On Monday, December 9, 2019, 03:06:55 PM PST, John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> wrote:
>Hi Jim.
>> I discovered that the 1995 Archive for the CP list had been tampered with.
>What you have is a conspiracy theory.
Do you mean literally, as in I'm saying that two or more people acted together? Or a "highly-improbable theory".
>I have personal archives of the whole cypherpunks list, and your AP
essay did not appear in the list in 1995. If you remember posting it,
you must remember posting it elsewhere.
Huh? Even the existing archive, maintained by Tom Busby, has a very few emails mentioning me and AP. And if you do a Google search for "assassination politics", essentially every source says it is a 1995 essay.
>I don't know if the public cypherpunks archive matches my own.
But I looked in my own, a few months ago. Here's what I found.
John
Subject: Re: Cypherpunks Archive Question
message dated "Fri, 15 Nov 2019 19:53:43 -0500."
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2019 18:29:42 -0800
from its inception (21 sept 1992) through its split into
moderated and unmoderated lists and beyond.
>These are in files in my own backups and filesystems, not in any public
place.
>I did a brief web search and see these archives:
>which have a cryptome version and a venona version.
>In my own archives:
>Tim May mentioned markets for assassination on 22 Nov 1992 in his
message, "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto". In the message itself,
he says the manifesto was originated in mid-1988.
Yes, I am NOW well aware of the pre-1995 discussion of the 'assassination market' concept, although I wasn't aware of it in, say, January 1995.
>Jim Bell's first message about "assasination politics" was from
November 17, 1995. He said:
That actually reflects the content of the Tom Busby archive, I believe. Problem is, it's wrong.
One major problem which I, an others currently on the CP list discovered in early November 2019 is the virtually complete absence of postings from about February 14, 2019, through about July 10, 2019. That virtually-complete absence is a clue that there is something very wrong there.
> "If you've been following my idea, "assassination politics," you know that
there is an excellent use for payee-anonymous digital cash."
>He mentions it again on November 24, 1995, again without details:
Yes, at this point I have no doubt that these are likely genuine emails, from me. But where are all the other emails from, to, about, etc, me?
Where are there "Look at this new idea I found on Digitaliberty!!!" comments?
> "It is for this kind of problem that I "invented" my concept of
"Assassination Politics": If everybody pissed off at this situation was
willing to donate $10 to a fund to reward the deaths of a few government
officials responsible for ITAR, I can well imagine that this would shake
them up a bit."
>And again on December 3, 1995:
> "Which is an excellent reason for implementing my idea, "Assassination
Politics.""
>On December 17, 1995, he said:
> "Besides, I have already proposed what I consider to be a _better_ method of
reforming government. It's called "Assassination Politics." Perhaps you've
heard of it."
>On December 29, 1995, he said:
> "In my essay, "Assassination Politics," I pointed out that it would be
relatively easy to deter such official-type actions if enough of us simply
said, "NO!" and denominated it in terms of dollars and cents. After all,
with four million Compuserve users, if they each were willing to donate a
penny to see this latter-day Fuhrer dead, that would be $40,000. (Pardon me
if I don't translate this into marks and other currencies.)"
I guess you don't understand.
All those are genuine emails FROM me. But saying that, doesn't say that these represent ALL the emails that were originally present on the list. And, if you look at 1996, you see THOUSANDS of references, not the tiny handful you've referred to.
>On January 24, 1996, he says:
> "Notice that I've added two areas to the list above,
"Assassination Politics" is commonly discussed. I've also sent a copy to
etc) aspects."
>On January 28, 1996, Rich Graves posted:
> "I have saved Jim Bell's "Assassination Politics" essay, with his PGP
signature, and soon to be a lot of other things, at
> "I plan to collect as many off-the-wall conspiracy theories in this
directory as will fit in my disk quota. And when I run out of quota, I'll
raise it for myself."
>It's not there any more, and the Wayback machine doesn't have it.
On January 28, 1996, Jim Bell posted:
>I have saved Jim Bell's "Assassination Politics" essay, with his PGP
>signature, and soon to be a lot of other things, at
>
Thank you. I guess...
BTW, I sent the file to you as A16.??? That isn't a really descriptive
name. Please change it to something more mnemonic, like ASPOL.TXT or something."
>Finally, on February 6, 1996, Jim Bell posted a message with subject
line "Re: Reasons in support of crypto-anarchy WAS Re: Why am I wrong?"
and included the apparent full content of his essay. I'll append it
below. I don't appear to have an earlier version than this one.
> John
Well, you keep citing messages. You don't address the question, "where was all the THOUSANDS of messages in 1995 that have gone missing?
>From owner-cypherpunks Tue Feb 6 16:09:09 1996
Return-Path: <owner-cypherpunks>
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Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 15:43:12 -0800
Subject: Re: Reasons in support of crypto-anarchy WAS Re: Why am I
wrong?
Precedence: bulk
>>1. Governments will no longer be "necessary," if they ever were.
>2. Protection will no longer depend on having a "government."
>>3. Anonymous networking technology will protect our rights, to the extent
>>they can be protected.
>>4. Your statement, "...anarchy is a massive step backward..." is absolutely
>>incorrect.
>That's fine that you believe the things, but for acceptance by others you
>will have to provide support for your position. I, personally, would like
>to see your premises so that I may evualuate your claims. You may indeed
>be correct in your assessment.
Well, here's my "Assassination Politics" essay.
[Part 1]
I've been following the concepts of digital cash and encryption, since
I read the article in the August 1992 issue of Scientific American on
"encrypted signatures." While I've only followed the Digitaliberty area
for a few weeks, I can already see a number of points that do (and
should!) strongly concern the average savvy individual:
1. How can we translate the freedom afforded by the Internet to
ordinary life?
2. How can we keep the government from banning encryption, digital
cash, and other systems that will improve our freedom?
A few months ago, I had a truly and quite literally "revolutionary"
idea, and I jokingly called it "Assassination Politics": I speculated on
the question of whether an organization could be set up to _legally_
announce either that it would be awarding a cash prize to somebody who
correctly "predicted" the death of one of a list of violators of
rights, usually either government employees, officeholders, or
appointees. It could ask for anonymous contributions from the public,
and individuals would be able send those contributions using digital
cash.
I also speculated that using modern methods of public-key encryption and
anonymous "digital cash," it would be possible to make such awards in
such a way so that nobody knows who is getting awarded the money, only
that the award is being given. Even the organization itself would have
no information that could help the authorities find the person
responsible for the prediction, let alone the one who caused the death.
It was not my intention to provide such a "tough nut to crack" by
arguing the general case, claiming that a person who hires a hitman is
not guilty of murder under libertarian principles. Obviously, the
problem with the general case is that the victim may be totally innocent
under libertarian principles, which would make the killing a crime,
leading to the question of whether the person offering the money was
himself guilty.
On the contrary; my speculation assumed that the "victim" is a
government employee, presumably one who is not merely taking a paycheck
of stolen tax dollars, but also is guilty of extra violations of rights
beyond this. (Government agents responsible for the Ruby Ridge incident
and Waco come to mind.) In receiving such money and in his various
acts, he violates the "Non-aggression Principle" (NAP) and thus,
presumably, any acts against him are not the initiation of force under
libertarian principles.
The organization set up to manage such a system could, presumably, make
up a list of people who had seriously violated the NAP, but who would
not see justice in our courts due to the fact that their actions were
done at the behest of the government. Associated with each name would
be a dollar figure, the total amount of money the organization has
received as a contribution, which is the amount they would give for
correctly "predicting" the person's death, presumably naming the exact
date. "Guessers" would formulate their "guess" into a file, encrypt it
with the organization's public key, then transmit it to the organization,
possibly using methods as untraceable as putting a floppy disk in an
envelope and tossing it into a mailbox, but more likely either a cascade
of encrypted anonymous remailers, or possibly public-access Internet
locations, such as terminals at a local library, etc.
In order to prevent such a system from becoming simply a random unpaid
lottery, in which people can randomly guess a name and date (hoping that
lightning would strike, as it occasionally does), it would be necessary
to deter such random guessing by requiring the "guessers" to include
with their "guess" encrypted and untraceable "digital cash," in an
amount sufficiently high to make random guessing impractical.
For example, if the target was, say, 50 years old and had a life
expectancy of 30 years, or about 10,000 days, the amount of money
required to register a guess must be at least 1/10,000th of the amount
of the award. In practice, the amount required should be far higher,
perhaps as much as 1/1000 of the amount, since you can assume that
anybody making a guess would feel sufficiently confident of that guess
to risk 1/1000th of his potential reward.
The digital cash would be placed inside the outer "encryption envelope,"
and could be decrypted using the organization's public key. The
prediction itself (including name and date) would be itself in another
encryption envelope inside the first one, but it would be encrypted
using a key that is only known to the predictor himself. In this way,
the organization could decrypt the outer envelope and find the digital
cash, but they would have no idea what is being predicted in the
innermost envelope, either the name or the date.
If, later, the "prediction" came true, the predictor would presumably
send yet another encrypted "envelope" to the organization, containing
the decryption key for the previous "prediction" envelope, plus a public
key (despite its name, to be used only once!) to be used for encryption
of digital cash used as payment for the award. The organization would
apply the decryption key to the prediction envelope, discover that it
works, then notice that the prediction included was fulfilled on the
date stated. The predictor would be, therefore, entitled to the award.
Nevertheless, even then nobody would actually know WHO he is!
It doesn't even know if the predictor had anything to do with the
outcome of the prediction. If it received these files in the mail, in
physical envelopes which had no return address, it would have burned the
envelopes before it studied their contents. The result is that even the
active cooperation of the organization could not possibly help anyone,
including the police, to locate the predictor.)
Also included within this "prediction-fulfilled" encryption envelope
would be unsigned (not-yet-valid) "digital cash," which would then be
blindly signed by the organization's bank and subsequently encrypted
using the public key included. (The public key could also be publicized,
to allow members of the public to securely send their comments and,
possibly, further grateful remuneration to the predictor, securely.)
The resulting encrypted file could be published openly on the Internet,
and it could then be decrypted by only one entity: The person who had
made that original, accurate prediction. The result is that the
recipient would be absolutely untraceable.
The digital cash is then processed by the recipient by "unblinding" it,
a principle which is explained in far greater detail by an article in
the August 1992 issue of Scientific American. The resulting digital
cash is absolutely untraceable to its source.
This overall system achieves a number of goals. First, it totally hides
the identity of the predictor to the organization, which makes it
unnecessary for any potential predictor to "trust" them to not reveal
his name or location. Secondly, it allows the predictor to make his
prediction without revealing the actual contents of that prediction
until later, when he chooses to, assuring him that his "target" cannot
possibly get early warning of his intent. (and "failed" predictions
need never be revealed). In fact, he needs never reveal his prediction
unless he wants the award. Third, it allows the predictor to anonymously
grant his award to anyone else he chooses, since he may give this
digital cash to anyone without fear that it will be traced.
For the organization, this system also provides a number of advantages.
By hiding the identity of the predictor from even it, the organization
cannot be forced to reveal it, in either civil or criminal court. This
should also shield the organization from liability, since it will not
know the contents of any "prediction" until after it came true. (Even
so, the organization would be deliberately kept "poor" so that it would
be judgment-proof.) Since presumably most of the laws the organization
might be accused of violating would require that the violator have
specific or prior knowledge, keeping itself ignorant of as many facts as
possible, for as long as possible, would presumably make it very
difficult to prosecute.
[end part 1]
[part 2]
"At the Village Pizza shop, as they were sitting down to consume a
pepperoni, Dorothy asked Jim, 'So what other inventions are you working
on?" Jim replied, 'I've got a new idea, but it's really revolutionary.
Literally REVOLUTIONARY.' 'Okay, Jim, which government are you
planning to overthrow?,' she asked, playing along.
'All of them,' answered Jim."
Political Implications
Imagine for a moment that as ordinary citizens were watching the
evening news, they see an act by a government employee or officeholder
that they feel violates their rights, abuses the public's trust, or
misuses the powers that they feel should be limited. A person whose
actions are so abusive or improper that the citizenry shouldn't have to
tolerate it.
What if they could go to their computers, type in the miscreant's name,
and select a dollar amount: The amount they, themselves, would be
willing to pay to anyone who "predicts" that officeholder's death. That
donation would be sent, encrypted and anonymously, to a central
registry organization, and be totaled, with the total amount available
within seconds to any interested individual. If only 0.1% of the
population, or one person in a thousand, was willing to pay $1 to see
some government slimeball dead, that would be, in effect, a $250,000
bounty on his head.
Further, imagine that anyone considering collecting that bounty could do
so with the mathematical certainty that he can't possibly be identified,
and could collect the reward without meeting, or even talking to,
anybody who could later identify him. Perfect anonymity, perfect
secrecy, and perfect security. And that, combined with the ease and
security with which these contributions could be collected, would make
being an abusive government employee an extremely risky proposition.
Chances are good that nobody above the level of county commissioner
would even risk staying in office.
Just how would this change politics in America? It would take far less
time to answer, "What would remain the same?" No longer would we be
electing people who will turn around and tax us to death, regulate us
to death, or for that matter sent hired thugs to kill us when we oppose
their wishes.
No military?
One of the attractive potential implications of such a system would be
that we might not even need a military to protect the country. Any
threatening or abusive foreign leader would be subject to the same
contribution/assassination/reward system, and it would operate just as
effectively over borders as it does domestically.
This country has learned, in numerous examples subsequent to many wars,
that once the political disputes between leaders has ceased, we
(ordinary citizens) are able to get along pretty well with the citizens
of other countries. Classic examples are post-WWII Germany, Japan, and
Italy, and post-Soviet Russia, the Eastern bloc, Albania, and many
others.
Contrary examples are those in which the political dispute remains, such
as North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Cuba, Red China, and a few others. In
all of these examples, the opposing leadership was NOT defeated, either
in war or in an internal power struggle. Clearly, it is not the PEOPLE
who maintain the dispute, but the leadership.
Consider how history might have changed if we'd been able to "bump off"
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh,
Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Moammar Khadafi, and various others,
along with all of their replacements if necessary, all for a measly few
million dollars, rather than the billions of dollars and millions of
lives that subsequent wars cost.
But that raises an interesting question, with an even more interesting
answer. "If all this is so easy, why hasn't this been done before?" I
mean, wars are destructive, costly, and dangerous, so why hasn't some
smart politician figured out that instead of fighting the entire
country, we could just 'zero' the few bad guys on the top?
The answer is quite revealing, and strikingly "logical": If we can kill
THEIR leaders, they can kill OUR leaders too. That would avoid the
war, but the leadership on both sides would be dead, and guess who is
making the decisions about what to do? That's right, the LEADERS!
And the leaders (both theirs and ours!) would rather see 30,000,000
ordinary people die in WWII than lose their own lives, if they can get
away with it. Same in Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, and numerous other
disputes around the globe. You can see that as long as we continue to
allow leaders, both "ours" and "theirs," to decide who should die, they
will ALWAYS choose the ordinary people of each country.
One reason the leaders have been able to avoid this solution is simple:
While it's comparatively easy to "get away with murder," it's a lot
harder to reward the person who does it, and that person is definitely
taking a serious risk. (Most murders are solved based on some prior
relationship between the murder and victim, or observations of witnesses
who know either the murderer or the victim.)
Historically, it has been essentially impossible to adequately motivate
a assassin, ensuring his safety and anonymity as well, if only because
it has been impossible to PAY him in a form that nobody can trace, and
to ensure the silence of all potential witnesses. Even if a person was
willing to die in the act, he would want to know that the people he
chooses would get the reward, but if they themselves were identified
they'd be targets of revenge.
All that's changed with the advent of public-key encryption and digital
cash. Now, it should be possible to announce a standing offer to all
comers that a large sum of digital cash will be sent to him in an
untraceable fashion should he meet certain "conditions," conditions
which don't even have to include proving (or, for that matter, even
claiming) that he was somehow responsible for a death.
I believe that such a system has tremendous implications for the future
of freedom. Libertarians in particular (and I'm a libertarian) should
pay particular attention to the fact that this system "encourages" if
not an anarchist outcome, at least a minarchist (minimal government)
system, because no large governmental structure could even survive in
its current form.
In fact, I would argue that this system would solve a potential
problem, occasionally postulated, with the adoption of libertarianism in
one country, surrounded by non-libertarian states. It could have
reasonably been suspected that in a gradual shift to a libertarian
political and economic system, remnants of a non-libertarian system such
as a military would have to survive, to protect society against the
threats represented by foreign states. While certainly plausible, it
would have been hard for an average naive person to imagine how the
country would maintain a $250 billion military budget, based on
voluntary contributions.
The easy answer, of course, is that military budgets of that size would
simply not happen in a libertarian society. More problematic is the
question of how a country would defend itself, if it had to raise it
defenses by voluntary contribution. An equally simplistic answer is
that this country could probably be defended just fine on a budget 1/2
to 1/3 of the current budget. True, but that misses the point.
The real answer is even simpler. Large armies are only necessary to
fight the other large armies organized by the leadership of other,
non-libertarian states, presumably against the will of their citizenry.
Once the problem posed by _their_ leadership is solved (as well as ours;
either by their own citizenry by similar anonymous contributions, or by
ours), there will be no large armies to oppose.
[end of part 2]
[part 3]
In the 1960's movie, "The Thomas Crown Affair," actor Steve McQueen
plays a bored multi-millionaire who fights tedium by arranging
well-planned high-yield bank robberies. He hires each of the robbers
separately and anonymously, so that they can neither identify him or
each other. They arrive at the bank on schedule, separately but
simultaneously, complete the robbery, then separate forever. He pays
each robber out of his own funds, so that the money cannot be traced,
and he keeps the proceeds of each robbery.
In my recent essay generally titled "Digitaliberty," or earlier
"Assassination politics," I hypothesized that it should be possible to
LEGALLY set up an organization which collects perfectly anonymous
donations sent by members of the public, donations which instruct the
organization to pay the amount to any person who correctly guesses the
date of death of some named person, for example some un-favorite
government employee or officeholder. The organization would totalize
the amounts of the donations for each different named person, and
publish that list (presumably on the Internet) on a daily or perhaps
even an hourly basis, telling the public exactly how much a person would
get for "predicting" the death of that particular target.
Moreover, that organization would accept perfectly anonymous,
untraceable, encrypted "predictions" by various means, such as the
Internet (probably through chains of encrypted anonymous remailers), US
mail, courier, or any number of other means. Those predictions would
contain two parts: A small amount of untraceable "digital cash," inside
the outer "digital envelope," to ensure that the "predictor" can't
economically just randomly choose dates and names, and an inner
encrypted data packet which is encrypted so that even the organization
itself cannot decrypt it. That data packet would contain the name of
the person whose death is predicted, and the date it is to happen.
This encrypted packet could also be published, still encrypted, on the
Internet, so as to be able to prove to the world, later, that SOMEBODY
made that prediction before it happened, and was willing to "put money
on it" by including it in outside the inner encrypted "envelope." The
"predictor" would always lose the outer digital cash; he would only earn
the reward if his (still-secret) prediction later became true. If,
later on, that prediction came true, the "lucky" predictor would
transmit the decrypt key to the organization, untraceably, which would
apply it to the encrypted packet, and discover that it works, and read
the prediction made hours, days, weeks, or even months earlier. Only
then would the organization, or for that matter anyone else except the
predictor, know the person or the date named.
Also included in that inner encrypted digital "envelope" would be a
public-key, generated by the predictor for only this particular purpose:
It would not be his "normal" public key, obviously, because _that_
public key would be identifiable to him. Also present in this packet
would be "blinded" (not yet certified as being good) "digital cash"
codes, codes that would be presented to a certifying bank for their
digital "stamp of approval," making them worth the dollars that the
predictor has earned. (This presentation could be done indirectly, by an
intermediary, to prevent a bank from being able to refuse to deal with
the organization.)
Those "digital cash" codes will then be encrypted using the public key
included with the original prediction, and published in a number of
locations, perhaps on the Internet in a number of areas, and available
by FTP to anyone who's interested. (It is assumed that this data will
somehow get to the original predictor. Since it will get to "everyone"
on the Internet, it will presumably be impossible to know where the
predictor is.) Note, however, that only the person who sent the
prediction (or somebody he's given the secret key to in the interim) can
decrypt that message, and in any case only he, the person who prepared
the digital cash blanks, can fully "unblind" the digital cash to make it
spendable, yet absolutely untraceable. (For a much more complete
explanation of how so-called "digital cash" works, I refer you to the
August 1992 issue of Scientific American.)
This process sounds intricate, but it (and even some more detail I
haven't described above) is all necessary to:
1. Keep the donors, as well as the predictors, absolutely anonymous,
not only to the public and each other, but also to the organization
itself, either before or after the prediction comes true.
2. Ensure that neither the organization, nor the donors, nor the
public, is aware of the contents of the "prediction" unless and until
it later becomes true. (This ensures that none of the other
participants can be "guilty" of knowing this, before it happens.)
3. Prove to the donors (including potential future predictors), the
organization, and the public that indeed, somebody predicted a
particular death on a particular date, before it actually happened.
4. Prove to the donors and the public (including potential future
predictors) that the amount of money promised was actually paid to
whomever made the prediction that later came true. This is important,
obviously, because you don't want any potential predictor to doubt
whether he'll get the money if he makes a successful prediction, and you
don't want any potential donor to doubt that his money is actually going
to go to a successful predictor.
5. Prevent the organization and the donors and the public from knowing,
for sure, whether the predictor actually had anything to do with the
death predicted. This is true even if (hypothetically) somebody is
later caught and convicted of a murder, which was the subject of a
successful "prediction": Even after identifying the murderer through
other means, it will be impossible for anyone to know if the murderer
and the predictor were the same person.
6. Allow the predictor, if he so chooses, to "gift" the reward
(possibly quite anonymously) to any other person, one perhaps totally
unaware of the source of the money, without anyone else knowing of this.
Even the named "target" (the "victim") is also assured of something: He
is assured that literally anyone in the world, from his worst enemy to
his best friend, could make the amount of the reward, absolutely
anonymously, should they "predict" his death correctly. At that point,
he will have no friends.
This may represent the ultimate in compartmentalization of information:
Nobody knows more than he needs to, to play his part in the whole
arrangement. Nobody can turn anyone else in, or make a mistake that
identifies the other participants. Yet everyone can verify that the
"game" is played "fairly": The predictor gets his money, as the donors
desire. Potential future predictors are satisfied (in a mathematically
provable fashion) that all previous successful predictors were paid
their full rewards, in a manner that can't possibly be traced. The
members of the public are assured that, if they choose to make a
donation, it will be used as promised.
This leads me to a bold assertion: I claim that, aside from the
practical difficulty and perhaps, theoretical impossibility of
identifying either the donors or the predictor, it is very likely that
none of the participants, with the (understandable) hypothetical
exception of a "predictor" who happens to know that he is also a
murderer, could actually be considered "guilty" of any violation of
black-letter law. Furthermore, none of the participants including the
central organization is aware, either before or after the "prediction"
comes true, that any other participant was actually in violation of any
law, or for that matter would even know (except by watching the news)
that any crime had actually been committed.
After all, the donors are merely offering gifts to a person who makes a
successful prediction, not for any presumed responsibility in a killing,
and the payment would occur even if no crime occurred. The organization
is merely coordinating it all, but again isolating itself so that it
cannot know from whom the money comes, or to whom the money eventually
is given, or whether a crime was even committed. (Hypothetically, the
"predictor" could actually be the "victim," who decides to kill himself
and "predict" this, giving the proceeds of the reward to his chosen
beneficiary, perhaps a relative or friend. Ironically, this might be
the best revenge he can muster, "cheating the hangman," as it were.)
In fact, the organization could further shield itself by adopting a
stated policy that no convicted (or, for that matter, even SUSPECTED)
killers could receive the payment of a reward. However, since the
recipient of the reward is by definition unidentified and untraceable
even in theory, this would be a rather hollow assurance since it has no
way to prevent such a payment from being made to someone responsible.
[end of part 3]
[part 4]
In part 3, I claimed that an organization could quite legally operate,
assisted by encryption, international data networking, and untraceable
digital cash, in a way that would (indirectly) hasten the death of named
people, for instance hated government employees and officeholders. I
won't attempt to "prove" this, for reasons that I think will be obvious.
First, even if such operation were indeed "legal," that fact alone would
not stop its opponents from wanting to shut it down. However, there is
also another way of looking at it: If this system works as I expect it
would, even its claimed "illegality" would be irrelevant, because it
could operate over international borders and beyond the legal reach of
any law-abiding government.
Perhaps the most telling fact, however, is that if this system was as
effective as it appears it would be, no prosecutor would dare file
charges against any participant, and no judge would hear the case,
because no matter how long the existing list of "targets," there would
always be room for one or two more. Any potential user of this system
would recognize that an assault on this system represents a threat to
its future availability, and would act accordingly by donating money to
target anyone trying to shut it down.
Even so, I think I should address two charges which have been made,
apparently quite simplistically, claiming that an implementation of this
idea would violate the law. Specifically: "Conspiracy to commit
murder" and "misprision of felony."
As I understand it, in order to have a "conspiracy" from a criminal
standpoint, it is necessary to have at least two people agree to commit
a crime, and have some overt act in furtherance of that crime.
Well, this charge already "strikes out" because in the plan I
described, none of the participants _agrees_ with ANYONE to commit a
crime. None of the participants even informs anyone else that he will
be committing a crime, whether before or after the fact. In fact, the
only crime appears (hypothetically; this assumes that a crime was
actually committed) to be a murder committed by a single individual, a
crime unknown to the other participants, with his identity similarly
unknown.
Remember, the "prediction" originally sent in by the predictor was fully
encrypted, so that the organization (or anyone else, for that matter)
would be unable to figure out the identity of the person whose death was
predicted, or the date on which it was predicted to occur. Thus, the
organization is incapable of "agreeing" with such a thing, and likewise
the donors as well. Only if the prediction later came true would the
decrypt key arrive, and only then would the organization (and the
public) be made aware of the contents. Even then, it's only a
"prediction," so even then, nobody is actually aware of any crime which
can be associated with the predictor.
"Misprision of Felony"
This crime, sort of a diluted form of "accessory before and/or after the
fact," was claimed to qualify by "Tim of Angle," who subsequent to my
answer to him on this subject has totally failed to support his initial
claim. (a recent curiosity is that this crime is one that has been
charged against Michael Fortier, the person who claims he helped OKC
bombing suspect Tim McVeigh "case the joint" at the Federal building.)
I include it here, nevertheless, because his simplistic (and un-careful)
reading of my idea led him to perhaps the "closest" law that one might
allege that the participants would have broken. Tim claimed:
TOA> No. That's called "misprision of felony" and makes you an accessory
TOA> before the fact. Arguably, under the felony murder rule you could get
TOA> capital punishment in a state that has such.
However, I did a little library research, checking Black's Law
Dictionary. Here is the entry for this item: "Misprision of felony. The
offense of concealing a felony committed by another, but without such
previous concert with or subsequent assistance to the felon as would
make the party concealing an accessory before or after the fact. United
State s v. Perlstein, C.C.A.N.J., 126 F.2d 789, 798. Elements of the
crime are that the principal committed and completed the felony alleged,
that the defendant had full knowledge of that fact, that the defendant
failed to notify the authorities, and that defendant took an affirmative
step to conceal the crime. U.S. v. Ciambrone, C.A. Nev., 750 F.2d 1416,
1417. Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony
cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as
soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in
civil or military authority under the United States, is guilty of the
federal crime of misprision of felony. 18 U.S.C.A 4." See also
Obstructing Justice. ++++++++++end of Black's law Dictionary Entry
The only "element" of this crime which is arguably satisfied is the
first: Some person (_other_than_ the defendant for "misprision of
felony") committed a crime. The second element fails miserably: "...
that the defendant had full knowledge of that fact... " My previous
commentary makes it clear that far from "full knowledge of that fact,"
other participants are carefully prevented from having ANY "knowledge of
that fact."
The third element, "..that the defendant failed to notify the
authorities..." is also essentially non-existent: No other participants
have any information as to the identity of a predictor, or his location,
or for that matter whether he has had any involvement in any sort
of
crime. In fact, it would be possible for each of the other partiipants to
deliver (anonymously, presumably)
copies of all correspondence
they have sent, to the police or other agency, and that correspondence
would not help the authorities even slightly to identify a criminal or
even necessarily a crime.
In fact, normal operation of this organization would be to publicize
"all" correspondence it receives, in order to provide feedback to the
public to assure them that all participants are fulfilling their
promises and receiving their rewards. This publication would presumably
find its way to the police, or it could even be mailed to them on a
regular basis to prevent any suggestion that the organization was
"fail[ing] to notify authorities." Nevertheless, none of this material
could help any authorities with their investigations, to their dismay.
The fourth and last element of the crime of "misprision of felony",
"...and that defendant took an affirmative step to conceal the crime,"
would totally fail. The organization would not " conceal" the crime. In
fact, it will have no ability to do anything to the contrary, if for no
other reason that it _has_ no knowledge of the crime! And as described
above, it would carefully avoid having access to any information that
could help solve the crime, and thus it would escape any obligations
along these lines.
Summary:
In hindsight, it is not surprising that such an organization could
operate legally within the US, although at least initially not without
political opposition. First, this is at least nominally supposed to be
a "free country," which should mean that police and other authorities
aren't able to punish behavior just because they don't like it.
Secondly, it is obvious that most laws today were originally written
during an era in which laws assumed that "conspirators" at least knew
each other, had met each other, could identify each other, or had (at
least!) talked to each other. On the contrary, in my scenario none of
the participants even know on what continent any of the others reside,
let alone their country, city, or street. They don't know what they
look like, sound like, or for that matter even "type like": None of
their prose, save a few sparse "predictions," ever get communicated to
anyone else, so even text-comparison programs would fail to "target"
anyone.
Equally surprising (to those who originally wrote the laws against
"conspiracy") would be "Person A's" ability to satisfy himself that
"Person B" deserves the award, without knowing that "Person B" is (or is
not) actually responsible for a particular death.
[end of part 4]
[part 5]
In the previous four notes on the subject of Digitaliberty, I've
suggested that this concept (collecting anonymous donations to, in
effect, "purchase" the death of an un-favorite government employee)
would force a dramatic reduction of the size of government at all
levels, as well as achieving what will probably be a "minarchist"
(minimal government) state at a very rapid rate. Furthermore, I pointed
out that I thought that this effect would not merely affect a single
country or continent, but might in fact spread through all countries
essentially simultaneously.
But in addition to such (apparently) grandiose claims, it occurs to me
that there must be other changes to society that would simultaneously
occur with the adoption of such a system. After all, a simplistic view
of my idea might lead one to the conclusion that there would be almost
no governmental structure left after society had been transformed.
Since our current "criminal justice system" today is based totally on
the concept of "big government," this would lead a naive person to
wonder how concepts such as "justice," "fairness," "order," and for that
matter protection of individual rights can be accomplished in such a
society.
Indeed, one common theme I've seen in criticisms of my idea is the fear
that this system would lead to "anarchy." The funny thing about this
objection is that, technically, this could easily be true. But
"anarchy" in real life may not resemble anything like the "anarchy"
these people claim to fear, which leads me to respond with a quote whose
origin I don't quite remember:
"Anarchy is not lack of order. Anarchy is lack of ORDERS."
People presumably will continue to live their lives in a calm, ordered
manner. Or, at least as calm and ordered as they WANT to. It won't be
"wild in the streets," and they won't bring cannibalism back as a
national sport, or anything like that.
It occurs to me that probably one of the best ways to demonstrate that
my idea, "assassination politics" (perhaps inaptly named, in view of the
fact that its application is far greater than mere politics), would not
result in "lack of order" is to show that most if not all of the
DESIRABLE functions of the current so-called "criminal justice system"
will be performed after its adoption. This is true even if they will be
accomplished through wholly different methods and, conceivably, in
entirely different ways than the current system does.
I should probably first point out that it is not my intention to
re-write the book of minarchist theory. I would imagine that over the
years, there has been much written about how individuals and societies
would function absent a strong central government, and much of that
writing is probably far more detailed and well-thought-out than
anything I'll describe here.
One reason that ALMOST ANY "criminal justice system" would be better and
more effective than the one we currently possess is that, contrary to
the image that officialdom would try to push, anyone whose job depends
on "crime" has a strong vested interest in _maintaining_ a high level of
crime, not eliminating it. After all, a terrorized society is one that
is willing to hire many cops and jailers and judges and lawyers, and to
pay them high salaries. A safe, secure society is not willing to put up
with that. The "ideal" situation, from the limited and self-interested
standpoint of the police and jailers, is one that maximizes the number
of people in prison, yet leaves most of the really dangerous criminals
out in the streets, in order to maintain justification for the system.
That seems to be exactly the situation we have today, which is not
surprising when you consider that the police have had an unusually high
level of input into the "system" for many decades.
The first effect of my idea would be, I think, to generally eliminate
prohibitions against acts which have no victims, or "victimless crimes."
Classic examples are laws against drug sales and use, gambling,
prostitution, pornography, etc. That's because the average
(unpropagandized) individual will have very little concern or sympathy
for punishing an act which does not have a clear victim. Without a
large, central government to push the propaganda, the public will view
these acts as certainly not "criminal," even if still generally
undesirable by a substantial minority for a few years. Once you get rid
of such laws, the price of currently-illegal drugs would drop
dramatically, probably by a factor of 100. Crime caused by the need to
get money to pay for these drugs would drop drastically, even if you
assume that drug usage increased due to the lowering of the price.
Despite this massive reduction in crime, perhaps as much as 90%, the
average person is still going to want to know what "my system" would do
about the residual, "real" crime rate. You know, murder, rape, robbery,
burglary, and all that. Well, in the spirit of the idea, a simplistic
interpretation would suggest that an individual could target the
criminal who victimizes him, which would put an end to that criminal
career.
Some might object, pointing out that the criminal is only identified in
a minority of crimes. That objection is technically correct, but it's
also a bit misleading. The truth is that the vast majority of
"victim"-type crime is committed by a relatively tiny fraction of the
population who are repeat criminals. It isn't necessary to identify
them in a vast majority of their crimes; statistically you'll eventually
find out who they are.
For example, even if the probability of a car thief getting caught, per
theft, is only 5%, there is at least a 40% probability of getting caught
after 10 thefts, and a 65% chance after 20 thefts. A smart car-theft
victim would be happy to donate money targeting ANY discovered
car-thief, not necessarily just the one who victimized him.
The average car-owner would be wise to offer such donations
occasionally, as "insurance" against the possibility of his being
victimized some day: An average donation of 1 cent per day per car
would constitute $10,000 per day for a typical city of 1 million cars.
Assuming that amount is far more than enough to get a typical car
thief's "friends" to "off" him, there is simply no way that a
substantial car-theft subculture could possibly be maintained.
Another alternative is that insurance companies would probably get into
the act: Since they are going to be the financial victims of thefts of
their insured's property, it is reasonable to suppose that they would be
particularly inclined to deter such theft. It is conceivable that
current-day insurance companies would transmogrify themselves into
investigation/deterrence agencies, while maintaining their insurance
role, in view of the fact that they have the most to lose. This is
particularly true because if "assassination politics" (as applied to
criminals and crime) comes about, they could then actually DO SOMETHING
about the problem, rather than merely reporting on the statistics to
their customers and stockholders.
Such companies would also have a strong motivation to provide a workable
system of rewards for solving crimes and identifying criminals, rewards
that (naturally enough!) can be given out totally anonymously.
While I would like to talk about the other advantage of this new kind of
justice, the fact that politicians and other government employees would
no longer have de-facto immunity in most cases, the reality is that
since we would no longer HAVE "politicians and other government
employees," to mention that advantage would be redundant.
The principle is valid, however: In today's system, you can have people
known to be guilty of crimes, but not prosecuted because they are part
of "the system." Classic examples would be heroes of the right (Oliver
North) and heroes of the left (Jim Wright) who either escape prosecution
or conviction for "political" or "bureaucratic" reasons. With
"assassination politics" that would simply never happen.
[end part 5]
Assassination Politics Part 6
A frequent initial belief among people who have recently heard of my
"assassination politics" idea is the fear that this system will somehow
be "out of control": It would end up causing the death of ordinary,
"undeserving" people.
This system, however, will not be without its own kind of "control."
Not a centralized control, decideable by a single individual, but a
decentralized system in which everyone gets an implicit "vote." A good
analogy might be to consider a society in which everyone's house
thermostat is controlled to operate at a temperature which is set for
the entire country. Each person's control input is taken as a "vote,"
whether to get hotter, colder, or to stay the same temperature. The
central control computer adjusts the national setpoint temperature in
order to equalize the number of people who want the temperature colder
and hotter. Each house is at the same, nationally-set temperature,
however. Clearly, no one individual is in control of the setting.
Nevertheless, I think it would be generally agreed that this system
would never produce a REALLY "off the wall" temperature setting, simply
because so many people's inputs are used to determine the output. Sure,
if a group of 10,000 kids decided (assisted by the Internet) together
to screw with the system, and they all set their houses' thermostat
inputs to "hotter," they could SLIGHTLY increase the overall setting,
but since there are probably about 100 million separate dwellings in the
US, their fiddlings will be drowned out by the vast majority of the
population's desires. Is this system "out of control"? True, it is out
of the "control" of any single individual, but nevertheless it is well
within the control of the population as a whole.
It turns out that "assassination politics" actually has a rather similar
control mechanism which, like the one I've described above. First, I've
pointed out that if I were to operate a centralized system such as this,
I'd only accept donations naming people who are in violation of the
"Non-Initiation Of Force Principle" (NIOFP), well known to libertarians.
By this standard, government employees (who have accepted paychecks paid
for with funds stolen from citizenry by taxes) and criminals whose
crimes actually had a victim would be included. Let's call this
hypothetical organization "Organization A," or OrgA for short.
True, somebody else might be a little less scrupulous, accepting
donations for the termination of ANYBODY regardless of whether he
"deserves" his fate. (Hypothetically, let's call them, "Organization B,"
or OrgB, for short.) However, I suggest that if it were explained to
most potential donors (who, I suggest, would have "typical" levels of
scruples) that if he patronizes OrgB, his interests wouldn't be
protected. For example, OrgB (if it survives and thrives) might later
come back to target HIM, because of some other donor. OrgA would not.
Naturally, our "ethical" donor doesn't want this, so he would choose to
give his donation to the most "ethical" organization who will accept it.
This maximizes the benefit to him, and minimizes the potential harm.
Since BOTH organizations will accept donations for "deserving" victims,
while only OrgB will accept them for "just anybody," it is reasonable to
conclude that (capitalism being what it is) OrgB's rates (the percentage
of the price it keeps as profit) can be and will be higher for its
donations. (that's because there is less competition in its area of
specialization.) Thus, it would be more economical to target
"deserving" people through OrgA , and thus donors will be drawn to it.
In addition, OrgA will become larger, more credible, believeable and
trustworthy, and more potential "guessors" (assassins?) will "work" its
system, and for lower average potential payments. (all else being
equal.) Even so, and ironically, the average donation level for people
listed by OrgA would likely be higher, since (if we assume these are
"deserving" people) more people will be contributing towards their
demise.
After all, if a potential donor wants to "hit" some government bigwig,
there will be PLENTY of other donors to share the cost with. Millions
of donations of $1 to $10 each would be common and quite economical. On
the other hand, if you just selected a target out of the telephone
directory, an "undeserving" target, you'll probably be the only person
wanting to see him dead, which means that you'll probably have to foot
the whole bill of perhaps $5K to $10K if you want to see any "action."
Add to that OrgB 's "cut," which will probably be 50%, and you're
talking $10K to $20K. I contend that the likelihood of this kind of
thing actually happening will be quite low, for "undeserving victims."
Now, the die-hards among you will probably object to the fact that even
this tiny residual possibility is left. But consider: Even _today_ it
would be quite "possible" for you to pick a name randomly out of a list,
find him and kill him yourself. Does this frequently happen?
Apparently not. For just one thing, there's no real motive. Unless you
can show that the application of "assassination politics" would
dramatically increase the likelihood of such incidents, I suggest that
this "problem" will likely not be a problem after all.
For a while, I thought that the "lack of a motive" protection was
momentarily overturned by a hypothetical: I thought, suppose a person
used this system as part of a sophisticated extortion scheme, in which
he sends an anonymous message to some rich character, saying something
like "pay me a zillion dollars anonymously, or I put out a digital
contract on you." For a while, this one had me stumped. Then, I
realized that an essential element in this whole play was missing: If
this could be done ONCE, it could be done a dozen times . And the
victim of such an extortion scheme has no assurance that it won't happen
again, even if he pays off, so ironically he has no motivation to pay
off the extortion. Think about it: The only reason to make the payment
is to remove the threat. If making the payment can't guarantee to the
target that the threat is removed, he has no reason to make the payment.
And if the target has no reason to make the payment, the extortionist
has no reason to make the threat!
Another, related (and equally simplistic) fear is that political
minorities will be preferentially targeted. For example, when I pointed
out that "establishment" political leaders would probably "go" quite
quickly, one wag suggested to me that "libertarian leaders" could
likewise be targeted. Such a suggestion reflects a serious
misunderstanding of political philosophy, and libertarians in
particular: I consider it obvious (to me, at least) that libertarians
NEED no leaders. (You don't need leaders if you don't want to control
a population, or achieve political power. The only reason libertarians
"need" leaders today is to take places in the government and (then) to
shut it down.) And if my idea is implemented, "libertarian leaders"
represent no more of a threat to anyone than the average libertarian
citizen.
Fully recognizing this, another (and far more credible) person thought a
while, and in a proud revelation suggested that one way that the
establishment would "fight back" is to convert to a government that is
based on fully decentralized authority, as opposed to the leader-centric
system we have today. Such a system could not be attacked by killing
individual people, any more than you can kill a tree by pulling off a
single leaf. His "solution" was, in effect, to totally disband the
current government and turn it over to the public at large, where it
would be safe from "attack." My smile reminded him that he had, in
effect, totally re-invented my original idea: My goal is a highly
de-centralized system that is not controlled by a tiny fraction of the
population in a structure called a "government," essentially identical
to his idea. So in effect, the only way the government can survive is
to totally surrender. And once it surrenders, the people win. And in
practice, it will have no alternative.
Will this idea be "out of control"? To a great extent, that depends on
what your definition of the word, "control," is. I have come to
believe that "assassination politics" is a political Rorshach (ink-blot)
test: What you think of it is strongly related to your political
philosophy.
[end part 6]