Declan McCullagh writes:

Bell was not coerced into taking the plea agreement; if anything, he seems to have more mental resources to fight the system than other defendants I have interviewed.

Unless the plea agreement specifies a sentence equal to the upper range that would likely be applied after a conviction was won, it is not difficult to infer that the plea agreement is being signed in order to lock-in a shorter sentence, with the accuracy of the government's account of the alleged misdeeds being a lesser consideration. Most plea bargaining, by its very nature, is coercion plain and simple. Just as the common practice of cutting deals in return for testimony the prosecution wants, or deferring sentencing until such testimony has been provided, results in coerced testimony. That the Justice System recognizes the payment of even one penny to a witness as tainting testimony, but looks the other way when years are knocked off sentences in order to secure testimony or agreement to government-authored laundry lists of antisocial acts, is evidence of the degree to which the government values expediency over fairness in processing caseloads. So I repeat my question. Does Jim Bell, aside from signing a statement prepared for him by the government, in order to avoid a much longer sentence, acknowlege annoying the IRS with unpleasant-smelling chemical substances? A "yes" or "no" will suffice. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

Eric, I invite folks to read the full article at: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40102,00.html http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/101218&mode=nested I'm not taking a position on Bell's case. I do need to tell my readers why was locked up earlier, and that seemed a reasonable way to do it. Bell was not coerced into taking the plea agreement; if anything, he seems to have more mental resources to fight the system than other defendants I have interviewed. -Declan On Sat, Nov 11, 2000 at 09:40:34AM -0800, Eric Cordian wrote:

In a Wired News article, Declan reports:

"In Bell's 1997, plea agreement, he admitted to owning chemicals that could be used to produce Sarin gas and to stink-bombing the carpet outside an IRS office."

Yeah, and I own chemicals for making chlorine gas. Sodium hypochlorite solution, and sodium bisulphate. I use these "dangerous" chemicals when I do my laundry, and when I clean my bathroom.

I think "chemicals that could be used to produce..." is pretty sleezy journalism, which could describe virtually anything. I think using the word "admitted" in describing a plea bargain taken in lieu of a much longer prison sentence is also pretty sleezy journalism.

What were the chemicals in question? Does Bell, outside of documents the government makes him sign, claim to have made the IRS doormat smell bad?

Does anyone with a clue think nitric acid is a ominous chemical for a chemist to own?

I'm really getting tired of Jim Bell articles whose tone suggests that despite the egregious mistreatment of Mr. Bell, the government apprehended him just in the nick of time, before he killed millions with homemade weapons of mass destruction.

Bell's Common Law Court was political theatre, his Assassination Politics essays satirical commentary on political accountability, and his documentation of smart-assed IRS employees consumer activism. Aside from not giving his government-issued Social Security number to an employer, the entire compendium of alleged Jim Bell crimes is little more than one of IRS Agent Jeff Gordon's more extreme masturbation fantasies.

-- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

-- At 02:31 PM 11/11/2000 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:

I'm not taking a position on Bell's case. I do need to tell my readers why was locked up earlier, and that seemed a reasonable way to do it. Bell was not coerced into taking the plea agreement;

All plea agreements are coercive. The serious charge that the prosecutor threatens the accused with necessarily has some relationship to evidence that the prosecutor possesses, or else it would not be a threat. The alternative lesser charge that the prosecutor offers need have no relationship to the evidence, and usually has no relationship. It is a mere formality. Even in non political cases, there is a strong tendency to make the lesser charge something that is wrong it itself, rather than a lesser form of the more serious charge, to make the lesser charge a crime something where police and prosecution have more support than they have for the more serious charge. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG T76DpThszKKJrrCcPnJOs48j5JDhlfDF9ZnRo3VC 4O4kvplrNHWQ1q3tJVEFxtxt18VXyP0hSmVTx5zoL