CDR: Jim Bell arrested, documents online
Check out the affidavit/complaint at: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/21/1944238 Background documents: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/101218 Wired News article on arrest: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40300,00.html -Declan
At 01:36 PM 11/21/00 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote:
Check out the affidavit/complaint at: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/21/1944238
Background documents: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/101218
Wired News article on arrest: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40300,00.html
-Declan
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. DCF ---- Mods vs. Trads. Mods are much less likely than Trads to form lasting family relationships, they kill themselves and others much more frequently, they suffer more from drug and substance abuse, they are more prone to disease, they even have a higher accident rate, they have lower family incomes, their MMPIs are much more jagged, their life expectancy is shorter, and they score lower on tests designed to show levels of personal happiness or satisfaction. Sounds like a maladaption to me.
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
On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Ray Dillinger wrote:
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.
From what I gather from the document, the Jim's presentation seems only to chart the current situation, be based on the assumption that police state tactics aren't employed (of course they are, one very real use of AP as a theory is to highlight that it is impossible to both have civil rights *and* control people by force simultaneously after sufficiently strong and error resilient anonymity has arrived) and most of all, the wording suggests that Jim, very wisely, was trying to cover his butt. Not surprisingly, and precisely as you say, the Men with Guns do not seem to care.
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.
Yep. That's probably one side of the whole argument: if you try to control people by force when they have strong anonymity available, they'll have very efficient means of resisting the control. Short of really dumping every civil right there is and putting up a Big Brother effort Orwell himself couldn't envision there is very little that can be done. Hence, the only way to reconsile anonymity with a fair state monopoly on violence is to minimize the state and the violence it exerts. This neatly sums up both AP and most cypherpunkish ideas on cryptoanarchy and libertarianism. Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
At 08:31 PM 11/21/00 -0500, Ray Dillinger wrote:
I have just read his paper on Assassination Politics, at
Basically, assassination is illegal, and the courts will interpret the law in whatever way they need to in order to stop assassinations from happening.
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.
Correct, except that you haven't grasped that it will be impossible to trace anything to anyone. To see this, you need to imagine truly anonymous payment schemes and truly anonymous information publishing. [The latter tech exists, the former has to deal with interfacing with the US dominated financial web, and exchanging ecredits for meatthings. Meat being succeptible to guns & cruise missiles, of course.] Bell's observation is simply: if you have these two (cash & freedom of speech), look at what one could build. And the social implications thereof.
At 12:17 PM -0500 11/22/00, David Honig wrote:
At 08:31 PM 11/21/00 -0500, Ray Dillinger wrote:
I have just read his paper on Assassination Politics, at
Basically, assassination is illegal, and the courts will interpret the law in whatever way they need to in order to stop assassinations from happening.
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.
Correct, except that you haven't grasped that it will be impossible to trace anything to anyone.
Yeah, it's disappointing to read comments like: "I have just read his paper on Assassination Politics, at http://www.jya.com/ap.htm. " (from Ray Dillinger) Our mailing list has now dwindled down to a handful of active posters. (Many drawn off by the siren call of "no politics" on other lists...until those lists start talking about politics, as cross-posts are showing!) Folks should be "up to speed" on the "classics" before expounding. As to the specifics of Bell's case, I find that those who comment too much get invited by the cops and narcs to come and help their cases in court. So I avoid commenting. Anything I have said to Bell is not directly traceable to me. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
At 08:31 PM 11/21/00 -0500, Ray Dillinger wrote:
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.
Correct, except that you haven't grasped that it will be impossible to trace anything to anyone.
*Except* the hosting server. Legal "whack-a-mole" games will commence soon after discovery. (Or they will just yank the entries out of the root DNS servers or screw with the routing tables on the backbone.)
To see this, you need to imagine truly anonymous payment schemes and truly anonymous information publishing. [The latter tech exists, the former has to deal with interfacing with the US dominated financial web, and exchanging ecredits for meatthings. Meat being succeptible to guns & cruise missiles, of course.]
The host of the site is the only one with his ass left hanging out.
Bell's observation is simply: if you have these two (cash & freedom of speech), look at what one could build. And the social implications thereof.
I disagree. I don't believe Jim really was willing to consider the social implications of his scheme. He seemed to think that the only target of this would be the government. I think that there would be a much bigger field of targets than that. Think about it. If you had the chance to have people killed without any posibility of capture, who would it be? I think that there are more people out there who would go after Bill Gates or John Tesh than there would for various little known public officials. (This could be a case where fame could have an even bigger downside. About six feet down.) One of the reasons that this country is so fucked up is that few pay attention to what their leaders actually do. You tell them about laws that are already on the books and they don't believe you. They still buy into the myth that America is the "Freest Country in the World(tm)". The people they do hate, however, are those that annoy them. In-laws, bad TV celebs, evil software moguls, etc. And what about those people who have lots of money and little or no personal ethics? Say that you have a company whos rival has a bunch of engineers that you want. They won't work for you, so you have them done in. (Or maybe the prosecutors in a big anti-trust trial.) Free and open assassination markets are a messy thing. True, some good would come out of them. A whole bunch of bad would come out of them as well. Just because you can do something, does not mean that you should. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
At 3:11 PM -0500 11/22/00, Alan Olsen wrote:
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
At 08:31 PM 11/21/00 -0500, Ray Dillinger wrote:
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.
Correct, except that you haven't grasped that it will be impossible to trace anything to anyone.
*Except* the hosting server. Legal "whack-a-mole" games will commence soon after discovery. (Or they will just yank the entries out of the root DNS servers or screw with the routing tables on the backbone.)
My comments will be about _any_ controversial server (*), not just an "AP server." (* There is no need for a "server" in most cases, as we shall see.) Someone offering some prize, or some payoff, or some lottery, need not be in an identifiable, traceable location. Payoffs are based on reputation, ultimately. As we have seen in the debate about meatspace identity, having someone's true name and location is only ONE FACET of increasing belief or confidence. Put simply, some people will have more faith that they can collect from "the Controversial Practice Server" (substitute AP as desired) if they can find a DNS number and physical address for the CP Server. But this increased faith is both illusory and unneeded. Once decoupled from a DNS or address, and motivated by reputation, expectation, and other Bayesian issues, then the CP Server can itself post anonymously. This is why I architected BlackNet as I did, back in 1993. No traceability, and Usenet and other such fora would have to be shut down to block it.
To see this, you need to imagine truly anonymous payment schemes and truly anonymous information publishing. [The latter tech exists, the former has to deal with interfacing with the US dominated financial web, and exchanging ecredits for meatthings. Meat being succeptible to guns & cruise missiles, of course.]
The host of the site is the only one with his ass left hanging out.
There is no need to have any such site. Think Mojo. Think BlackNet. Think peer-to-peer.
I disagree. I don't believe Jim really was willing to consider the social implications of his scheme.
He seemed to think that the only target of this would be the government.
I think that there would be a much bigger field of targets than that.
Think about it. If you had the chance to have people killed without any posibility of capture, who would it be?
I agree. I said as much at the time Jim first came to us with his "wonderful idea." (He came to our list after being referred to it, and to my work on untraceable assassinations, by Hal Finney. When Jim first arrived, circa 1994-5, IIRC, he really didn't know much if anything about untraceable digital cash. He later wove this into his basic core ideas for AP.) I fully agree that once untraceable payments may be made reliably that the targets will be picked more directly. I said this quite clearly in my "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," published on the Net in 1988. This was fully obvious to me even earlier than this, and apparently obvious to others soon after hearing enough details of how Chaum's protocols worked. The late Phil Salin and I met with Chaum sometime around late 1988 and it was clear he understood the implications, but had chosen not to focus on these political implications. I believe our discussions with him _may_ have been some factor in his increasing movement away from 2-way untraceability and towards his later favored scheme of "Joe Sixpack" being untraceable/anonymous to Fred Merchant, but not vice versa. Of course, in a distributed ("geodesic"--RAH) system of buyers and sellers, there is no particular distinction between buyers and sellers: all are traders. And Chaum was NOT thinking clearly about why even a _seller_ might "legitimately" want untraceability: a seller of birth control information, for example. Absent "seller anonymity," such a seller could face sting operations by Saudi Arabian cops. Witness the controversy over sellers of "Nazi artifacts," pace Yahoo and France.
Free and open assassination markets are a messy thing. True, some good would come out of them. A whole bunch of bad would come out of them as well.
Just because you can do something, does not mean that you should.
Indeed. And neither you nor I are likely to operate or participate in such markets. But some people already DO participate in assassination markets. Happens every day. Some are caught, some are not. Governments are active players in this market, by the way. Strong crypto will make the liquidation market...more liquid. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote:
[Snip on a service provider's butt hanging out...]
Someone offering some prize, or some payoff, or some lottery, need not be in an identifiable, traceable location.
Somehow it seemed to me that this was all about a big brother type of state, where provision of anonymity services would hardly go unpunished. Bear argued, more or less, that if AP should ever come true, the courts would let the end justify the means. The viewpoint is not entirely consistent with the assumptions behind AP.
Once decoupled from a DNS or address, and motivated by reputation, expectation, and other Bayesian issues, then the CP Server can itself post anonymously.
If anonymity is available. AP assumes that. I'm not entirely sure Bear did.
The host of the site is the only one with his ass left hanging out.
There is no need to have any such site. Think Mojo. Think BlackNet. Think peer-to-peer.
Multiple hosts. What's the difference besides the number of Men needed to take them *all* down? Of course, given anonymity, everything you say makes perfect sense. Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
Alan Olsen wrote:
I disagree. I don't believe Jim really was willing to consider the social implications of his scheme.
The implications are that in a society where the government has not made personal privacy and private communication illegal, you can't be an asshole to countless millions of people without winding up with a price on your head. This seems to be a natural example of the doctrine that people who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. Clearly, the remedy here is for people in power to not act like assholes, rather than to make personal privacy and private communication illegal, as governments seem wont to do.
He seemed to think that the only target of this would be the government.
I think this is a reasonable observation. You really have to be acting under color of authority to strongly alienate enough people, who have so litle recourse against you, that millions will bet a buck on your continued good health in the hopes that an anonymous assassin will prove them wrong and collect the pot.
Think about it. If you had the chance to have people killed without any posibility of capture, who would it be?
I can't think of anyone I would have killed. My personal moral system is such that I only think it is reasonable to kill someone if they pose an immediate danger of death or serious injury to oneself, or someone one is obligated to protect, and retreat is impossible. However, I recognize that the world contains many people with different ethical codes, and if they want to issue a Fatwah at the drop of a hat, that is their business and not mine.
I think that there are more people out there who would go after Bill Gates or John Tesh than there would for various little known public officials. (This could be a case where fame could have an even bigger downside. About six feet down.)
Oh come now. You have real recourse against Bill Gates and John Tesh short of killing them. Bill Gates and John Tesh don't claim they have God's authority to kill you if you don't do what they say. They don't order your house raided, and your children terrorized at gunpoint. They don't force you to choose between going to prison or going to war. They don't accuse you of treason and try to have you executed if you tell their dirty little secrets. I don't think Bill Gates and John Tesh have a thing to worry about from AP. Janet Reno, on the other hand... :)
One of the reasons that this country is so fucked up is that few pay attention to what their leaders actually do. You tell them about laws that are already on the books and they don't believe you. They still buy into the myth that America is the "Freest Country in the World(tm)".
Well, as ts elliot once observed, what we need is a system so perfect that it does not require that people be good. Any government that requires me to pay attention to what it does, in order to function efficiently, is a lost cause. I mean, I don't have to pay attention to Federal Express for it to perform well. McDonalds manages to make burgers without my participation. I am not mailed a ballot to choose the President of Domino's, and then told that everything is my fault if the guy screws up, or that I have no right to criticize roaches in the pizza if I didn't exercise my right to vote.
And what about those people who have lots of money and little or no personal ethics? Say that you have a company whos rival has a bunch of engineers that you want. They won't work for you, so you have them done in. (Or maybe the prosecutors in a big anti-trust trial.)
People can hire hit men to do such things now. I don't see piles of dead engineers all over silicon valley. There are only two classes of people the typical person would pay money to see dead. Relatives who piss them off, and government officials who have dishonestly cost them everything they have, and are untouchable because they are operating under color of authority. People hire people to kill their shrewish wives, and to kill witnesses who have put them in prison for 150 years by lying. Disputes with employees, and displeasure over Windows needing frequent rebooting, really don't rise to this level of visceral discontent.
Just because you can do something, does not mean that you should.
Unlike episodes of "Columbo," very few murders that involve any careful planning are ever solved, and then only if someone rats out the perp. AP would permit vast numbers of strangers to financially support the misfortune of a despised individual, just as small numbers of wealthy non-strangers might decide to do now. It is extremely unlikely it is going to change in the least the "who" or "why" of contract killing. I really don't think everyone is going to start murdering their bosses, their landlords, or their local prosecutor. Which is why the government's overreaction to Jim Bell's speculative essay on ways of combatting tyranny is so telling. "If it doesn't apply to you..." They keep on proving day after day that it applies to them. :) -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
Oh come now. You have real recourse against Bill Gates and John Tesh
Bill Gates is a questionable case, but there is no doubt that John Tesh should die.
It is extremely unlikely it is going to change in the least the "who" or "why" of contract killing. I really don't think everyone is going to start murdering their bosses, their landlords, or their local prosecutor.
Most people just aren't vicious enough to want to *really* kill someone. Most. Case in point: There are some 80 million gun owners in this country. Some 250+ million guns. Yesterday 79,999,900+ of those gun owners killed no one. It really is only the mentally disturbed that kill for any reason other than self defense or other *huge* cause. 10 million dollars is, IMO a huge cause. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
petro wrote:
Oh come now. You have real recourse against Bill Gates and John Tesh
Bill Gates is a questionable case, but there is no doubt that John Tesh should die.
if everyone who hates windos puts $10 in a box, you'd need quite a large box. which makes one wonder why the guy is still alive. or why Linus is still alive, given the fact that M$ could easily pay for the most professional contract killers on the globe. I mean: all of them.
It really is only the mentally disturbed that kill for any reason other than self defense or other *huge* cause.
10 million dollars is, IMO a huge cause.
the only problem I have with this is that it tends to get the figureheads killed. not the biggest assholes, but the somewhat-assholes with a high publicity. instead of learning responsibility, government would most likely cast a couple new protection laws. say, make it illegal to publish a politician's name. "our president has today..."
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people? Or are we just getting sarcastic and frustrated? (Yes, I know Tim May believes people should be killed, but he's just a fuckhead bag of hot air.) Seems to me that anarchy where people solve their problems by killing people isn't much of a solution to anything. Relying on strong crypto to maintain anonymity so that nobody finds and kills YOU, but you can work to kill public figures, is placing your life in the hands of your crypto. Empower yourself by killing others, or by working to kill them? That sounds pretty lame. -- Greg On Fri, Nov 24, 2000 at 11:58:52AM +0100, Tom Vogt wrote:
petro wrote:
Oh come now. You have real recourse against Bill Gates and John Tesh
Bill Gates is a questionable case, but there is no doubt that John Tesh should die.
if everyone who hates windos puts $10 in a box, you'd need quite a large box. which makes one wonder why the guy is still alive. or why Linus is still alive, given the fact that M$ could easily pay for the most professional contract killers on the globe. I mean: all of them.
It really is only the mentally disturbed that kill for any reason other than self defense or other *huge* cause.
10 million dollars is, IMO a huge cause.
the only problem I have with this is that it tends to get the figureheads killed. not the biggest assholes, but the somewhat-assholes with a high publicity. instead of learning responsibility, government would most likely cast a couple new protection laws. say, make it illegal to publish a politician's name. "our president has today..."
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Greg Newby wrote:
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people?
No, only a very small faction of crypto-anarchists (better known as the terminaly self-indulged). The vast majority of people on this list (and elsewhere) for that matter understand the concept of self-defence and recognize its distinction from "I have a right to kill a person" bullshit.
Or are we just getting sarcastic and frustrated?
No, Tim and a handful of others have been spouting this crap since day one. Check the archives.
(Yes, I know Tim May believes people should be killed, but he's just a fuckhead bag of hot air.)
A well armed fuckhead bag of hot air you mean...
Seems to me that anarchy where people solve their problems by killing people isn't much of a solution to anything. Relying on strong crypto to maintain anonymity so that nobody finds and kills YOU, but you can work to kill public figures, is placing your life in the hands of your crypto.
Empower yourself by killing others, or by working to kill them? That sounds pretty lame.
Nothing wrong with your deductive powers. This observation with respect to anarchy is why the vast majority (99.999% perhaps?) of people have enough of a clue to pass it by. It's worth mentioning that the only 'working' anarchy (Iceland) had to legalize murder in order to build a system that didn't break down into a Hatfields-McCoy type scenario. It's also worth mentioning that after several attempts at exporting it to other Scandanavian countries it died an ingnoble death. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Greg Newby wrote:
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people?
Or are we just getting sarcastic and frustrated?
There are certain problems that no other solution for has ever been found. There has never been a human society that did not kill people. Even countries that don't execute criminals still slaughter enemy soldiers and civilians when they go to war. You can regard killing, of certain types of people anyway, as a service industry. Like all services, less of it is provided (and at a much higher cost) if there is a monopoly on it. Since we tend to like a minimum of killing, but are willing to pay the high costs for the truly necessary amount of killing, humans have mostly seen fit to institute monopolies on killing, regulate them fairly tightly, and refer to them as governments. In a governed state, it is your civic duty to uphold the monopoly. You must refrain from doing the killing yourself unless the power to kill delegated to the government is redelegated to you by the government. In an ungoverned state, it is your civic duty to stop psychopaths and sociopaths yourself, since you've no government to delegate that duty to in the first place. And to do so, generally you must kill. The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state. Bear
At 10:36 AM -0800 11/24/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state.
No, you're still not up on the past traffic on this list. Which makes having you be an _interpreter_ all the more strange. Saying "Gun grabbers need killing" is a statement about what is moral. It doesn't depend on whether government is effective or not, or whether it exists or not. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote:
At 10:36 AM -0800 11/24/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state.
No, you're still not up on the past traffic on this list. Which makes having you be an _interpreter_ all the more strange.
Saying "Gun grabbers need killing" is a statement about what is moral. It doesn't depend on whether government is effective or not, or whether it exists or not.
No it's actualy an over-blown generalization with little if any application to the real world. If ANY 'gun grabber' deserves to be killed then self-defence is not justifiable. After all, you're just trying to 'grab' the gun of your assailant. So much for your 'moral'. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Ray Dillinger wrote:
There are certain problems that no other solution for has ever been found.
And this one doesn't either.
There has never been a human society that did not kill people.
People kill people you idiot. Don't confuse WHAT and HOW something is done with the WHY. 'the government' never did a damn thing. It can't because it isn't.
Even countries that don't execute criminals still slaughter enemy soldiers and civilians when they go to war.
So? Self-defence isn't the same as murder.
You can regard killing, of certain types of people anyway, as a service industry.
I believe this is called bigotry. AP, and anarchy in general, is the scream of the failed. Those who have given up and agreed to be subsumed by their basest nature. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Ray Dillinger wrote:
There has never been a human society that did not kill people.
People kill people you idiot. Don't confuse WHAT and HOW something is done with the WHY.
My point is that people HAVE TO kill people. The presence or absence of a government has no bearing on that fact, only on how it is done, by whom, and how often. There are certain people who, if not removed from society, will terrorize populations and cause huge amounts of economic and other damage. In places where there are laws, they are called "criminals". In populations that can afford to build prisons, and which work together (whether working together is accomplished by government coercion or voluntary cooperation) enough to build prisons and courts, we don't have to kill them as often because there is another method for removing them from society available.
Even countries that don't execute criminals still slaughter enemy soldiers and civilians when they go to war.
So? Self-defence isn't the same as murder.
And war killing isn't the same as self-defence, either. In the absence of laws, killing is just killing. It is law that designates some killings as murders, others as executions, others as self-defense, others as duty. But I really don't care what anybody calls it. I'm just pointing out that some killing is evidently (judging by history) necessary in every culture.
You can regard killing, of certain types of people anyway, as a service industry.
I believe this is called bigotry.
Believe whatever you want. A sorry waste of living tissue made headlines here the other day by being found with a woman's breast in his pocket. On searching, the police officers discovered several corpses in various states of hacked-to-bits-ness, all showing evidence of having been raped violently and tortured before being killed. All of the victims were people whose history did not connect to the killer in any way -- he didn't even know them, and he did this. If I didn't have police, courts, and prisons available, and such an individual came to my attention, I would regard it as my civic duty to personally remove such an individual from the gene pool, and I would not hesitate to chamber the round and pull the trigger. Moreover, I would regard anyone who didn't feel the same way as a coward to be shunned. So, I'm bigoted for feeling this way? Fine. You use your words, I'll use mine. It is an act of cowardice, and destructive to society at large, to permit such individuals to live. Right now, we use governments to regulate that kind of force -- it's a protocol, to see that it is applied consistently and with due process, rather than at whim and as a result of poor judgement. And, despite a few spectacular failures, it works most of the time. I participate in the Government protocol because I like for there to be some accountability regarding killings and other uses of force. But in the absence of the opportunity to use government in this way, I would have to carry out killings and other uses of force myself. And so would a lot of other people, including some whose judgement does not agree with mine or yours nor with what we now get through government.
AP, and anarchy in general, is the scream of the failed. Those who have given up and agreed to be subsumed by their basest nature.
AP is a proposed replacement for the "government protocol" -- Its proponents claim that we can cut down on killing in general by trading war, genocide, etc for a relatively smaller number of paid assassinations. This is interesting, of course, but there is no evidence for the claim. I believe that it would have the very bad side effect of making it impossible for anyone to amass substantial capital, simply because having substantial capital means you or your property or employees interacts with, and pisses off, more people. So anybody who was rich enough to get much of anything done would become a target. Then you'd never get bridges or skyscrapers or large-scale data switch centers built. That makes AP a colossally bad idea, regardless of whether it would result in more or less killing. Bear
Some observations: What would keep a Gov't from using AP to accomplish their own objectives ? They obviously would have the resources to. They might even find it a much more efficient way to silence vocal critics with plenty of "plausible denialbility". To be fair (and I'll guess that it has been covered before) you would really want to have a "futures ;) " market where supporters could sell contracts that paid off if the target lived to a certain age, past certain date, or for a specific period of time. This would be in addition to contracts sold by detractors that would pay off if the target didn't. Maybe even a anonymous pool that gets paid to the entity accurately predicting the date of a FOILED attempt on the target. I can see it now: Mr. May: Enclosed please find the keys to your new armoured vehicle. No Charge. Signed: A concerned investor. (P.S. It really IS armoured. It just "looks" like a '76 Ford Pinto. :) ) -NJ
At 12:09 AM 11/26/00 -0500, Neil Johnson wrote:
Some observations:
What would keep a Gov't from using AP to accomplish their own objectives ? They obviously would have the resources to. They might even find it a much more efficient way to silence vocal critics with plenty of "plausible denialbility".
No need. A govt has the means for secret payments and secret missions already. Why would Mossad bother with anon tech when it already has skilled personnel on salary? Similarly with well funded NGOs like Mafia or FARC. As for the rest of your post, yes, it would seem inevitable that various "options and futures" shenanigans would evolve, just as they have in other markets. Even mixed ones. Bet that Intel's stock will rise above some level XOR some number of AMD design engineers will meet an untimely death within the same quarter :-)
Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Ray Dillinger wrote:
There are certain problems that no other solution for has ever been found.
And this one doesn't either.
There has never been a human society that did not kill people.
People kill people you idiot. Don't confuse WHAT and HOW something is done with the WHY.
'the government' never did a damn thing. It can't because it isn't.
bzzt, wrong. see, "the government" is collecting taxes. hold on, hold on! let me finish the paragraph, please. and sit down. thanks. now, you'll of course say that some *people* are collecting the taxes. yes, there are some accountants who do the physical job. but they are not only 100% replacable, they will also say - if asked - that they do it *for* someone, i.e. "the government". yes you are right that if everyone on the planet would reject a job as tax collector, there would be no tax collectors. however, we are all aware that saying something like "everyone" when you're referring to several million/billion/lots-of people doesn't work. so for practical purposes, the tax collectors can be ignored in the very same sense that *I* am writing this mail, not the keyboard I'm typing on. the point is: any sufficiently large group of people develops structures and dynamics that go beyond the individual persons. that's pretty much an accepted fact ever since DeBono, i.e. 1915 or whatever it was.
Bear surmised:
The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state.
Hold on. "Needs killing" is an epithet, like "fuck your mother" or in earlier theocratic days, "go to hell." It's a residue of a time when killing somebody who profaned your beliefs was done. It gets attention in some circles for different reasons. I like to read it because it reminds of my childhood in Texas when it was used with deliberate intent, and not used casually, for it could led to getting killed yourself, in justifiable self-defense. Back then, saying "fuck your mother" was said only by the Mexicans, "chinga tu madre," or something thing like that, and it always led to physical mayhem among the god-fearing who felt obliged to protect the virginity of their mother. Don't laugh. Men killed each other for that. I got my ass whipped for using phrase on a Mex-Tex buddy, no pause, he just methodicaly beat me to shit. There are still people around whom you better not say to their face, "you need killing." Those with guns, for example. It's okay on the Internet, though, hell, you can even threaten to kill a particular judge if you mean it as a joke. Greg, ease up, everybody here knows AP is a prank. Jim Bell and Jeff Gordon are a "seven forbidden words" comedy team. Not that Western Washington District has caught on yet that AP's only "fuck your mother."
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, John Young wrote:
Bear surmised:
The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state.
Hold on. "Needs killing" is an epithet, like "fuck your mother" or in earlier theocratic days, "go to hell." It's a residue of a time when killing somebody who profaned your beliefs was done.
Perhaps for you, for others it is a serious expression of their goals. You seriously (intentionlay?) mis-represent the situation with this view. The belief is codified in "MAD". ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, Nov 24, 2000 at 02:09:33PM -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, John Young wrote:
Bear surmised:
The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state.
Hold on. "Needs killing" is an epithet, like "fuck your mother" or in earlier theocratic days, "go to hell." It's a residue of a time when killing somebody who profaned your beliefs was done.
Perhaps for you, for others it is a serious expression of their goals. You seriously (intentionlay?) mis-represent the situation with this view.
"de puta madre!" But seriously, folks: How would you work with a like-minded distributed group to murder someone? Preferably with guaranteed no risk of discovery or prosecution to the participants. - Would we need to assume the someone would be the "hands," e.g., your good ole' professional hit-man? How would s/he be contacted? - How would the person be paid? How would the money be collected from the different people who pay? - What trust model would work? Would it be more desirable for all players to be completely anonymous? Cells of people who know each other? - Could this all be done legally (without the individuals who are planning and paying needing to commit any crimes)? Contrary to the Orient Express, Peter Sellers and other scenarios, this sounds like a serious applied problem in crypto-anarchy. I am not able to come up with a solution that doesn't have serious risks for the participants, but would love to hear one. -- Greg
At 09:48 PM 11/24/00 -0500, Greg Newby wrote:
But seriously, folks: How would you work with a like-minded distributed group to murder someone? Preferably with guaranteed no risk of discovery or prosecution to the participants.
RTFM
On Fri, Nov 24, 2000 at 09:47:47PM -0500, Greg Newby wrote:
But seriously, folks: How would you work with a like-minded distributed group to murder someone? Preferably with guaranteed no risk of discovery or prosecution to the participants. [...] - Could this all be done legally (without the individuals who are planning and paying needing to commit any crimes)?
No. The state jealously guards its monopoly on legal murder. If you want to "tinker with the machinery of death", to borrow from Justice Blackmun, you must get a job with the government. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@netbox.com PO Box 897 Oakland CA 94604
The "Needs Killing" verbiage you see here, I think, is mostly from people who, correctly or not, tend to think in terms either of there not being any governments, or in terms of the government being so ineffective that they are effectively in an ungoverned state.
Or from people who feel the government has lost it's moral authority to be the single arbiter of the use of force. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, petro wrote:
Or from people who feel the government has lost it's moral authority to be the single arbiter of the use of force.
What's interesting is that in this country there isn't supposed to be a single arbiter of anything (e.g. 2nd Amendment, 9th Amendment, & 10th). ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people?
Or are we just getting sarcastic and frustrated?
(Yes, I know Tim May believes people should be killed, but he's just a fuckhead bag of hot air.)
Seems to me that anarchy where people solve their problems by killing people isn't much of a solution to anything. Relying
Tell that to the Third Reich. Oh, I forgot, you can't. They're dead. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
On Sat, 25 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
At 11:11 AM 11/24/00 -0500, Greg Newby wrote:
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people?
What we believe is not important.
"Baaah" by any other name smells as cowardly. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 10:35 PM 11/25/00 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
On Sat, 25 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
At 11:11 AM 11/24/00 -0500, Greg Newby wrote:
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people?
What we believe is not important.
"Baaah" by any other name smells as cowardly.
So when the physicists were discussing fission in the 40's, and some didn't want it to be used for bombs, did it matter? Nope. They were finding out something about reality, and others would find out too; and once physics is known the possible applications follow. Your "morals" don't affect reality any more than they persuade others. If you're the first to discover something, you can sit on it, this is your only power. But guess what: others will come. If Einstein had stayed a patent clerk we'd still have fission by now. Anonymity and anonymous cash are fundamentals. AP is an application. Bell, Chaum, etc. can be silenced. Reality can't.
Greg Newby wrote:
Do people on this list really believe that the solution to problems is to kill people?
Or are we just getting sarcastic and frustrated?
we've run this planet for a couple thousand years by way of killing people. never touch a running system, you know?
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Tom Vogt wrote:
would most likely cast a couple new protection laws. say, make it illegal to publish a politician's name. "our president has today..."
Well, I guess that's *one* way to get political types to support the right to anonymity... Bear
At 10:14 AM 11/24/00 -0800, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Tom Vogt wrote:
would most likely cast a couple new protection laws. say, make it illegal to publish a politician's name. "our president has today..."
Well, I guess that's *one* way to get political types to support the right to anonymity...
Nah - too hard to give them credit when they want it, so they'd do pseudonyms. "Big Brother announced today that..." Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
Eric Cordian wrote:
Alan Olsen wrote:
[...snip...]
He seemed to think that the only target of this would be the government.
I think this is a reasonable observation. You really have to be acting under color of authority to strongly alienate enough people, who have so litle recourse against you, that millions will bet a buck on your continued good health in the hopes that an anonymous assassin will prove them wrong and collect the pot.
I'm not so sure about this. I've taken part in political demonstrations against private companies & I've worked in offices that were picketed or invaded by demonstrators. I've also worked in a building whose windows were broken by a bomb in the street. The bomb wasn't directed against us, but against another business on the other side of the street - the Harrods department store. On another occasion Harrods was bombed in protest against their selling fur. Farms that breed animals for experiments have been attacked and there have been attempts on the lives of the managers and owners of such places. [...snip...]
I think that there are more people out there who would go after Bill Gates or John Tesh than there would for various little known public officials. (This could be a case where fame could have an even bigger downside. About six feet down.)
Oh come now. You have real recourse against Bill Gates and John Tesh short of killing them. Bill Gates and John Tesh don't claim they have God's authority to kill you if you don't do what they say. They don't order your house raided, and your children terrorized at gunpoint. They don't force you to choose between going to prison or going to war. They don't accuse you of treason and try to have you executed if you tell their dirty little secrets.
Gates & Tesh may not do that but there are companies that have done - and more importantly there are people who think that companies do behave like that even if they don't. Think of Shell in Nigeria. Or Harlan County, Kentucky. One of the things about AP is, if it works, millions of people with untrue ideas can still get things done. Anyway, the distinction between business and politics is less clear than you make out - or seems less clear to many people in countries outside America. In most places the government is in the pockets of the people with the money - and in most places presidents and governors are quick to join the ranks of the men with the money. Citizens of countries that have experienced the rule of people like, say, Marcos, or Suharto, or Kenyatta, aren't likely to believe that your American companies aren't agents of the US government, and they aren't likely to believe that your American politicians don't have interests in the companies. What happens if millions of people outside the US are pissed off (maybe for no good reason) with the corporate leadership of Exxon or Coca-Cola or Microsoft or MacDonalds? Maybe if only because they are pissed off with the USA and those companies stand for the USA in the minds of others (& however wonderful your USA is someone, somewhere is going to be pissed off with it). The only American politician millions of people have heard of is the President (who is presumably reasonably well-defended). Representatives of big companies make much more likely targets for non-Americans. Anyway, big companies make big targets for some kinds of revolutionaries, as do big fortunes. Some of them like killing the rich. This already happens. Not a lot, but it happens. AP might make it more common. Ken
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Ken Brown wrote: A thoughtful summary of non-US-centric view of how US technology could, probably will, come back to haunt and harm it. One of the ways the US will be harmed is by provoking its government to crackdown on what it will define as illegal use of technology. To be sure, these perceived threats will come from within the US as from outside. I have seen no media attention given to DoD Cohen's warning that technology is empowering the citizenry, business and US allies to threaten US supremacy. Comparable, say, to the DoJ's and the FBI's well-advanced orchestration of a global cybercrime (successor to organized crime) fighting regime. The acceleration of transfer of national security technology to domestic law enforcement agencies in many countries shows that borderlessness between external and internal threats is becoming the norm. Such that the most advanced technology once devoted to combatting foreign enemies is now aimed at the populace in disregard of their home countries and the once-vaunted privilege being free of threatened by their own governments. Ken's point that AP is likely to be implemented by a non-US against a US target is shrewd, and Usama Bin Laden has just about pulled that off. If he disappears but his agenda continues that will be pure AP. This is not to say that Bin Laden is not a fictional-demon of the USG, forever eluding capture -- until the moment is right to implement a Pablo Escobar. Isn't it likely that Jim Bell is just a ploy the feds are using to arouse the tax resisters in the Northwest?
Anyway, big companies make big targets for some kinds of revolutionaries, as do big fortunes. Some of them like killing the rich. This already happens. Not a lot, but it happens. AP might make it more common.
Good point, and one that the feds will happily adopt, for it is often used by the US to warrant its need for a massively overkill defense apparatus -- not that it ever does much with its vaunted hardware except provide sitting ducks.
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, Eric Cordian wrote:
The implications are that in a society where the government has not made personal privacy and private communication illegal, you can't be an asshole to countless millions of people without winding up with a price on your head.
The thing about money is, there's no property of it that says it takes a lot of people to have a lot of money. Think about the very early days of Linux, for example. It would have been worth several million to Bill Gates if Linus Torvalds had just suddenly "disappeared". Not because Linus was acting like an asshole to countless millions of people, but just because Linus was acting like an asshole to one person who had billions of dollars. And given the anonymity of the proposed assassination market, nobody would have known exactly whom to take revenge on when Linus got whacked. This is what free markets do; they reward people who use them efficiently with financial power on a scale that millions of ordinary people can't match even if they all work together. Now Bill G. has used every market he's ever dealt with efficiently, to increase Microsoft's Market share and shut out all alternatives. Why do you think he (or people like him) would be any less competent in the use of an assassination market?
Disputes with employees, and displeasure over Windows needing frequent rebooting, really don't rise to this level of visceral discontent.
"displeasure over windows rebooting" has gotten pretty visceral for me at times -- Two years ago, I spent a whole day poking hex codes into a BIOS to try to get back the contents of a crashed windows disk which contained all contacts and records for our company's first round of venture capitalization and our company's first major client. The stakes were well over a million and a half dollars. And yes, it was bad information management on our business developer's part, but we were only four guys at the time and didn't have corporate information policy going yet. You wanna bet, if fifty or eighty people a year find themselves in that position, and fail to get their info back, that at least twenty or thirty of them wouldn't put a grand or more on Bill's head? I got my files back, so I didn't have to deal with that. But these days I use Linux at home... I won't even *steal* windows software any more, running it is too much of a risk. Bear
At 03:11 PM 11/22/00 -0500, Alan Olsen wrote:
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
Correct, except that you haven't grasped that it will be impossible to trace anything to anyone.
*Except* the hosting server. Legal "whack-a-mole" games will commence soon after discovery. (Or they will just yank the entries out of the root DNS servers or screw with the routing tables on the backbone.)
These are engineering problems, and I'll handwave the term "distributed" for now.
To see this, you need to imagine truly anonymous payment schemes and truly anonymous information publishing.
The host of the site is the only one with his ass left hanging out.
Bell's observation is simply: if you have these two (cash & freedom of speech), look at what one could build. And the social implications
When I wrote "truly anonymous" I meant those systems where no one's ass is endangered. If there's an ass to fry its not anonymous. thereof.
I disagree. I don't believe Jim really was willing to consider the social implications of his scheme.
He seemed to think that the only target of this would be the government.
Sure, it would be entirely limited by cost, as is everything traded in such a future. I think the argument is that anyone who pissed off a lot of people would be culled more quickly than others, and civil servants tend to be in that category. For instance, an obnoxious neighbor offends a dozen people. A politician who passes laws restricting freedom offends many orders of magnitude more. Assassination won't get cheaper because the detection hazards remain in an AP future.
And what about those people who have lots of money and little or no personal ethics?
They go into politics, which Mr. Bell has addressed.
Say that you have a company whos rival has a bunch of engineers that you want. They won't work for you, so you have them done in. (Or maybe the prosecutors in a big anti-trust trial.)
Nice Gibson effect there. There's a bit of a problem with obvious motive, that mass-offenders don't present. In fact, since AP says that everyone will have 'means' and 'opportunity' the only barrier is sufficient motivation. One could fear that motivation alone might be enough to convict in future courts. You know, a number of Intel engineers die, and AMD execs are nearly-automatically jailed. Still, AP is an observation about what is possible. It doesn't have to be pleasant.
Free and open assassination markets are a messy thing. True, some good would come out of them. A whole bunch of bad would come out of them as well.
You could say the same about gunpowder or Napster... or any tech whose components appear in the memepool at the same time.. yielding ideas which *will* be used, *orthogonal* to whether they are *good* or *fair*..
Just because you can do something, does not mean that you should.
Alfred Nobel spent the rest of his life getting over his guilt about stabilizing nitro. He shouldn't have. Realizing that something is possible --or even advocating it-- is not the same as doing wrong with it. WRT AP, assasination is obviously a good thing at times.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Duncan Frissell" <frissell@panix.com>
I hope James will argue that he was gathering addresses so that he could picket them (which is legal).
Hasn't Jim Bell, master chemist, keeper of paper notes, and self appointed angel of death to LEOs ever heard of a contact poison? He has fluka's top 100 in his garage, but can't find a bottle of lithium salts. The NSA should pray a soft sentence and underwrite his efforts as positive PR.
Interesting reading, Declan. Looks as though you get another turn on the witness stand. Who besides Declan, the Oregonian reporter, the two ladies researching terrorism, the various Gordons and other nyms, and so on, got tarred by this?
Declan writes:
Check out the affidavit/complaint at: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/21/1944238
And from the aforementioned document...
On or about October 23, 2000, at Vancouver, within the Western District of Washington, James Dalton Bell did travel across a state line from the state of Washington to the state of Oregon with the intent to injure or harrass another person, to wit, Mike McNall, and as a result of such travel placed Mike McNall in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to himself, and to his immediate family.
On or about October 23, 2000, at Vancouver, within the Western District of Washington, James Dalton Bell did travel across a state line from the state of Washington to the state of Oregon with the intent to injure or harrass another person, to wit, Jeff Gordon, and as a result of such travel placed Jeff Gordon in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to himself, and to his immediate family.
What an unmitigated crock of shit. Who would have imagined that anti-stalking laws, originally sold to the public with tear-jerking tales of battered women needing to be protected from violent boyfriends and spouses, would be employed by jackbooted thugs claiming to be in fear of their lives because publically available information about them is in the possession of the citizens they harrass and persecute. Clearly Jackboot-Americans feel they should be completely exempt from ordinary rules of accountability which apply to all other Americans, and that the state apparatus should be at their beck and call to carry out personal attacks against their critics. Laws on terrorism, conspiracy, and harrassment are being twisted daily to do an endrun around the First Amendment, and convictions are being won, and case law is being created, which says this is all fine and dandy. It's gotten to the point where one may not exercise ones right to free speech, unless one gives up ones right to freedom of action, and vice versa. One can say what one thinks of government officials, as long as one does not engage in any behavior, however legal, which constitutes action in support of that speech. And conversely, one may engage in legal action, as long as one gives up ones right to engage in legal speech. To engage in both legal action and legal speech at the same time, is to risk having the government twist ones actions into a conspiracy, and to risk getting convicted under the new plethora of laws sold to the public under various disingenuous guises, or under old laws given new interpretations. It's not necessary that the legal speech and legal action have any genuine relation. If you say the government is corrupt, and you belong to a militia, and play paintball games in the woods on weekends, then you are obviously conspiring to overthrow the government in word and deed. Similarly, it's perfectly legal to own nitric acid, and it's perfectly legal to say that IRS agents deserve to be dissolved in nitric acid, but it's very dangerous to ones personal freedom to do both at the same time. It's perfectly legal to possess publicly available information on government employees, and to possess chemicals, and electronic devices. It's also legal to go anywhere one pleases, on public property, and even on private property to ring doorbells and ask people questions, as long as one leaves when one is asked to. It's also perfectly legal to hold satirical legal proceedings against public officials, for the purpose of making a political statement. It's perfectly legal to speculate on cryptographic solutions to government corruption. But if one person does all these things simultaneously, one risks being the subject of a contrived fairy tale, written by a boob like Jeff Gordon, sprinkled with innuendo, and rubber stamped by a judge as inerrant scripture, which makes one look like the next Osama Bin Laden. So the First Amendment is effectively dead, not repealed by the will of the people, but suffocated in the dead of night by Jackboot-Americans like Jeff Gordon and his pals. (puke) -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Eric Cordian wrote:
On or about October 23, 2000, at Vancouver, within the Western District of Washington, James Dalton Bell did travel across a state line from the state of Washington to the state of Oregon with the intent to injure or harrass another person, to wit, Mike McNall, and as a result of such travel placed Mike McNall in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to himself, and to his immediate family.
On or about October 23, 2000, at Vancouver, within the Western District of Washington, James Dalton Bell did travel across a state line from the state of Washington to the state of Oregon with the intent to injure or harrass another person, to wit, Jeff Gordon, and as a result of such travel placed Jeff Gordon in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to himself, and to his immediate family.
What an unmitigated crock of shit. Who would have imagined that anti-stalking laws, originally sold to the public with tear-jerking tales of battered women needing to be protected from violent boyfriends and spouses, would be employed by jackbooted thugs claiming to be in fear of their lives because publically available information about them is in the possession of the citizens they harrass and persecute.
Furthermore, Vancouver is damn near a suburb of Portland, OR. Most people in Vancouver cross the state line to avoid Washington sales tax. (I guess that makes them tax evaders as well. I wonder if Jim will get taged with that one.) sounds like Jeff Gordon is looking for a victim so he can justify a pay increase and/or promotion.
So the First Amendment is effectively dead, not repealed by the will of the people, but suffocated in the dead of night by Jackboot-Americans like Jeff Gordon and his pals. (puke)
Yep. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
participants (20)
-
Alan Olsen -
Bill Stewart -
David Honig -
Declan McCullagh -
Duncan Frissell -
Eric Cordian -
Greg Broiles -
Greg Newby -
infoļ¼ jab.com -
Jim Choate -
Jim Choate -
John Young -
Ken Brown -
Me -
Neil Johnson -
petro -
Ray Dillinger -
Sampo A Syreeni -
Tim May -
Tom Vogt