Adam Back wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Adam Back wrote:

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That is to say, I suspect that Jim would not have been locked up if he had not a) used false social security numbers, b) not been involved with fake courts, c) not collected IRS employees home addresses, and d) not planted the stink bomb.

And, more importantly, if crypto-anachy and removal of governments weren't on the cypherpunk agenda.

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It is difficult to tell exactly why Jim was incarcerated because the IRS people may have alternate motives. However, I suspect Jim Bell's woes are more to do with involvement with the fake courts, and the use of real IRS employees names and addresses, which was then taken to be an immediate threat, taken with the AP rant printout they found in his car. I presume in reality he just collected the addresses to have the fake court serve them with some legal documents. I also presume the reason the IRS first got interested in Jim was due to tax evasion, and/or fake court documents addressed to IRS agents.

The fake court, addresses, AP manifesto are all part of one point being made. There is no threat. Any court can see that (if it doesn't choose not to). And we do have a system of "reasonable doubt". Did fake SS#s alone justify incarceration? Hmmm. Dunno. crypto-anarchy sounds scary, better be safe...

Toto is more interesting. He seems to have been incarcerated because he tried to stick up for Jim Bell. What did he do? Set up an AP bot mockup, put the same IRS employees names, and a judge (I presume the judge that handled Jim's case) on the page with $ amounts beside them.

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Also what I am saying is that it makes it hard to defend people if they have done any number of dumb things which are the ostensible reason they are locked up.

I have no problem with that. I'll defend Jim Bell's AP rants, the use of fake courts and addresses to flesh out the details. Peripheral crimes don't make me ashamed to say "these things here are free speech". I stated a similar view in a post a while ago about Clinton: that peripheral issues are irrelevant. My principle was unpopular then, but I hope it gets more support when looking at Jim/Toto. I'm outraged that mischievous acts would get higher penalty just because these guys believe in the cypherpunk agenda. Or make unpopular speech relating to those beliefs. We also have people who *have* kept their noses clean being harassed. It's an excuse to put some pressure on CDRs. It even had the effect of shaking loose a lot of the Austin cypherpunks in a nice little divide and conquer action. And it's likely they have subpoenaed more people than we've heard from. I just hope they don't subpoena Bill Payne, or we'll receive a copy of it every week for years to come.

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Similarly with Toto, the rants would have been ok, without a) the mockup non-functional "bomb" symbolically planted in the court house basement or where-ever it was, b) using real IRS employees, and judges names in his rant (apparently in support of Jim Bell), c) having tourettes syndrome.

The rants are ok anyway. They are clearly metaphors. But the prosecutors aren't playing fair. The man is "dangerous". And not because he wrote "bomb" in crayon on a cardboard box. But because he made waves. Waves that we caught. Waves that the straights and sheeple might catch.

Correct that. Waves that will upset the straights and sheeple.

I'd be interested in opinions on why they locked up Toto. The legal docs John Young obtained and put on up on the web (look at the bottom of http://www.jya.com cryptome page for `Carl Johnson'), says that it is because he made a threat.

What about the following excerpt from the Toto post below could be construed to constitute a danger, or did Toto get locked up because he walked right up to the IRS and said "Fuck You", and "here I am come and get me".

The John Gilmore subpoena was focussed exclusively on cypherpunk email. Jim Choate confirmed his is much the same. So the focus is on what we've all seen posted here. Personally, I found them a lot milder than Reeza!'s projection of his suicide fantasies, for instance.

I have inserted the odd comment. Anyone like to comment on how likely a case by the IRS based on this post by `Toto' is to stick? The AP bot mockup I think was clearly not a credible threat, it was completely non-functional.

Adam

[Toto repost snipped] Well, there's certainly nothing threatening anyone at whitehouse.gov, which explains why they aren't prosecuting. I didn't think there was any credible threat. Even the talk about fighting censorship by acting in MeatSpace could mean he'll talk to people in person if his internet use is compromised. That's the way I read it the first time. If it were a threat, who is it against? At worst you'd have to talk about Toto as having made a public nuisance. He's already served more time than that's worth. Even taking one post out of the Toto stream is misleading. You have to consider the style of writing. Did space aliens really steal his drugs? Or does he speak in metaphor? If Toto's full of shit, you must acquit. The only threat is of cypherpunks against the IRS's relevance.