Professor fights like a cornered rat...AP trial 3?...can this be the end of RICO. Previously unpublished by macedon ranges gaurdian 11:11pm Fri Oct 26 '01 A dead tree story that has just been collated.Relevance is the seizing by police of citizens laptop and holding for nearly 5 months without charges presented. M1 PROTESTER GIVEN BAIL-BUT OTHER POLICE INTERESTED A Kyneton man involved in the recent M1 protest in melb.has been accused of promoting what is reffered to as 'assasination politics',and is said to have come to the notice of the United States Secret Service and the Australian Federal Police. Assasination politics,according to the police,is the practice of nominating a person for assasination,inviting the general public to contribute money to a bank account and funding the assasination with the proceeds. Police charged Matthew Stephen Taylor last Friday over the vandelism of a McDonalds fast food outlet during the anti-globalisation protest on may 1. Charges are also pending against Taylor in relation to his alleged Internet activities. On Monday Taylor,46 of Baynton st,Kyneton applied for bail at Kyneton Magistrates Court.Taylor faced two counts of criminal damage and three counts of acting in a manner prejudicial to the good order of a police jail. As Taylor was led into court,he protested his innocence and described Bendigo remand where he had spent the weekend as a 'hell hole'Inside the court he adressed Magistrate William Gibb as "Your Highness" He told Mr Gibb he disagreed with his position on drugs and compared it with the 1930s prohibition on alcohol.He was reffering to the previous defendant who appeared on drug related charges. Taylor was supported in court by his father,Ken Taylor,a Mount Macedon poet who was recently awarded the Kenneth Slessor Prize for poetry at the New South Wales Premiers Awards. Prosecutor,Senior Constable Martin Holland said Taylors application for bail was not opposed but he asked Mr Gibb to impose six conditions. The first condition was "not to post threatening text on the internet toward any person whether located in Australia or elsewhere in the world" Sen.Const Holland said Taylor had made threats on the internet and a computor from Taylors Kyneton adress had been seized and conveyed to Melbourne for examination. Sen.Cons.Holland defended the wording of the first condition by saying it was not a blanket ban on all internet useage. The second condition prohibited Taylor from participating in assasination politicsThe third condition was not to engage any other person in the first two things. The remaining conditions included a prohibition on Taylor participating in Melbourne demonstrations. Sen.Const.Holland said police had been watching Taylors activities on the website www.indymedia.org with some interest.He said anyone could download information onto the site.He said Taylor was known on the site as the 'nutty proffessor'and had posted a message on the site to chief commissioner of victoria Police,Christine Nixon.Sen.Const. Holland said the message stated that "...should you persist with this folly one of your number will be selected for retirement,i.e.execution." The prosecution called Senior Constable Nicholas Conte who said he had investigated video and photographic footage from the May 1 protest,including video footage of Taylor in an interview with Herald Sun journalist Peter Mickleburough.In it Sen.Conts.Conte said Taylor reffered to himself as "Robin Banks."He said the name was on the indymedia website and was traced back to Taylors adress by the computor Crime Unit. He explained the concept of assasination politics to the court and said he believed it originated in the United States where a man named Bell is currently under sentence in relation to it.He said based on comments Taylor had made on the internet he believed the defendant was advertising and trying to gain support for assasination politics. "He doesnt make any qualms about that."Sen.Const.Conte said. Asked by Mr Gibb what the reality of all this was,Sen.Const.Conte replied that he could not gauge the reality,he could only look at the probability. Under cross-examination from defense solicitor,Mr Cameron Ford,Sen.Const.Conte conceded he did not know if assasination politics had ever resulted in an assasination or attempted assasination.He said the investigation was continuing,with the Computor Crime Squad yet to look at the content of Taylor's computor files. Sen.Const.Holland said Taylors activities had attracted the attention of the US Secret Service and Australian Federal police. Mr Gibb said he did not doubt it,but expressed reservations about the conditions proposed for Taylor's bail. "It just seems to be a nonsense.Im being asked to impose all these conditions that bare no relevance to the charges,"he said. Mr Ford said the internet was something Taylor lives on and spends a great deal of time on. "He would agree to not post threatening text on the internet,but that was as far as he was prepared to go,"he said. Mr Gibb released Taylor on bail with the condition that he not post threatening text on the internet and continue to reside at his adress in Baynton street,Kyneton.Taylor was bailed to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates Court on August 16. update... A recent article by keith suter in the age suggested that money could be offered for osama bin laden,dead or alive.(It already is for information by the US and private bounties are being raised. Tail of article... In short, does the US have an exit strategy? Here is an alternative grand strategy that Bush could have adopted. Assuming that bin Laden were guilty, then the US could have said, first, that it would not attack Afghanistan because it had suffered enough from the Soviet invasion, civil war, drought and now the Taliban (about a quarter of the world's refugees are Afghans). On the contrary, the US would now help to rebuild the country with massive amounts of foreign aid. And second, the US could have offered a massive reward (say $US500 million - the equivalent of the cost of half a B-1 bomber) for bin Laden dead or alive. That sum of money would attract groups like the Russian mafia to work with Afghans to do the operation. Indeed, with that sum of money some of the Taliban might find the reward very attractive themselves. Dr Keith Suter is senior fellow with Global Business Network Australia I put this here because I want to warn keith, who is based in sydney that I may need to subpoena him soon. Nearly 5 months ago police took my laptop and said that I was advocating 'assasination politics'where money is offered to have people killed.I was working as an entertainment journalist at the time.I recently applied to have the laptop returned.The police recently stated that they are still examining the computer.I believe in the equality of all beneath the rule of law. matt aka proffr1@nospamfuckmicrosoft.com