbo-Croat -- which used a form of shoe bomb. Designed as a terrorist "spectacular" that would instantly kill thousands of people and eclipse every other terrorist atrocity in history, Yousef planned to blow up 11 U.S. passenger jets scheduled to fly simultaneously over the Far East in January 1995 by using tiny, undetectable bombs. Yousef produced a stable, liquid form of nitroglycerine from an array of chemicals, including sulfuric acid and nitrobenzene, and fashioned them into devices undetectable by airport security devices, including X-ray machines. He converted a Casio digital watch into a timing switch, hid the liquid nitroglycerine in a contact lens case, with cotton wool as a stabilizer, and then used two 9-volt batteries to power light-bulb filaments to spark an explosion. Yousef hid the bomb components in the heels of his shoes, knowing most airport security systems do not scan the soles of feet. "The parallels are really chilling," said a senior FBI official, referring to the Reid case. The official added that security devices to detect explosives on passengers are still in the development stage. Another similarity noted by investigators was the placement of the shoe bomb components. Having obtained Boeing blueprints, Yousef calculated the most devastating place to detonate his bombs was in a seat above the center fuel tank, adjacent to the wing. The bomb alone would not destroy the plane, but it would detonate the fuel, ripping the jet apart. Reid, perhaps following Yousef's example, chose a window seat close to the Boeing 767-300's fuel tank. PHILIPPINES AIRLINE EXPLOSION The "Bojinka" plot was aborted after chemicals Yousef was mixing in a Manila kitchen caught fire and he had to flee to Pakistan, leaving behind details of the plan for police to discover. But Yousef did stage his own trial run. In December 1994, he assembled a bomb on a Philippines Airline flight, then left it under a seat before deplaning the Boeing 747. The resulting explosion on the next leg of the flight killed a Japanese passenger, injured five others and forced the pilot to make an emergency landing in Okinawa. Yousef would have needed only to increase slightly the size of the bomb to ensure the plane's destruction. Some investigators are so concerned about how far the parallels between Reid and Yousef go that they have suggested "a more rigorous" interrogation of Reid, designed to elicit any information he has about a possible second "Bojinka" plot. "There is significant concern about this guy," said the FBI official. "Does the failure of his mission mean his cell will now go on the run? Possibly. But in the past these groups have been very focused and do not easily turn from their target." Simon Reeve, a London-based investigative journalist and contributor to The Chronicle, is the author of "The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism."

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The Pinko Rose of Texas
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

This is an open letter to the person/s unknown who mailed anthrax letters recently.I reckon your a true blue american patriot and I ask you to not only keep up the good work but consider going for the real commiesymps in power.Such as so called president bush.This nigger loving puke is bringing back big govt in a big way.Socialized schooling and federal airport staff! Fuck that! This chicken hearted sows belly asked for NATO-euro-one world planes to fly over our sacred soil! How can we let this Treason stand? No,if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...Kill the president for christ and country. George Bush is a cocaine sniffing, alcoholic, sleazy coward, who doesn't have an ounce of integrity or intelligence in his entire body.He clearly deserves a horrible death.We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

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For FUCKS sake KILL the PRESIDENT!
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

Our Allies, the "Pakis" White House officials are insisting President Bush meant no direspect when he referred yesterday to the people of Pakistan as "Pakis" -- a term considered a grievous ethnic slur in Britain and Canada. The Pakistani ambassador to the US brushed the blooper aside, but it joins the ever-growing list of Bush malapropisms. Dubya Shoots From the Lip - The Times of India Did He Really Say That? - The Guardian (UK) Bush Meant No Disrespect - Reuters The Complete Bushisms - Slate Bushlexia - Bushwatch.com http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/capitol_beat.html#o… "A strong people do not need a government" Emiliano Zapata

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Paper tiger dollars days are numbered.
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1746000/1746535.stm Just as the initial euphoria from the introduction of notes and coins wears off, the euro has received a boost from news that China could be buying more euros to reduce its reliance on the dollar. "China has always thought the euro important," said the Chinese finance minister, Xiang Huaicheng, "and thinks that it will some day be on an equal footing with the US dollar." The hegemony of the running dogs of capital will soon see clearly that the east is red.American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in personal greed, simply cannot survive without force - without a secret police force.

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The liberation of Timothy C.May.
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

Black Funeral Directors Concerned Over Corporate Takeover By Michael Dabney Associated Press Writer Published: Jan 9, 2002 PHILADELPHIA (AP) - At one time, blacks turned to their own community when it came to the most critical times of life. They were often born at home with the help of black doctors or midwives, married in black churches, and buried by black undertakers, often in black cemeteries. Integration changed much of that, leaving two mainstays of the community: black churches and funeral homes. But some black funeral directors fear that this, too, is changing, with large, mostly white-run businesses buying out black-owned funeral homes. "Funeral homes is one of the last businesses African-Americans have," said Greg Burrell, owner of the Terry Funeral Home in West Philadelphia. The vast majority of blacks are still buried by black funeral directors, and few whites, unless they married into black families, are buried by blacks, industry officials said. "This business is still very segregated," said Sharon Seay, executive director of the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, an industry group that represents roughly 2,300 black funeral homes, or about 12 percent of the total. That is down from more than 2,500 some 10 years ago, a drop due in part to acquisitions. Lisa Tucker, a mortician at Yarborough & Rose Funeral Home and president of the Quaker State Funeral Directors Association, a coalition of black funeral directors in Pennsylvania, said corporate acquisitions threaten a way of life. "The African-American funeral home is passed down - it's a generational thing," Tucker said. Moreover, some independent owners say, the personal touch black funeral homes offer is lost when the larger companies move in. "Their focus is wrong," Burrell said. "Everyone is in business to make money, but with the conglomerate, it is the primary focus. They forget all about the families." The average black funeral home does between 500 and 1,000 funerals a year and, if sold, would fetch between $1 million and $2 million, Seay said. In most cases, the former owner and employees are kept on for several years to offer continuity. Most black owners sell because they are getting older and do not have a family member to take over, Tucker said. Seay's organization is urging owners to at least keep the businesses in the black community: "If you have to sell and want to sell, consider who you are selling it to." The nation's largest funeral home owner is Houston-based Service Corporation International, which owns roughly 7 percent of all the funeral homes in the country but conducts about 14 percent of the nation's burials. Currently, the company has halted its acquisition of small independent homes and is focusing on managing the 1,350 it has, said Terry Hemeyer, an SCI spokesman. "We look at the market and we look at which markets are growing," Hemeyer said. "We do not track statistics as to race. We don't have an African-American division of SCI. We don't do that." Loewen Group Inc. of Toronto has nearly 900 funeral homes and 318 cemeteries in North America and has scaled back it acquisition program. After years of aggressive acquisitions, Loewen is now trying to restructure in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. There are a number of small, but growing, black companies acquiring black-owned funeral homes. "We don't have a desire to run black businesses out of business," said Slivy Edmonds Cotton, president of Perpetua, a 4-year-old black company based in Tucson, Ariz. "We want to be an alternative." Applying sound business practices while still maintaining a personal touch is possible, she said. "They are not mutually exclusive," Cotton said. "Our goal is to have a balance.

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State dept. alternative APster trial.Proof of concept?
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

State Department Officer Charged With Attempted Murder The Associated Press Published: Jan 9, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - A veteran State Department foreign service officer has been charged with attempting to murder her friend's estranged husband. Police say Margery L. Landry, 48, broke into the house of Arlen Slobodow before dawn Monday wearing a black ski mask and armed with a gun. Slobodow was awakened when the intruder tried to push him off the bed, according to police records cited by The Washington Post. Landry fired two shots at Slobodow, striking him once in the leg. He then wrestled with Landry, ripping off her mask, police said. According to police reports, Landry is a close friend of Slobodow's estranged wife and godmother to his two sons. Police are investigating whether the shooting is connected to an alleged threat by Slobodow's wife, Elsa Newman, to hire someone to kill her husband and children if she couldn't have custody. Landry was charged with attempted murder, assault and burglary and was ordered held without bond. Slobodow is in stable condition in a hospital. Slobodow's children, a 5-year-old boy and an 8-year-old boy, were not injured, police said. As a result of Newman's alleged statements to her attorney in September, a judge granted Slobodow full custody of the children, and Newman was allowed a supervised visit every two weeks, court charging documents state. Police said they are trying to find Newman, who lives in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Md., for questioning. Prosecutors described the two women as close friends and former college roommates. Landry, who works in the State Department's Office of Children's Issues, and her husband, John, a civilian Army employee, are godparents to Slobodow and Newman's children. Henry Asbill, Landry's attorney, told the Post that his client should be presumed innocent. He argued during her bond hearing that she has no prior arrest or conviction. Landry works in the division at State that handles international parental child abduction and international adoption matters, an agency spokeswoman said. She said officials would follow the police investigation of Landry and have not made a decision on her employment.

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Tabs
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

Keeping Tabs >by Jaggi Singh January 7, 2002 An extreme rightwing Web page lists progressive, radical and cultural groups in Montreal and Quebec City, calling them enemies of our people and our race. The list includes addresses, telephone numbers and, in some cases, specific names. There are also photos of individuals and buildings. The content of the La Droite Nationaliste Website (Nationalist Right) is entirely in French. The site promotes itself as an information index and news source for the francophone, nationalist world. It boasts of referencing 265 sites. While the sites URL isnt always working, La Droite Nationaliste was up at the time this story was posted. If you have trouble getting it, try again later. The Website is updated regularly, and contains news and events information from all over the world, and links to many other far-right electronic bulletins and Websites. It is a well-maintained, comprehensive site. La Droite Nationaliste has an e-mail address and a post-office box in Anjou, a suburb on the island of Montreal. But this Web page also features open lists of cultural and left organizations from Montreal, Quebec City and elsewhere in Quebec. Montreal Translated, this section is called The anti-nationalist file: A small address book of anti-national organizations and publications in Montreal. The site explains that, With this little address book, we are able to denounce those who, in one way or another, block the full realization of our destiny. They are in fact the number one enemies. Here, there are over sixty groups listed with addresses, phone numbers and, in many cases, fax numbers and Web and e-mail addresses. (See La fillihre anti-nationaliste at the end of this article for a full list of these organizations and publications.) The addresses are divided into seven sections: Foreign and Non-European Communities Jewish Lobby, Zionist Lobby Pink Lobby, Homosexual Lobby Anarchist Organizations Anti-Racist Organizations Communist Organizations Institutions like the Jewish Public Library and the Musie du Fier Monde (a museum of working-class history in east-end Montreal), as well as publications like the Canadian Jewish News and Fugues (a gay and lesbian magazine) are included. So are cultural community groups self-defined as Black, Caribbean, Jamaican, Asian, Latin American, South Asian, Iranian, Haitian, Afro-Canadian, Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese, Palestinian and Jewish. A refugee support organization, Action Rifugiis Montrial, is also listed. The Pink Lobby, Homosexual Lobby includes gay help lines and discussion groups at Concordia and McGill universities. The description of the Association of Gay Fathers even specifies the address of the building in which its members regularly meet. The anti-racist section lists Anti-Racist Action (ARA), Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) and the Ligue des Droits et Libertis a very mainstream civil liberties organization. The anarchist and communist sections include some student organizations at colleges and universities. The leftwing student group, ASSI (Association pour une solidariti syndicale itudiante), receives special attention, with twenty individual activists being named (including, in most cases, their college-affiliation and course of study). Other groups mentioned include the CLAC (the Anti-Capitalist Convergence), the Comiti des sans-emploi (with some of their members specified), COBP (Citizens Opposed to Police Brutality) and various communist and socialist parties, as well as anarchist publications and collectives. The site also mentions a book publisher, Icosociitis, that produces many radical titles. Disturbingly, La Droite Nationaliste includes the photos and addresses of the Alternative Bookshop, an anarchist infoshop, as well as the headquarters of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Quebec (PMLQ). There are also photos of two unnamed members of SHARPs, a local rabbi, as well as me. Another person singled out for attention on the site is UQAM professor and anarchist Normand Baillargeon. His office location is specified. Extra, Extra The Website also includes so-called anarchist organizations in Quebec City, as well as groups in Granby and Drummondville. There are also several requests to e-mail information about more anti-national groups. A glance at the links and information on the Website provides a clear portrait of the fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-queer and anti-woman views that the site promotes. The links on the Quebec section include the MLNQ, an anti-choice group, the Holocaust denying Zundelsite, a variety of National Socialist groups as well as the Ku Klux Klan of Laval, just north of Montreal. Other sections on France, Belgium and Switzerland include predictable links to far-right parties (such as the Front National and MNR), anti-immigrant groups, as well as far-right music links. There is also a section devoted to the works of Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. There is an updated events section, with far-right events from France, Belgium, Great Britain and even the United States. The news section provides a clear example of the hatred promoted by this Website. An item from Zimbabwe refers to African savages. Another news item from Serbia positively reports on a brutal racist skinhead attack on Belgrades first Gay Pride parade. Referring to the cancellation of other parades and conferences by the gay and lesbian community due to the fear of attack, the Web page states approvingly: Direct action is sometimes more convincing than the words of politicians. La Droite Nationaliste shows a detailed interest in, and knowledge of, the activities of a variety of cultural and left groups in Quebec. It includes photos, telephone numbers and addresses, making it easier for rightwing extremists who are interested in participating in verbal and physical attacks, as well as harassment. Jaggi Singh is a writer and activist based in Montreal. His previous article for rabble news was A Speech Without the Speaker (November 6, 2001). http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?sh_itm=ff6f4e4410aa757490eabbdf6…

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Laura's Bush.A closer look at the 1st lady.
by mattd 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=115621&group=webcast "We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit."

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