On Friday, August 31, 2001, at 07:10 AM, Fisher Mark wrote:

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Look at how AP was used.

Mike, the main reason the Jim Bell prosecution started was his actions, not his words. Some of us on the list (myself included) would be majorly upset if a stink bomb strong enough to make us vomit was used on us (upset enough to want someone to take action against Jim Bell). Had Jim Bell restrained himself to speech, prosecution would have been much more difficult to start. Not impossible, but much more difficult.

Bell's cases and Parker's case(s) have been thrashed-over many times here. Clueful folks like Duncan Frissell have outlined some of the obvious errors (acted as his own lawyer, admitted tampering with mail, the infamous "Say goodnight, Joshua" item, etc.). I believe 10 years in prison is out of proportion. I have direct knowledge of far more serious crimes, including arson, which resulted in no prison time at all. Bell made various mistakes, but I'm not saying he deserves 10 years in a federal prison. And the handling of the case was strange. Others have written about it in a lot of detail. Both the Bell and Parker cases involved identifiable actions that were not just "speech actions." (To JA Terrenson/Measle, there _is_ a difference between speech and action. Planting a stink bomb is not "political speech." Tampering with mail is not speech. Threatening harm, directly and specifically, is not speech.) I'll give you Tim's Tips on Avoiding Prosecution (worked so far...): 1. Never know the specific names of any judges or prosecutors. This cuts way down on the chance that one will slip up and make a comment which might be construed as a specific threat. Keep things general. (I _do_ know the names of Jeff Gordon, Robb London, and Judge Tanner, but only because there have been so many articles and items about them.) 2. Never, ever, make physical contact with Feds. Don't go to their buildings unless required to, don't go near the homes or offices of their employees, just avoid them completely. This makes "stalking" charges mighty hard to press. 3. Don't attend "People's Tribunals" where specific agents, officers, judges, etc. are to be "tried" for their crimes. We see that many/most of these are infiltrated, and that, in fact, the chief rabble-rousers are likely to be government agents or stool pigeons. (Some may be acting to reduce other charges against them, as the Feds wanted Randy Weaver to do--they set Weaver up with that quarter inch taken off a shotgun and then wanted him to infiltrate the Northwest militias and narc them out.) 4. If whackos send you e-mail, don't respond. (I routinely discarded e-mail from Vulis, Detweiler, Toto, Bell, and others I won't name for reasons of politeness. Some of them sent me what I thought were "side channel" communications which looked to be efforts to rope me into their plans. Perhaps the lack of correspondence with Parker and Bell is what saved me from being dragged in front of a grand jury.) 5. At physical Cypherpunks meetings, by all means talk about politics, uses of technology, even "anarchic" things. But avoid being drawn into debates about what to do to specific politicians, judges, etc.. (Attendees at Bay Area meetings will know that for 9 years now we have had occasional heated discussions of these things, but we have avoided the kind of "people's tribunal" crap that helped get Bell into trouble.) 6. Don't actually build bombs or modify weapons to fire in illegal ways. These are "actions," not speech. And neither are very useful. Perfectly OK to talk about either thing (maybe not on the Cypherpunks list, for reasons of relevancy), but may well be illegal to actually build. (It is not necessarily illegal to build bombs, but the specifics matter. One of the "pyrotechnics" newsgroups has discussions of this.) 7. Pay your taxes. Stay away from nutty schemes to not file tax returns, etc. (Part of what got Bell charged the first time was failure to file, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers, etc.) Arguing that taxes are wrong, unfair, etc. is not the same thing as tax evasion. Even promoting schemes to avoid taxes is probably not prosecutable (note that the book writers usually only spend time at Terminal Island when they themselves have used their ideas to evade taxes.). 8. Speech in purely electronic or written form is safer than speech in physical forums. More time to redact words, more ability to modify speech which might be interpreted as direct threats to a person. Less chance to be entrapped by a provocateur. See Rule 1: Never bother to learn the names of agents or judges. This makes it much harder to slip up and say something foolish like "We should use AP to eliminate Judge Foobar!" OK to say "I won't weep if Washington, D.C. is nerve-gassed by Osama bin Laden," as this is an expression of opinion. Ditto for "Shoot all politicians" (a general comment, overbroad, not specific, not credible, protected American anti-politician threat...probably even uttered by guys like Jeff Gordon in moments of frustration. Even legally OK to say "Someone should nerve gas Washington, D.C.," as this is not a call for action that is in way plausibly influenced by the call. Note: I'm not saying that such a call won't get your name put on a list...what I'm saying is that the Feds are unlikely to launch a prosecution over something so nebulous and obviously speech-like as "Defendant said someone should nerve gas Washington, D.C." First Amendment lawyers would jump on a case like this. However, a leader of Aryan Nation, for example, calling for his followers to kill Jews might cross the line ("incitement"). Their have been a few civil actions where the organization or its leaders were held liable for damages caused by followers who were incited to _specific_ actions. (An interesting question is whether any of the more vocal Cypherpunks could be held liable, civilly or criminally, for actions by "followers." I doubt it, given the situation. And the fact that there are no formal leaders, no structure, no real organization, helps. The export of crypto was maybe where there was most exposure.) Anyway, these are some general tips. I don't claim to be either morally pure or to be beyond the scrutiny of prosecutors. Who knows, maybe they're just waiting for me to slip up so they can present charges to a grand jury. But I think my tips are just common sense ways to avoid the situations Parker and Bell fell into. AN ANECDOTE: The closest I think I have come (think, because I don't know about times I never learned about) to being charged with this sort of a crime was when I had the encounter with the Secret Service at Stanford University just as Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea were arriving in the area I was in. The SS and Stanford Sheriff's converged on me from four sides, literally, and were on all sides of me. They demanded to look inside my bag...I refused (had a piece of crypto gear in it they might have thought looked suspicious, and there's the general point about their lack of probable cause). They one of them accused me of planting a bomb in the basement of Meyer Library with the intent of killing President Clinton. Did I plant a bomb in the basement of Meyer Library with the intent of assassinating President Clinton? Of course not. They were bluffing, hoping, I guess, I would freak out and say "I'm innocent. Search my bag if you don't believe me!" After about 10 minutes of staring me down, they told me to walk to the closest point that was off campus and not to return. I asked about my car. "If you are seen on campus, you will be arrested. You can get your car tomorrow." (Great, since I lived 60 miles away.) By the way, the SS also demanded that I give them my name and show them my driver's license. I refused, so at least they never got my name entered into the Master Data Bank of Presidential Threateners. As to why I was on the Stanford campus at precisely the time the Clintons were arriving, I have a pretty damned good reason. (Aside from the point that no reason at all was or is "needed.") I had been invited months before--and long before the Presidential visit was scheduled--to give a talk to Professor Margaret Radin's cyberlaw class. The class began at 4. I brought along my COMSEC (later, Starian) 3DES phone unit, to illustrate to the class some hardware. My encounter with the SS was around 3:30. I looped back around to the west side of the campus and walked back on campus and thence to the law school. I told Prof. Rader about the detainment by the SS and their demand that I open my bag and identify myself and my reason for being on campus. And about the threat to have me arrested if I was seen on the campus again. She said that students and faculty had all been dealing with the effects of Chelsea's arrival as a student and that the law school would be quite happy to handle my case if the SS or Stanford Sheriff's Dept. nabbed me. --Tim May