On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Duncan Frissell wrote:
So what're the sentencing guidelines for harassment of federal officials?
I hope James will argue that he was gathering addresses so that he could picket them (which is legal). Petition the government for redress of grievances...
I know James gets carried away with rhetoric. It' better to say things in such a way that you are immune to prosecution. You can say and do pretty much the same things. It's all in the words.
I have just read his paper on Assassination Politics, at http://www.jya.com/ap.htm. It seems to me that he has a not-very-realistic view of how laws are interpreted in courts, and no understanding at all that governments will make new laws or amend old ones as needed to cover new situations. Basically, assassination is illegal, and the courts will interpret the law in whatever way they need to in order to stop assassinations from happening. There may be technical arguments against specific "Misprision of Felony" and "conspiracy to commit murder" laws, but if AP results in killings being performed and killers getting paid, a court cannot possibly return a verdict that permits AP to continue. The choices are therefore "guilty" and "stop it now." I'd put heavy money on "Guilty", myself. Even if they couldn't find a specific law to charge the operator of an AP server with, or couldn't get a conviction on the laws they'd charged him/her with, they would doubtless issue a court order commanding the operators of the server to cease and desist. Also, if they couldn't get a conviction according to the law in any particular state on any particular date, the state would instantly follow up the court order by either passing a specific law against it or amending the wording of their existing "conspiracy to commit" law or "Misprision of Felony" laws. In light of his position that AP is legal and his assumption that, if found so, it could possibly remain so for more than a few hours, I'd have to doubt that he's sufficiently aware of how the law works to make the reasonable argument that you suggest. Unless, of course, it happens to be true. Bear