At 1:28 AM 3/5/96, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote:

Timothy C. May wrote:

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The Red Brigade in Italy sought a fascist crackdown, and the "strategy of tension" is common. (And even revolutionists of crypto anarchist persuasion often think laws like the CDA are good in the long run, by undermining respect for authority and triggering more extreme reactions....)

It is important to note in this regard that the worst bombing in Italy was the Bologna station bombing, now decisively linked to right wing facist groups the involvment in which of ex-prime minister Adreotti is shortly to be examined in a criminal trial. The point being that the extreemists play into each others hands.

Yes, it is hard to know even which side is pulling the strings. The WW2 Italian fascist commando leader, Otto Skorzeny, not only rescued Mussolini from a ski chalet, he also helped set up the PLO in the 1960s, and consulted for the OSS, CIA, and such. (There is much more to say about this, and about the role of the early NSA in such affairs. However, continuing down this path will produce the inevitable perrygrams from the acerbic Mr. Metzger demanding "What does this have to [whatever my current interest is]?"))

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-- expect the various laws about "talking about explosives on the Net" to be used to clamp down on various fringe groups

Hang on here, some of those groups are actively conspiring to commit terrorist acts. If someone sends a message saying "lets plant a bomb under a federal building, that will show them" I'm not worried if the govt. decides to arrest a few people. There is a border between free speech and conspiracy to murder which some people have crossed.

I don't buy this. I said "talking about explosives on the Net," not openly conspiring to plant bombs in federal buildings. A big difference. (Not that I am aware of the OKC bombers discussing their plans on the Usenet.)

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I predict that it will take about 5 more major bombings in European and American cities to trigger substantive changes in laws.

Generally it takes two. The legislation is written after the first and then staled until being passed on the second.

I am sandbagging by saying "5." I wasn't referring to 5 in, say, the U.S., but to 5 or so "horrific" bombs in Western countries, plus Israel. A second Oklahoma City-type bombing may be enough, a Sarin attack that kills 1,000 will almost surely be enough. (In the bigger scheme of things, the 150-200 or so who died in OKC are a drop in the bucket, and I wouldn't advocate _any_ new surveillance laws for them...putting a day care center in a soft target demonstrates the callousness of the Feds.)

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Personally, while I feel sorry for the dead in Israel, I think anyone who moves to a small desert state surrounded on all sides by Arabs who want their land back is asking for trouble.

A point to consider is that there are many Isralis born in Israel who have no other home. These people did not ask to be born in the middle of a desert state. As with the Irish problem it is easy to solve if one could change the past. The fundamental problem being that the wrong side won at Hastings.

Let me use the language Bill Stewart used a while back, language which skirts the issue of "right" and "wrong" even more neatly than I did (when I said the Jews were "asking for trouble"): "If a religious group uses force to expel the current occupants of a desert region, and expels them to just beyond their borders, it is "unsurprising" that those expelled, and their children, and their children's children, will swear a blood oath to drive the group into the sea." Put another way, I will not be "surprised" to wake up one morning and hear on CNN that Tel Aviv has been vaporized in a nuclear explosion. Nor will I be surprised to similarly learn that Damascus has been vaporized, and so on. Being an atheist, I treat all religious mystics as suspect. When a bunch of people leave London and Chicago and Paris to live in the desert, surrounded by sworn enemies with nuclear capabilities, I think whatever happens to them is...."unsurprising." I hope this makes my outlook clearer. (And Cypherpunks should fully understand that information-trading systems and unbreakably encryption--the very technologies we so ardently are pushing--make certain actions even less "surprising" than might otherwise be the case. Think of it as evolution in action.) --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."