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IRS Prosecutes Outspoken Dissident: A Sierra Times Exclusive Report
by Matthew Gaylor 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

[Note from Matthew Gaylor: This is an article that appeared on J.J. Johnson's Web News Site Sierratimes. J.J. Johnson currently lives in Nevada and is married to the 1992 Libertarian Party VP candidate Nancy Lord Johnson, M.D. and attorney http://www.nancyjohnson.net/. Prior to that he lived in Columbus, OH (And a short stay in Atlanta) and was the media coordinator for the Unorganized Militia, a position he resigned from. He also co-founded the civil rights organization EPU http://www.epuohio.org/ . You can view a picture of JJ at http://www.sierratimes.com/welcomemat.htm Which is something to do, as he is not what you'd expect. I personally know both JJ and Nancy and have known JJ even before he became well known and before he developed more libertarian leanings. I can remember discussing the war on drugs with him a number of years ago, as he at the time favored the war on drugs. But anyone with a brain and exposed to the facts will come to the conclusion the WOD is a sham and harmful to American Liberty. According to Sierratimes the author's name of this article is being withheld for security reasons.] IRS Prosecutes Outspoken Dissident (Jim D. Bell Convicted on Two Counts) A Sierra Times Exclusive Report http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/apr/13/arst041301.htm SierraTimes 04.13.00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ James Dalton Bell may remind you of somebody you know. He's very bright, dresses and looks like a nerd and, most importantly, he dislikes the IRS. In that last respect, he is not in a minority. Where Jim Bell does fall into a minority is that instead of merely grumbling quietly, he decided to do something about it. And that's why he was just convicted in the Washington Federal District Court in Tacoma on Tuesday [4/10/2001]. Jim Bell has been a lifelong libertarian, ever since he was a teenager. Bell's view of government was that it was unnecessary. Is he an anarchist? Only, as he puts it, in the sense of "I believe in order; I do not believe in orders." He disparaged the huge hierarchies that have evolved in current bureaucracies, and believed that such hierarchies were unresponsive and dehumanizing. And, as Bell would personally learn, such a hierarchy creates two classes as outlined in George Orwell's Animal Farm: those who are part of the government hierarchy, and those who are not. Not Politics as Usual Jim Bell was disillusioned with the political system, as the majority of people were. Rather than wallow in discontent, in 1993 he started thinking of ways to change the system based on an article that he saw in Scientific American on blind signatures. (Blind signatures are a means of authenticating a document that do not reveal who the signer is, but verify that the signature is valid.) Bell started thinking about how cryptography and betting pools could be used to limit abuses by government officials. Over the next three years, Bell worked up his ideas into an essay that he jokingly entitled "Assassination Politics" . "Assassination Politics" or AP outlined a plan whereby people could use anonymous digital cash to bet on when a public official might die. The person who came closest to the time of death would be able to anonymously collect the money in the pool. Obviously, someone with inside knowledge about the official's death would be the most likely to collect, though that clearly wasn't guaranteed by the design. Bell originally believed that AP would be used to deal with "bad guys" like Saddam Hussein. He saw an assassination betting pool as superior to the results that the US obtained in Desert Storm: over 100,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, killed in bombing; another 250,000 civilian deaths from starvation and disease attributable to embargoes on medicine or destruction of sanitation systems. Most important, Saddam Hussein was still in power as firmly as ever. Bell saw AP as a way to deal with the problem without dragging many innocent civilians into a conflict, and forcing taxpayers to underwrite an 80 billion dollar "police action." Bell first published a draft of AP on Fidonet in 1995. Some months later, he published it to the internet. He kept improving the design of AP based on the discussion, some of it quite emotional, that his essay generated. Think Globally, Act Locally Bell, who lived in Vancouver, Washington-across the Columbia River from Portland, introduced his essay to a number of political groups there. The specific groups mentioned in his trial were the Multnomah County Common Law Court (CLC) and the Clark County Libertarian Party meetings. Bell frequently took diskettes of his essay and handed them out at meetings, hoping to engage people in discussions of his ideas. And it was during at least one of these meetings that he unwittingly ran into trouble. Bell also had other ideas about how to constrain government abuse besides AP. In the CLC meetings, he suggested that participants gather the names and home addresses of IRS agents and post them on the internet. He called this activity "Operation Locate IRS." Bell believed that if the home addresses of IRS agents were known, they would be considerably less likely to engage in the sort of abuses that have been well-documented in numerous forums. Not surprisingly, the IRS was not amused. One agent in particular, Jeff Gordon, started investigating Bell's writings and postings on the internet and concluded that Bell was a distinct danger to IRS agents. Gordon, a Special Agent for the Inspector General for Tax Administration, had the job responsibility of providing security to IRS agents and their families. He believed that Operation Locate IRS was a serious threat to the safety of IRS agents, and that it would inhibit the ability of the IRS to go about business as usual. Gordon sent an undercover agent wearing a wire to meetings of the CLC. Over a period of about four months, the agent ran into Bell only three times at the Common Law Court meetings, while the agent went to a couple of dozen meetings. The agent tried to get Bell to commit an illegal act-selling him a "pirate radio" FM transmitter, but Bell refused to do so, saying that it was illegal and that he wouldn't do it. Bell was not naïve about the presence of an agent at the Common Law Court. Before attending the Court for the first time-which he went to merely out of curiosity and "because it was at a pizza joint and he could never turn down a pizza"-Bell fashioned a field strength meter, which would alert him with a vibration when he came close to a transmitter. The device detected such a transmitter during the session at the Common Law Court. The agent-again wearing a wire--also visited Bell at a meeting of the Clark County Libertarian Party. (In the trial, Gordon denied that the IRS was trying to spy on constitutionally-protected political activities.) The Prankster Although the undercover agent was unable to entrap Bell into doing anything illegal, Bell gave the IRS the excuse that they needed to arrest him. During March, 1997, Bell dispersed mercaptan in an entry way to the IRS offices in downtown Portland. Mercaptan is harmless but very smelly. It is the additive that is put in otherwise odorless natural gas that gives the gas its distinctive odor. Mercaptan, a sulfur compound, is related to the chemical that makes rotten eggs or skunks smell bad, but is less corrosive and less toxic. Bell meant it as a clever prank, but again the IRS was not amused-especially since they had to close down the office for several days and neutralize the odor. IRS agents arrested him at his home on April 1, 1997, and charged him with obstructing the enforcement of IRS laws. Bell was also charged with using false Social Security numbers: an error, Bell claims, based on a simple mistaken transposition of two digits on a tax form. (One could wonder what the IRS does to dyslexics.) Most importantly, Bell's computers were seized at the time of arrest. The importance of this became more apparent in the recent trial. Bell went on trial in the fall of 1997. Bell's essay and political beliefs figured prominently in that trial, and in a plea bargain, he received over 30 months. In the plea bargain, he agreed to tell federal agents everything he knew about the chemicals he was working with, and to give the government his PGP keys and passphrase. IRS computer forensics specialists had been unable to read much of Bell's email, and the keys gave them a means to decrypt and read all email. The Plot Sickens Bell served approximately eleven months of the original sentence (including the time he was held before the trial and sentencing), then was released on probation. During his release, he resumed work on AP and Operation Locate IRS. Within a matter of days, his probation was revoked, and he was sent back to prison to serve out the remainder of the sentence. Bell was released in April, 2000. He soon became a presence on the cypherpunks mailing list. In various emails, Bell talked about the investigation that he had undertaken to find out who was behind people whom he believed had intimidated him into accepting an unfavorable plea agreement. Bell was specifically interested in one Ryan Thomas Lund, who had been convicted on charges of possessing methampetamines and illegal possession of a firearm. Bell said that Lund had assaulted him in prison before Bell's final sentencing hearing, telling Bell that "he had better accept the plea bargain terms or else." When Bell was released from prison in 2000, he obtained the criminal prosecution record of Lund from the Tacoma court. Listed in the case file as the agent in charge of the search of Lund's home at the time of his arrest was ATF agent Mike McNall. Bell believed, based on the fact that Lund, a multiple offender, who had received a much lighter sentence than what could be reasonably expected under federal sentencing guidelines, was acting as an informant for the ATF. Bell had seen several other indicators that Lund was an informant; this was confirmed by Lund's file. Bell surmised that McNall might know if Lund was an informant, and was keenly interested in finding out if the government had made a deal with Lund to intimidate Bell into accepting the government's offer. Bell said that he didn't want to contact McNall at his office in the Portland Federal Building because McNall was unlikely to speak candidly in that setting, but believed that he could get McNall to be more forthcoming if he was away from the office. To that end, Bell researched property records and the Oregon DMV databases for McNall's address. Bell also researched the databases for Gordon's home address as well. While "McNall" is an uncommon name in Oregon, Bell found numerous "Jeffrey Gordon" listings in the databases. Bell's reason for finding Gordon was different from that for finding McNall: Gordon had been very active in prosecuting the 1997 case, and Bell wanted to picket Gordon's home as a form of political protest. Bell set out to methodically investigate all of the possible addresses where ATF agent McNall and IRS agent Gordon might live. He found a former home of McNall's; and visited the home of an unrelated Jeffrey Gordon. Bell posted the results of his research to the cypherpunks list. Bell made a critically foolish mistake when he went to visit one of the Jeffrey Gordons. The Gordons were not at home, and Bell, by his own admission during the recent trial, took mail from their mailbox. He opened the mail, looked at the contents, then threw the mail away. He did not disclose this action until he was on the stand; even his attorney was caught by surprise. It was this particular mistake that bolstered the government's contention that Bell was not acting as an investigator, and it seriously impacted the jury's perception of Bell. In early November, 2000, federal agents executed a warrant to search Bell's home. They seized Bell's papers, three more computers (only one of which appeared to be used by Bell), and other items. While Bell and his parents were detained inside, an agent attached a GPS-enabled tracking device to Bell's car. The IRS tied in the signal from the tracking device to a computer system which had been programmed to alert Gordon when Bell left the area near his house. Agents were then able to watch Bell's movements as he visited a couple of addresses over the next 11 days. The addresses that Bell visited were not those of federal agents; however, Gordon stated in testimony that "Bell was getting close" to discovering the true address of at least one agent. Bell was arrested on November 17, 2000, and remained in prison until his trial. Déjà Vu Most of the events mentioned above were culled from the testimony at the trial. During the trial, the government prosecutor put on numerous witnesses who testified not only to Bell's meatspace activities, but concentrated particular focus on Bell's political beliefs. Most of the government witnesses were federal agents of one stripe or another, and most frequently brought up Bell's Assassination Politics essay. The government did not have a strong case based only on Bell's activities in 2000. There was very little evidence of intent to "injure or harass" as required by the federal statute that Bell was being charged under. Bell had failed to find any agents' homes, nor had he taken any clear steps to be a threat to such agents, such as arming himself or making direct threats. The existing evidence of intent is more likely to support Bell's insistence that he wanted to find out the truth. So the prosecution brought in evidence from Bell's activities in 1996 and 1997. Bell's attorney objected strenuously, pointing out that Bell had been tried and convicted on this evidence in 1997, and that the government was trying him twice. The prosecutor said that the evidence was necessary to prove Bell's intent. The 82-year-old judge, who at times appeared confused by the attorneys' legal arguments and who had at least once fallen asleep during the trial, allowed the introduction of the old evidence. The evidence clearly had an effect on the jury, which was obviously what the government prosecutor had been hoping for. Not only were Bell's old emails and his essay introduced into evidence; the prosecution introduced pictures of the firearms that Bell used to own prior to his arrest in 1997, which had not been in his possession since then. (They were in the possession of the IRS until October 31, 2000, when they were released to a friend of Bell's, who then stored them at the house of someone Bell didn't know. All evidence points to the fact that Bell never saw the firearms again after April 1, 1997.) The government also brought up the fact that Bell knew how to make such chemicals as Sarin, the chemical used by the Japanese cult Aum Shinriko in the Tokyo subway system in 1995. The prosecution implied that Bell was a terrorist on the order of Aum Shinriko, insinuating that Bell would release Sarin gas. It took two objections by Bell's attorney before the Judge disallowed such mention. By that time, however, the suggestion had been firmly implanted in the jurors' minds. Coupled with the pictures of Bell's former guns, old emails discussing AP and Operation Locate IRS, and the text of Assassination Politics, the prosecution was able to convince the jury that they were in the presence of a Really Scary Guy. Many of the emails came from Bell's computers that the IRS had seized in 1997 and still had in their possession; only now the IRS also had Bell's PGP passphrase and keys and could introduce previously encrypted email into evidence. Some Animals are More Equal than Others Bell, in his defense, stated that he had signed the LP oath that he would not initiate violence. And there was absolutely no direct evidence that he had ever initiated violence against anyone. People that he had come in contact with in his 2000 investigation characterized him as polite, and did not see him as threat. And Bell had obviously taken no discernible steps that would equip him to initiate violence. So what the government was left with was prosecuting a thought crime: intent. Because Bell had used his freedom of political speech to write such items as "Assassination Politics" and disclose IRS agents' home addresses, he obviously had to have the intent to harass federal agents. And the harassment was loosely construed. Any attempt to find one, to disclose any personal information about an agent can be made to fit federal law against "intention to harass or injure" an agent. Several times during the trial, the prosecutor made it clear that such an investigation was inappropriate and illegal merely on the basis that the subjects of such investigation were federal agents. Numerous times he cited the special privilege that agents hold that ordinary citizens don't possess. Federal agents are, indeed, a breed apart and must be specially protected, he insisted. While they could surveil and investigate ordinary citizens, it was illegal for ordinary citizens to do the same to them. Did the jury even detect this Orwellian Animal Farm argument? Probably not. This jury was selected mostly from outlying areas of Washington state; anyone who appeared to be young, more than marginally internet-aware, or who had been involved in an unpleasant encounter with the IRS was excluded from the jury. But it was not lost on this reporter, or on the reporter from Wired News, or the correspondent from 60 Minutes. The Verdict The jury deliberated for about three hours on the five-count indictment. After two hours, they gave a hint of what issues they were considering when they sent a note to the judge asking for a definition of "intent." The judge ruled that no definition would be provided, and that the jury would have to determine the definition from the instructions he had given. At the end of three hours, the jury sent a note to the judge that they had voted unanimously for a verdict of guilty on two of the counts, but that they were hung 11-1 on the other three counts. Because the jury actually announced the verdict on the note, which was part of the court record, the judge had to dismiss the other counts. The government asked the judge to dismiss them without prejudice, so that the government could refile the counts at a later date. The judge agreed to do so. Next on the Menu Sentencing for Bell has been set for July 6. The prosecution has not only hinted that they may refile for the three counts that had to be dismissed, but that they might also prosecute Bell for mail theft, and for perjury on the Financial Affidavit that he filled out to get a court-appointed attorney. One thing is clear: the IRS is interested in putting Bell away for espousing the ideas in Assassination Politics. At least twice during the trial, in a manner reminiscent of Stalin-era Soviet courts, the prosecutor pointedly remarked that Bell has failed to recant his AP essay. The lesson is obvious: writing or saying anything that the IRS finds threatening will make a person a target to be dealt with by almost any means possible. Beyond the Bell Case Considerable speculation has been taking place on and off the cypherpunks mailing list about who the next target of the government will be. Bell's case is not unique; in 1998, C.J. "Toto" Parker was convicted for threatening a judge and IRS agents. Just the publication of information that could even vaguely be construed as "personal" is enough to be considered threatening. The law that made stalking federal agents a crime will continue to be used with increasing frequency. The law, enacted in 1996 and amended in 2000, has already been upheld in the Fourth and Eighth Federal District. Stalking itself is defined based on the slippery slope of intention, not on action, which brings up the specter of an increasing number of Stalinesque thought-crime trials in the future. Complain about IRS treatment, go to jail. Mention an IRS agent by name, go to jail. Joke about the IRS, go to jail. Welcome to the new millennium, comrade. Author's name withheld for security reasons. All inquiries about this report may be submitted to editor@Sierra Times.com Permission to reprint/republish granted, as long as you include the name of our site, the author, and our URL. www.SierraTimes.com All Sierra Times news reports, and all editorials are © 2001 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SierraTimes.com A Subsidiary of J.J. Johnson Enterprises, Inc. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, 2175 Bayfield Drive, Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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Yahoo! frightened by email campaign
by George＠Orwellian.Org 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

Query Donna Rice: don't drink, don't smoke, what do ya do? goodie-goodie two-shoes ---- [snipped] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/14/technology/14YAHO.html April 14, 2001 After Complaints, Yahoo to Close Access to Pornographic Sites Faced with a flood of criticism from users, Yahoo, the vast Internet service, reversed a longstanding policy and said yesterday that it would remove a wide range of pornographic material from its site and make other such information harder to find. The company also said it was moving to restrict what it termed "inappropriate material" from home pages created by its members of its Geocities service. Yahoo said it would make it more difficult to use its popular search engine to find listings for pornographic Web sites. Yahoo's online shopping area had links to about 100 Internet stores selling pornographic videotapes and DVD's. As in all sections of Yahoo's shopping area, merchants pay a commission of 2 percent of their sales. To get to the adult area, users needed to verify that they were above 18 by entering a valid credit card number. Many of the e-mail messages complaining about Yahoo were prompted by a campaign by a coalition of anti- pornography groups led by the American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss., according to Donna Rice Hughes, an anti-pornography advocate and member of the coalition. Yesterday, Ms. Hughes praised Yahoo's move. "The good news is that after the backlash they received that they have chosen to reverse their decision to sell pornography," Ms. Hughes said. "But I would like to see them go further." She pointed to home pages and chat rooms that have pornographic information. Jeffery Douglas, the chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association of the pornography industry, called Yahoo's move an "overreaction." "There is nothing illegal, wrong or fattening about purchasing routine adult material made for and by consenting adults," he said. He said that the Internet was a particularly appropriate medium for the distribution of sexually related material as consumers risk neither offending nor being embarrassed by others who might otherwise observe, say, rentals of pornographic tapes in a local video store. "The Internet allows people to explore their own sexuality and their own fantasies without hurting or intruding on anyone," he said.

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Bush mindset on privacy
by George＠Orwellian.Org 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB987110910601888671.htm April 13, 2001 Bush's Medical-Privacy Act Is Part of a Wider Strategy [snip] More broadly, the Bush mindset on privacy could have significant consequences for a variety of businesses. For instance, in a little-noticed comment Mr. Bush made to ZDNet, an Internet news service, shortly before becoming president, he declared: "As president, I will prohibit genetic discrimin- ation, criminalize identity theft, and guarantee the privacy of medical and sensitive financial records. In addition, I will make it a criminal offense to sell a person's Social Security number without his or her express consent." This is bad news for companies that specialize in selling, obtaining, or trading personal data. Congress this year is expected to consider legislation that restricts sales of Social Security numbers. Also, lawmakers anticipate debating a host of Internet-related privacy matters, including new limits on unsolicited e-mails and new rules on data collected by Web sites. "Companies, before they use your or my information, must give you a buy-in, must seek your information in a positive way," Mr. Bush told The Wall Street Journal last year. Certainly his stand on medical-records privacy surprised and delighted consumer and privacy advocates. "We are greatly encouraged that we have cleared the first major hurdle," said Janlori Goldman, director of the Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University. But industry officials were dismayed. Scott Serota, president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, called the rules "an operational nightmare," and said that two years were too short a period for the industry to reach compliance. The American Hospital Association said it was "profoundly disappointed" by the president's decision. The Federation of American Hospitals said the rules, in their current form, were "unworkable." [snip]

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"THE #1 HOME BASE BUSINESS"
by 2387-453jsteven156＠aol.com 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

IF YOU ARE A SERIOUS ENTREPRENEUR AND WANT TO EARN BETWEEN $2000.00 AND $10000.00 MONTHLY FROM HOME, CALL 1-800-320-9895 EXT. 2051 FOR A POWERFUL RECORDED MESSAGE. This message is sent in compliance of the new e-mail bill: Section 301. Per Section 301. Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618 http://www.senate.gov/~murkowski/commercialemail/S771index.html This email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this email address affgroup(a)excite.com with the word "remove" in the subject line.

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some italians need killing
by Tim McVeigh 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

>Well, as a professional italian journalist (32 years in this job, so far), >I dare to define this message (and possible thread) pure information >terrorism and nasty disinformation. >Everybody in Italy will be able -now and in the future- to use the Internet >as ever. My friend Manlio Cammarata of "interlex.it" is a sharp guy and >must be read with the necessary precision, even if he is often >bitter-speaking and pessimistic (many italian intellectuals are when they >speak of their country). >BUT, as ever in Italy, nobody can be a professional journalist unless he >got a public title for. In "this" country -please or not- there are some >very specific laws on public press. A professional journalist must pass an >official and formal examination led by a national authority. some italians need killing

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John Walsh broadcasts "Most Wanted" sans underwear! (horrors!)
by George＠Orwellian.Org 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

Something I've never bought before - "Globe" 4/17/2001 - has compromising photos of John Walsh and another babe. "Caught! America's most perverted host" He's been married 29 years, but apparently his new fame (Wanted) has led him to keep mistresses and take pictures of them when he gets head! Alrighty! Yet another person claiming to be morally superior, exposed. Of course, he's shirtless in one photo, and holding up his tee shirt in another to flash his nipple (like a girl)! <snicker> When will they show Jeff Gordon fucking himself with his gun? <BANG> oops...one too many anal clenches. Next time you see Walsh covering one of the FBI's 10 most wanted, remember that he's not wearing any underwear - he's too sexy for that. ---- A magazine without an URL? I guess so. Found some interesting stuff at an unrelated globe.com. Articles are snipped. ---- http://www.globe.com/news/daily/13/indian_names.htm # # Civil rights panel urges end to Indian sports names at schools # # By Greg Toppo, Associated Press, 04/13/01 # # WASHINGTON -- Saying the use of Indian names and mascots may # violate anti-discrimination laws, the U.S. Commission on Civil # Rights called for an end to their use by non-Indian schools, # colleges and universities. # # The commission said Indian names and mascots could be viewed # as "disrespectful and offensive" by Indian groups and can create # "a racially hostile educational environment that may be # intimidating to Indian students." How about a fire-breathing Reno? ---- http://www.globe.com/news/daily/13/smiley.htm Creator of Smiley Face icon dies at 79 By Associated Press, 04/13/01 WORCESTER -- Harvey R. Ball, whose simple drawing of a smiling face on a yellow background became a cultural icon, died Thursday after a short illness. He was 79. Ball, who co-owned an advertising and public relations firm in Worcester, designed the Smiley Face in 1963 to boost the morale of workers in two recently merged insurance companies. Ball was paid $45 for his artwork by State Mutual Life Assurance Cos. of America -- now Allamerica -- in 1963. He never applied for a trademark or copyright, something his son, Charles Ball, said his father never regretted. "He was not a money-driven guy," Charles Ball told the Telegram and Gazette of Worcester. "He used to say, `Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time."' ---- http://www.globe.com/news/daily/13/bush_game.htm Bush virtual pet game popularity soars in China By D. Ian Hopper, Associated Press, 04/13/01 WASHINGTON -- In the aftermath of the downed U.S. spy plane, the Chinese apparently have found a new way to ridicule President Bush -- a virtual pet modeled after him. While the U.S.-made PortaBush software for handheld computers wasn't released with much fanfare last week, it became a big hit in China very quickly. The software's American designers noticed a huge traffic spike Thursday coming from China, at one point reaching about 2,000 downloads in an hour and threatening to overwhelm their servers. "About 80 percent of the downloads were coming from China," Eruptor Entertainment President Brad Foxhoven said Friday. "We just got too much traffic in such a short period of time that wasn't letting up." Released a week ago by Marina Del Ray, Calif.-based Eruptor Entertainment, the software toy is similar to the faded Tamagotchi craze. Players feed their PortaBush, keep him happy and help him make vital national decisions like whether to bomb teen singer Britney Spears.

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CNN.com - Bottom collapses in the U.S. handgun market - April 13, 2001
by Jim Choate 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/04/13/handgun.collapse.ap/index.html?s=7 -- ____________________________________________________________________ The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Free register of online company's profile
by info＠webb2e.com 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

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Free register of online company's profile
by info＠webb2e.com 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

How much are you paying to advertise your business to the world? Expose Your service to the world with bold register of online business profile. Sign up today! Introducing WebB2E.com -- your direct link to global information; source of business, products, education/research, social/culture, entertainment and travel... Additionally you can BUY, SELL or PROMOTE your products and services At www.webb2e.com <http://webb2e.com/promo1.asp> you'll get: --Message center (open to the public). --Employment center. --Sponsorship center. --Bulletin board (business and service issue). --Flexible Online Office (Business Online Report). --Economic news. --View thousands of trade leads. --Post business propositions. --Merchandise marketing (Vast advertising at a low cost). --World shopping center. .. and much more. Please visit www.webb2e.com <http://webb2e.com/promo1.asp> If you do not want to recieve any more e-mails from WebB2E.com and wish to be removed from e-mail list please click here <http://webb2e.net/remove.asp?email=cypherpunks@cyberpass.net> . Your email was made available to us publicly through this web page <http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.2 000.10.30-2000.11.05/msg00419.html+istac+cia&hl=en> .

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Re: The Theory of the corporation
by Ray Dillinger 13 Apr '01

13 Apr '01

On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, John Sheehy wrote: >On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, V. Alex Brennen wrote: > > >These barriers have gotten worse throughout history. In the 18th Century one >could challenge a "protection provider" through direct action with muskets >and little else. Today one needs significantly more resources (advanced >weaponry -- RPGs, SAMs, etc) to effectively challenge a 'protection >provider' through direct action. It's not so much about weaponry, I don't think. It's about organization and communication. Muskets, in the hands of people who actually know where to point them and when, are still just as effective against mafia (et al) as they have always been. But it has become far more difficult to keep track of where to point them and when -- partly as a result of advances in surveillance and the availability of information about people that is beyond their physical control, threats against an individual can originate from far more quarters and in far more ways than ever before. These days I don't think of physical weapons as the appropriate tools of the revolutionary. And face it; the "barriers to entry" are sufficiently large that they cannot practically be overcome on that score. If you go pointing guns at government types, or even mere mafiosi, then sooner or later you will die. Because of the immediate response to weapons, the only resources you will take down first are those defined as expendable - police officers, treasury agents, low-level legbreakers, whatever. These are resources that the organization can replace instantly and painlessly, and which will not cause it any real pain. But these organizations have hierarchies. Because they are not fully distributed, there are resources within each organization that serve a role or function, or have privelege, that is not the same as that of other resources. If you pick things that are extremely hard to replace, and things in the absence of which the system will not function, then a very few moves can cripple the organization. Sometimes such moves can be made with a musket, if one has sufficient intel. But just as often a pen or a camera or a tape recorder will do. >Ideally, governments need to be decoupled from geographical territories, so >that an individual has a freedom to exercise their right to choose the best >government no matter where she is located. You are not speaking of government-as-we-know-it. You are speaking of something which you envision that may replace government. Bear

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