At 1:32 PM 11/8/1996, jim bell wrote:
At 09:12 PM 11/7/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
...His conviction was not reversed until 1983 in the court of one Judge Patel...
However, the fact that it took 40 years to reverse (and didn't, presumably, reverse the convictions of others, and didn't compensate people for lost property) is yet another reason to take a few pieces out of the hide of the SC, as well as a few pounds of flesh nearest the heart.
Many of us are guilty of a grave disservice to Mr. Bell. I'm sure that just about every reader of this list can only cringe when messages such as the one above cross our screens. ("He can't be a paid provocateur - it would be too obvious!") Not only is Mr. Bell apparently calling for the murder of a judge, he is apparently calling for the murder of every justice on the Supreme Court of the United States! Now lots of folks are afraid that Mr. Bell's messages will be cited as evidence that the Cypherpunks are a terrorist organization. This does a grave disservice to Mr. Bell. What Mr. Bell is really doing, I think, is intentionally pushing the envelope of what is considered to be free speech and nobly placing himself in the front lines of cryptoanarchy. So long as Mr. Bell can continue to threaten the lives of our officials in the most public way without molestation, it is safe to say that the rest of us are not going to FBI summercamp. (Canaries play a similar role for miners.) Not only should we applaud his courage, but Mr. Bell's brilliance in inventing and executing this strategy cannot go unnoticed. Now, many of you have had some awfully hard words for Mr. Bell. I am sure we all regret them now that we fully understand Mr. Bell's formerly puzzling actions. I am going to have to ask you all to do something very hard - apologize. I will start: Thank you Jim Bell for your brilliant and courageous contribution to the Cypherpunks list! I am sorry I ever claimed it was otherwise. Peter Hendrickson ph@netcom.com "Stop and grieve at the tomb of the dead Kroisos, slain by wild Ares in the front rank of battle." - Attican cemetary monument, c. 540 B.C.