At 11:30 AM -0800 5/20/97, Eric Murray wrote:
The _IRS_ can arrest people for 'scheming to overthrow the U.S. government' !?
I thought that was the FBIs job. I'm sure they'd have wanted to be in on it if he was as big a terrorist as they're making him out to be. Maybe the FBI that the bulk of the charges are bogus and wanted nothing to do with them, but the IRS went ahead anyhow to harass him and to justify their earlier search. Food for thought and grounds for further research...
Maybe now Eric you'll understand why I'm so angry. Maybe you'll even stop complaining that the list is not talking about pseudoelliptic primes and other such techno-crippie jive and is instead talking about using strong crypto as the weapon of destruction is most assuredly is. (I was there at the very beginning of Cypherpunks and can assure you that it was _NOT_ created in a political or policy vacuum as just some other forum for sci.crypt discussions, despite what some have claimed. It was about the use of strong crypto, anonymous payment systems, data havens, remailers, and other such Cypherpunkish tools to ensure personal liberty, freedom from mob rule, avoidance of taxation, liberation from moral do-gooders, undermining of democracies run amok, and destruction of fascist and statist infrastructures.) I saw your comment yesterday about how "You used to be someone whos postings I read and words I listened to, because you seemed to make sense. However the last few months you have been talking of little except way-illegal actions, armed resistance, etc. which IMHO is not yet called for and which is not shared by the majority of the list." I've never claimed my views are "shared by the majority of the list" (though they might be, at the core). I write what I want to write, not what I think the "shared" views of the list are. You are, of course, free to write your own stuff, or leave the list, or whatever. If, as you claim, I am perceived by some (who?) as the "leader of the Cypherpunks," perhaps this has something to do with the precise points I have been making for the past several years. (Hint: take a look at what's been in my .sig for so many years and notice how closely it matches the things you claim do not represent the shared values of the list, whatever you think those might be.) As to why I don't write "reasonable" essays as much anymore...I wrote "reasonable" essays, many hundreds of them, for several years. (Though if you read the 1992-94 archives you'll find plenty of angry articles from me and from many others.) The vise is tightening. A dozen or more repressive pieces of legislation are working their way through a compliant Congress, with a get-along-by-going-along cadre of "cyber rights" organizations helping to "work the system." The US government is freaking out. Freaking out and lashing out. And the courts are no longer willing or able to rein in the excesses. The cancer that is Washington has metastasized throughout the body. Only radical therapy--radiation therapy? :-} --will work now. The time for "reasonable" essays has long passed. They only understand stronger measures. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."