Re: Denver Post article on mattd/proffr/AP/Jim Bell/cypherpunks
"The posts made by Professor Rat fall under a relatively new category of crime known >as "cyberstalking," >said Jim Doyle, a retired New York City police sergeant who now works as a >cybercrimes consultant for a
Connecticut company called Internet Crimes.
The statements made by Professor Rat constitute prosecutable offenses, he said.
"The bottom line is what the victim feels," he said. "Is the victim threatened? Is the victim alarmed? >Hey, that's a crime."
Interesting logic here. Someone writes something not-so-nice about somebody on a list and now that person is being "cyberstalked" even though they're not a subscriber. And now, the stalk-ee is a victim of a crime. And now the person who said something "not-so-nice" has committed a crime. And this guy's a consultant? To whom, I wonder... Funny enough, I don't rmember seeing any of Prof Rat's posts, and I've never even killfiled him. -TD
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Denver Post article on mattd/proffr/AP/Jim Bell/cypherpunks Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 17:03:54 -0400
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1497971,00.html
...
The development of digital money, and encryption software restricting government's ability to monitor Internet activity, are common goals among the online anarchists and libertarians known as "cypherpunks."
The ultimate purpose of Assassination Politics is to deter people from working for government agencies, corporate media outlets or institutions "beholden to the violence of the state," Taylor said.
Professor Rat also has threatened a University of Ottawa law professor, a columnist for The Boston Globe and a Cincinnati police officer.
...
The Post is withholding the names of the subjects of posts by Professor Rat to avoid promoting any specific threats.
...
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles and a First Amendment specialist, said the threats were probably criminal, given Taylor's description of the purpose of Assassination Politics.
...
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On Monday 07 July 2003 19:58, Tyler Durden wrote:
"The bottom line is what the victim feels," he said. "Is the victim threatened? Is the victim alarmed? >Hey, that's a crime."
Interesting logic here. Someone writes something not-so-nice about somebody on a list and now that person is being "cyberstalked" even though they're not a subscriber. And now, the stalk-ee is a victim of a crime. And now the person who said something "not-so-nice" has committed a crime.
That standard is used increasingly often. I've had it used against me, more than a decade ago. Just fit this in with "conspiracy" and "attempt" and other fuzzy crimes; they're good for prosecutors because they don't demand hard evidence and juries in practice tend to side with the prosecution. ("If he didn't commit the crime, they wouldn't have arrested him.") Welcome to the new thought crime, where you don't even have to have thought the forbidden, thought; it's enough that someone thinks you thought it.
Funny enough, I don't rmember seeing any of Prof Rat's posts, and I've never even killfiled him.
Many of the nodes filter out mattd/proffr's posts. I think Jim Choate's node (see http://einstein.ssz.com/cdr) delivers his posts, along with viagra ads and other garbage. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel "If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!" -- Rep. Henry Waxman
participants (2)
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Steve Furlong -
Tyler Durden