The cypherpunks list has become a popular tourist destination in the last two years for voyeuristic Feds in Washington and Oregon. This monitoring has been less cyber-stalking of the chargeable sort, and more a kind of spectator sport, something to chat about with fellow TIGTAians at the water cooler, and maybe launch some investigations every now and then. We all know that, from his own testimony, a pudgyfaced Jeff Gordon has become enraptured by the cypherpunks list. We know from exhibits that he subscribes to the list from apparently a Hotmail account, but the relevant headers were redacted so we don't know which one. We also know that Gordon & co infiltrated the common law court and Libertarian Party and monitored the "northwest libertarians" mailing list. Anyone attending the first Seattle-area cypherpunk meeting next week may want to check for Gordonian bodywires. The real surprise is not that investigator-stalkee Gordon has extended his arguably unethical pursuit of Bell and cypherpunks, but that other area Feds have joined the fun. For instance, Assistant U.S. Attorney Floyd Short teaches a course on cybercrime at the University of Washington law school on Thursdays, and has reportedly made the cypherpunks list a part of his class. Short has also spoken about the cypherpunks list and its relation to online lawlessness during at least two speeches, I'm told. The cypherpunks list, in other words, is a staple of law classes not because of participants' views about privacy -- but because of the number of their number who are now serving time. One assistant U.S. Marshal in charge of moving Jim Bell from the downstairs holding pen to the courtroom confessed to me yesterday that he's a cypherpunks fan. Not in the ending-the-nation-state-through-crypto sense, but he finds the list interesting enough to read on a daily basis through the inet-one archive site. He was puzzled about why it's been down; the speculation seems to be that it's related to cyberpass' problems. He told me he's been a list reader for about two years. Someone could make a tidy profit by compiling a complete cypherpunks archive and selling it to the Feds on CD-ROM for use in prosecutions. Note that if Bell had not posted under his real name to cypherpunks during his investigation of federal agents last year, he would not be facing perhaps five more years in prison. The government buttressed its case against Bell by using each message that could conceivably be relevant as structural support for its Good Society vs. Internet tale to the jury. Email to the cypherpunks list appears dozens of times in the government's pretrial list of exhibits. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robb London led the jury on a post-rich digression about plausible deniability that included posts from occasional participants like Michael Froomkin and Black Unicorn. London argued that Bell's investigation gave him plausible deniability for stalking. During closing arguments yesterday, London brought it up once more: "Let's talk about plausible deniability. It's a whole big part of what the cypherpunks are into." You'll recall that London and Gordon were involved in the prior prosecution of Carl Johnson, another cypherpunk regular. Perhaps the Feds are frustrated since during their obsessive-compulsive cyphersurveillance, they can only listen and not post in response to windy rants about the perils of big government. At least not under their real names. The Tacoma courtroom is a sterile place, kind of Singapore-meets-the-Bastille. Not helping the atmosphere is the half-dozen agents, some armed, who populated the audience benches during the Bell trial. In addition to two reporters, only one non-Fed observer showed up every day; she took notes and posted them to the cypherpunks list. When this unnamed 'punk introduced herself to Bell's parents after a week of being anonymous, all the Feds' heads swivelled to hear what her name was. Like the old-media types they are -- London says he's a former legal reporter for The New York Times -- the Feds hardly appreciated online reports from the trial by John Young and that anonymous local cypherpunk. London, whose courtroom demeanor veers between snide and surly, griped loudly during a recess last week about "glorified stenographers" taking up space in the courtroom. The six bodyguards offered up appropriate nasty glares. But Gordon seems to be the true antipunk. (London has indicated he didn't want to prosecute this case, and missed out on a more high-profile one because of it.) After the jury delivered their partial verdict, Gordon leaned over from his seat at counsel table and asked London to seal the court records. London dutifully requested that U.S. District Judge Jack Tanner seal any information or exhibit or transcript that included home addresses of alleged stalkees. Now, those data are arguably key to the government's case against Bell -- did he drive to this address or not? -- and were discussed at great length in open court. Tanner denied the motion, and Gordon wasn't happy. You can be sure that Tanner has learned all about the "TannerWatch" website, and is hardly amused by it. You can also bet that some unnamed agent will be watching who asks for copies of the court file -- they seem to fear that some local 'punk will try to obtain Bell's diary, which was introduced as evidence and seems to include not just inaccurate home address of government agents, but accurate ones as well. Watch for more investigations here -- apparently court information does not want to be free. Anyone know if that grand jury meeting in the Seattle federal courthouse is still in session? It would be interesting to find out why local papers didn't cover the trial, even after some residents repeatedly suggested they do so. The only other reporter there besides your humble correspondent was a Washington, DC correspondent one from 60 Minutes. Other reporters from local newspapers had covered unremarkable pre-trial hearings at great length, but failed to cover a fairly unusual trial. I'm told they didn't want to have to fight subpoenas. As a former journalist himself, London probably knew exactly how to handle them -- and avoid potentially unfavorable press coverage. Government prosecutors now appear to qualify as technical experts on the cypherpunk phenom, having scrutinized listmember behavior as ants under lenses. London told the jury yesterday that "the one unifying theme that defines someone as a cypherpunk on the Internet is the ability to encrypt mail." One could say the same thing about a NAI marketing flack, but that wouldn't be as quotable. It's all so sad and predictable and sad again. The cypherpunks list had its glory days: Wired magazine cover stories, blossoming technology, and, yes, even those damnable tentacles. Now it's become a convenient way for the Feds to land convictions. -Declan Washington, DC April 11, 2001 Background: http://www.cluebot.com/search.pl?topic=ap-politics http://www.mccullagh.org/subpoena/ This article is at: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/11/238254