John Young wrote:

William Geiger wrote:

...

After reading the complaint I have to say that with friends like that who needs enemies?

True, if that's what the friends actually said, and if they were not induced to do so by being fed lethal information: don't go down with Bell, protect yourself, spill your guts.

Turning friends against friends is pretty common in investigations, using threats and promises of relief from possible charges, even saying that your friend is squealing on you.

I have mostly lurked on the list for several years without doing very much posting. I am employed in an area of law enforcement where I don't get involved with the the darker side of the process but I often listen to others who talk about various methods they use to make a case against somebody they have decided to "get." It is well known that if the information provided in an initial interview of a potential witness is not damaging enough that veiled threats implying the person being interviewed will be going along for the ride is enough to induce them to spill whatever beans the investigator is after. I recognize the need to lean on those who are witholding needed information but the method is often used to trump up the most outrageous accusations and manufactured evidence imaginable. Add to this the fact that most of us have at some point made statements that we would like to "kill" a certain individual and similar off the cuff statements and almost anyone can look very guilty of almost anything. Since I initially recognized the federal action against Mr. Bell as an all out effort to get him no matter what the cost I was not surprised to see that the first interviews with his friends were fairly tame material and the second interviews were very damaging to Mr. Bell. Once you put enough fear into people their memories become very creative.

I was struck by how similar some remarks attributed to Bell were to those attributed to McVeigh, not that they were not made, but that the investigators chose to select just those to indicate lethal intent.

I have worked with a sufficient volume of evidence in all manner of cases that I am convinced that any paramilitary or military type of person could be arrested and one would be able to duplicate much of the evidence that is being introduced in the McVeigh case. I think that if McVeigh and Bell traded places that each would still be convicted of some of the charges against them. I have seen carnivorous prosecuters turn totally ambiguous evidence into a smoking gun against very average people even without the ferocious intent that the government has in the McVeigh and Bell cases to produce a conviction at any cost.

The IRS searching the Internet for incriminating advocacy is a warning of what's to come, as often predicted here.

In my time on the list I have noticed that and it was particularly brought home to me when I read the story posted to the list called "Webworld and the Circle of Unuchs." I think the author must be one of the list spooks because the connections he makes or makes up are strikingly similar to those which would be conjectured by a good evidentiary analyst. I used to print cypherpunk posts for a fellow employee who works computer crime cases and he would demean them because they weren't technical enough for his taste. Now he follows the list religiously because it lets him know whats going on and where things are going with privacy and encryption.

Time to study and ponder the 1st Amend -- which, by the way, Matt Blaze did at the NYC crypto forum last night to challenge Charney and Denning. Matt pulled out a copy and cited it, which may be a good indication of what he knows that we don't about what's coming.

What I learn on my job is a world apart from the publics perception of what goes on in law enforcement. It is scary to realize how many people suffer terribly just because they are so trusting in the system when the system doesn't really care in many cases. I am certain that it must be just as true and more at higher levels of government where we see and know so little of what really takes place behind the scenes. If I had to work in an area of law enforcement where I faced pressure to do many of the things that others do to produce convictions I don't think I would last very long. At least I hope I wouldn't.