maybe watch this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0q37IJi-CQ that's ryan lackey talking about, among other things, the cypherpunks archive... he mentions AP as part of the 'bad politics' of the list... "I ran one of the first mailing archives for this...which became really interesting legally later" (whatever that means...)

On 11/12/19, Punk-Stasi 2.0 wrote:

maybe watch this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0q37IJi-CQ

that's ryan lackey talking about

About his nice long deep employment with CloudFlare? Now he's talking a lot about blockchain "Governance" through "voting" PoS as CSO for Tezos which is "capable of modifying its own set of rules with minimal disruption to the network through an on-chain governance model." How far or easily could such rule modifications go? To censoring and or seizing "bad political" speech AP addresses? Versus other cryptocurrency blockchain models that resist or would take longer or be harder or nearly impossible to do that? To be fair, one would have to check such potentials against at least some sources... https://tezos.com/ https://tezos.foundation/ https://www.wired.com/story/tezos-blockchain-love-story-horror-story/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-232-million-cryptocurrency-fight-comes-to-a-c... Further, all sorts of adversarial reviews should be performed against all blockchains. So little of that is being done in the global race to have the slickest most easily shillable and investible onesheets and whitepapers.

he mentions AP as part of the 'bad politics' of the list...

Such words could perhaps be throwing FUD at both free speech and at different new ideas and change for the world. To be fair, the context should be reviewed.

"I ran one of the first mailing archives for this...which became really interesting legally later" (whatever that means...)

And if his archive is shown via comparison with other archives to have holes in it... were they perhaps caused by [extra]legal interactions? Volunteership? Bias? Something completely mundane and innocent?

On Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 11:14:35 AM PST, Punk-Stasi 2.0 wrote: On Tue, 12 Nov 2019 03:07:30 -0500 grarpamp wrote:

On 11/12/19, Punk-Stasi 2.0 wrote:

...

    maybe watch this video? [snip]

...

...

    he mentions AP as part of the 'bad politics' of the list...

...

Such words could perhaps be throwing FUD at both free speech and at different new ideas and change for the world. To be fair, the context should be reviewed.

    the 'context' is linked. He flatly states there were 'bad politics' in teh cpunks list and AP was one example of it. 

While I cannot be expected to be unbiased, I have long thought and said that anybody who claims to "oppose AP" should be asked to explain what he means by that.  A person who can say, with a straight face, that he likes everything about today's world can be expected to oppose AP.  He thinks no solution is necessary, including AP.  But I think many people who very much don't like the world also say they oppose AP.   Okay, what is their alternative?   Do they think they have some sort of 'magic solution' to fix what I claim AP will fix?  All militaries?  Nuclear weapons?  All war? Abouty 250 million people were killed in the 20th century alone, by government.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide  But the guy who proposed that term, Rummell, inexplicably omits killings caused by war, when it is virtually always the leadership which causes such wars.  A distinction without a difference, I say. They might claim that AP won't work, or can't work, or won't be allowed to work.  But few seem to do that, now.  In 1995, it might have been thought that an AP-type system could not be implemented.  Maybe it was too complicated, they might have said at the time.  But history hasn't supported this.   Ethereum/Augur is not truly an "assassination market", because it is not possible under their policy (as I understand it) to give a huge payoff to one individual who correctly "predicts" the desired outcome.   This policy could be changed, and their system modified to allow truly anonymous payoffs which, nevertheless, prove themselves to have been done.    

...

...

    "I ran one of the first mailing archives for this...which became really interesting legally later" (whatever that means...)

And if his archive is shown via comparison with other archives to have holes in it...

 >   That has already been done...Furthermore, so far, 'his' archive is The Only Archive... This means, I think, that he has a special responsibility to find the problem and expose it.   How he reacts to this, will tell us much.

...

were they perhaps caused by [extra]legal interactions? Volunteership? Bias? Something completely mundane and innocent?

    it's technically possible that it's just 'coincidence' and that the 5 missing months were accidentally lost. Still, who in his sane mind would 'trust' a source like lackey? Fuck, even his surname is a joke.

One of the problems with allowing people to simply "volunteer" is that betrayers can "volunteer" themselves into a position of control.  Like Steven Walsh, acting under the phony name "Steve Wilson", did in the MCCLC (Multnomah County Common Law Court) in 1996.  He actually induced a trial that the Feds later complained about.   Isn't that called "agent provocateur"?             Jim Bell

Also, could somebody contact Declan McCullagh about this forgery news.  I'd do it myself, but I don't want him to be able to use something I said as an excuse to not show up.  Is it merely a coincidence that the forgery of the archive occurred at least as early as 2003, when I've pointed out that it was early 2002 that he decided not to further report on my case.  His excuse at that time amounted to 'You're convicted now, Bell, so you are no longer a story'.   Ask him now why.  He has had an additional 17 years to think up an excuse. Nonsense.  Maybe he was threatened and scared off of the issue.   If so, he should have the long-delayed courage to actually state this and explain why he didn't blow this story wide open in 2002-2003.             Jim Bell On Monday, November 11, 2019, 09:44:17 PM PST, jim bell wrote: And, I have also informed Andy Greenberg, the guy who wrote the article about "Sanjuro"s supposed Assassination Market in 2013. He carefully avoided covering my accusations of the Federal Government when he wrote his book.                Jim Bell On Monday, November 11, 2019, 08:52:50 PM PST, jim bell wrote: Also, please contact whatever journalists you are aware of, and notify us of these contacts.  I have already contacted Jamie Bartlett.               Jim Bell On Monday, November 11, 2019, 06:23:48 PM PST, jim bell wrote: This event, the discovery that the 1995 Cypherpunks archive, should become well-publicized.  Could somebody add a paragraph describing this to the Talk Page of that article, "Cypherpunks".  Feel free to use some text that has already been posted on the Cypherpunks mailing list.  Ask people who were aware of the list in that time, and especially those who participated, to show up and help expose that matter.               Jim Bell

On 11/15/19, jim bell wrote:

this Cypherpunks Archive forgery?

As there have been too many messages over too many broken threads etc on this for anyone to digest... What is the current state of this, exactly? 1) Venona/Cryptome has entire month sized time gaps. Have those gaps been proven malicious with evidence? If so, what is it. 2) Jim asserts, and context of some messages in Venona/Cryptome said to show, that Jim and or others seem to have been posting on AP subject during those gaps, somewhere on some fora / remailer. Months long wholesale gaps could just be fuckups. Certainly different than say obvious erasement single scope targeting a topic / author. So it seems you'd want to make a simple call for more independant copies of the various fora with attestations, to help form and answer any real question. This is not to discount any questions that may exist. Only to define the current state of the questions so that people, journos, whoever, might have something precise to try answering next. People should present the current questions and any evidence again, briefly, in one nice new thread or post, so people can pick up and work on. Not over 10+ threads, 50+ posts comprising 100 of pages of longtalk, block quoting, top posting, HTML, sidetalk, rants, etc. You should of course quote in that summary, any 1995 messages from people other than Jim that refer in context to any suspected missing AP messages. It would also be interesting if say 5 people stood up each with a copy from a different remailer, and none had the suspected AP messages in them.

On Friday, November 15, 2019, 03:36:47 PM PST, grarpamp wrote: On 11/15/19, jim bell wrote:

...

this Cypherpunks Archive forgery?

As there have been too many messages over too many broken threads etc on this for anyone to digest...

What is the current state of this, exactly?

1) Venona/Cryptome has entire month sized time gaps. Have those gaps been proven malicious with evidence? If so, what is it.

2) Jim asserts, and context of some messages in Venona/Cryptome said to show, that Jim and or others seem to have been posting on AP subject during

That's an excellent question.   If there were merely 5 months of a virtually-total gap, (Feb 14-July 11, 1995) a person might declare that looked like an innocent loss of data.  But the problem is that during another 6 month period (July 11 -December 1995) there are thousands of messages, and yet almost none containing the strings "jim bell", "jimbell@pacifier.com", " ap ", or "assassination politics".   I happen to have an advantage over people who weren't reading or posting on CP during those months:  I know that there should be many hundreds and perhaps thousands of such references.   So, I know that the 1995 archive was heavily forged.  No mere accidental deletion of data could have achieved that outcome.  And the contents of the 1996 archive clearly shows large numbers even in January 1996. Further, the very few messages with those text strings in November and December 1995 show that I was indeed on the CP list that early.  Where are the huge number of "What is this AP idea anyway?" comments? Further, if you do a google search for ' "assassination politics" 1995' it is quite clear that 'everybody' realizes that AP was first publicized in 1995, not 1996.  A forgery that completely removed each and every such reference in 1995 would be obviously false.  Even Wikipedia says: "In April 1995, Bell authored the first part of a 10-part essay called "Assassination Politics", which described an elaborate assassination market in which anonymous benefactors could securely order the killings of government officials or others who are violating citizens' rights."   | | | | | | | | | | | Assassination market Early uses of the terms "assassination market" and "market for assassinations" can be found (in both positive an... | | | Although, it cites no references in this.  There are, however, many other results for the google search which clearly identify AP as beginning in 1995. those gaps, somewhere on some fora / remailer. And, of course, I've suggested that people who were active on the list be contacted and asked.  Declan McCullagh is one of the more well-known people, although oddly his name and email address is also mysteriously missing from most of the 1995 archive.  

Months long wholesale gaps could just be fuckups. Certainly different than say obvious erasement single scope targeting a topic / author.

So it seems you'd want to make a simple call for more independant copies of the various fora with attestations, to help form and answer any real question.

That's quite true.   Surprisingly, we've seen nothing so far.

This is not to discount any questions that may exist. Only to define the current state of the questions so that people, journos, whoever, might have something precise to try answering next.

I am quite confident that the answers will be forthcoming.  

People should present the current questions and any evidence again, briefly, in one nice new thread or post, so people can pick up and work on. Good idea.  

Not over 10+ threads, 50+ posts comprising 100 of pages of longtalk, block quoting, top posting, HTML, sidetalk, rants, etc.

You should of course quote in that summary, any 1995 messages from people other than Jim that refer in context to any suspected missing AP messages.

It would also be interesting if say 5 people stood up each with a copy from a different remailer, and none had the suspected AP messages in them.

I think we are all awaiting the answer.              Jim Bell

 The 1996 Cypherpunks Archive, at least the raw Venona files, contain the first 6 Parts of the AP essay.   Here is why:
 
>From cypherpunks@MHonArc.venona  Wed Dec 17 23:17:14 2003
From: jim bell 
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 08:44:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Ooops!  Sincerest apologies.
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

I just sent out a copy of my essay as a response to an inquiry, and  
inadvertently posted it here, too.  My sincerest apologies; I intended to 
delete the list from the private email.

Much sorry.

Jim Bell


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBMRfpZ/qHVDBboB2dAQHblAQApam8DgJPK/rnXUnfT47SrdYFLxpCPiFd
/DdQpCikjAIJtwGRDcHm7w3RBKiMzIOQ9rGuXF/FH9Q2pfWQ3DAK4RMNTNwC/0Hf
2fAJzz1psmlZ4EhPrX6qSyJi5fv1anKFe27GnGdE2nXA8sjOwH4Xg7x+/9dPKr9O
qsgu8E4bwAY=
=IFXd
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===================================================================




 And notice that the beginning of Part 2 uses the word "revolutionary", twice, not "evolutionary"!   Just like I said it would.   I would not have made that mistake!  Raising the question:  WHY is this error in the two archives of my essay?   http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm     AND     https://cryptome.org/ap.htm   ???????????????????????
I think there needs to be a machine comparison of this text with the archive versions of AP.
Also:  Check for copies of the Parts 7-10 of my AP  essay in the 1996 venona archives.  
copy from below:
 "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."
====================================================[I just  added the highlight by bolding and italicizing just now, Nov 17, 2019.]===================================
>From cypherpunks@MHonArc.venona  Wed Dec 17 23:17:14 2003
From: jim bell 
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 08:39:54 +0800
To: lunaslide@loop.com
Subject: Re: Reasons in support of crypto-anarchy WAS Re: Why am I wrong?
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>>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.
   
      

Still no response.  And, I don't see any enthusiastic efforts from others currently on CP to contact any other journalists or previous CP people to help uncover this mystery.   Will this become embarrassing?   Yes.                   Jim Bell On Monday, November 18, 2019, 10:42:26 AM PST, jim bell wrote: Well, I sent out an email to Declan McCullagh,  declan@well.com,  and so far no reply.   At least openly, there would not appear to be any reason he should resist the idea of returning and helping us figure out what happened with the faked 1995 archive.  He apparently continues to write news articles,   https://muckrack.com/declan-mccullagh/articles , and at least from their titles they sound well-meaning.  This would certainly amount to a big story, and he certainly can't claim the subject isn't interesting given the history of his articles.   However, his position stated to me in about March 2002 (about the time I was transferred to USP Atwater California; I had been at USP Lompoc for a few months before that) was initially that he was going to visit (because he was attending an event somewhere in the Bay area, as I recall), but after that he didn't bother to show up and it wasn't the reason he claimed:  'something came up':  In fact, he didn't even fill out and return a (necessary) Visitor's application, which would have been automatically approved.  So, evidently, Declan had decided weeks before that he had no intention of visiting me:  Without that form and routine approval, he would not have been allowed to visit.  He knew that. So, I request that as many people as possible contact him and make this request directly.  He may feel uncomfortable, but he has a degree of responsibility, at least as a participant in the Cypherpunks list in 1995-96 and probably beyond, and as a witness, and as a person who no doubt reported the government's line during 1997-2002, but didn't bother to do anything to publicize my side of the story.  And in the end, I had done probably 12 more years in prison BECAUSE my story hadn't been told. Declan should contact the people involved with the Cypherpunks archives, or keeping of the data.  I am confident that it wouldn't take long to figure out what happened.                Jim Bell

To Ryan Carboni,It looks like you are familiar with the practice of writing and filing Freedom of Information Act requests.  https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/ryaz/   Given that these requests can take a long time, I think it would be appropriate to make such a filing for any Cyperpunks mailing list emails, especially but not limited to those from 1995-1996.   Naturally, we will want the output on a computer readable format, such as writable CD, writable DVD, or some other downloadable file system.   We will probably want to compare these emails from those that will be obtained by other sources.   What do you think?   Would you help this process?  Can you write the FOIA request?   Thank you.                 Jim Belle

What to do? First, confirm with "enough"   1995-96 users of the CP list in that there is, indeed, an egregious lack of emails that have a few strings:  "jim bell", "jimbell@pacifier.com", " ap ", and "assassination politics".  They will remember what the 1995 archive should have contained.   Remember, this means that any email:1.  From me.2.  To me.3.  Mentioning me.4.  Mentioning "Assassination Politics" or its merciful shortcut, " AP "  Has been almost completely been removed.  (A tiny number of emails in November and December 1995 remain.) Satisfy yourself that this truly amazing "coincidence" cannot possibly be merely accidental.  There must have been intentional, malicious action.  Compare with the amount of appearances of those strings in the 1996 archive, to see what a more "normal" number would have been. Ask those 1995-96 CP users if they have any old data, perhaps on long-retired hard drives, floppies, writable CD's, etc.  Ask them to return to the CP list to discuss this problem, and to help to identify what happened, when it occurred, and who did it.   Ask them what their recollections are of the keeping of the CP messages, and those they gave them to or got them from.   I think there are a number of people who are hoping, desperately, that we don't uncover the guilty party or parties.   That's because the CP list will 'win', enormously, if we can uncover this fraud.  And yes I will not merely get some credit.  But I will also win by showing that my accusations against agents of the Federal Government, that they have engaged in precisely the malicious actions I have long claimed of them, are correct.  And we will also identify those people who have acted in league with the Feds, people who have long pretended to have done otherwise.   Faking 'evidence' is in the news.  Hitlery Clinton made 33,000 emails 'disappear', many of which mysteriously reappeared on Anthony Weiner's laptop computer.    That Kevin Clinesmith, former FBI attorney, was forced out when it was discovered that he had forged an email by adding more assertions than it originally claimed, such a forgery being used to apply for the Carter Page FISA warrant in 2016.    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mueller-lawyer-with-anti-trump-bias-...   He faces prosecution.                Jim Bell On Friday, November 22, 2019, 08:12:25 PM PST, Cari Machet wrote: Ok what can be done about this?  On Fri, 22 Nov 2019 at 15:35, jim bell wrote: To Ryan Carboni,It looks like you are familiar with the practice of writing and filing Freedom of Information Act requests.  Ryan Carboni (ryaz) | | | | Ryan Carboni (ryaz) Ryan Carboni has filed 18 public records requests on MuckRock. | | |    Given that these requests can take a long time, I think it would be appropriate to make such a filing for any Cyperpunks mailing list emails, especially but not limited to those from 1995-1996.   Naturally, we will want the output on a computer readable format, such as writable CD, writable DVD, or some other downloadable file system.   We will probably want to compare these emails from those that will be obtained by other sources.   What do you think?   Would you help this process?  Can you write the FOIA request?   Thank you.                 Jim Belle -- | | cari machet about.me/carimachet |

Among the exceptions likely to be cited would be privacy, national security, ongoing litigation, etc. On 2019-11-24 03:06, Douglas Lucas wrote:

Via MuckRock I've filed nearly 100 requests: https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/douglaslucas/

Several of my requests have returned documents, and a few have formed the basis of articles by me, e.g this one regarding our gentlehearted friends at Stratfor -- https://web.archive.org/web/20160414073752/https://revolution-news.com/strat... -- or this one involving our scholarly friends at the Border Security Operations Center in Texas https://whowhatwhy.org/2014/07/16/exclusive-the-counterinsurgency-war-on-and...

Because corporations have a few times repeated me in watered down form, i.e. because Vice and Salon have published me, echolalia or whatever, I usually have success in getting agencies to waive or minimize fees, saying the usual stuff about muh journalismszz. Not always though. A while back, I asked the Texas state police for certain Stratfor g00dz and they wanted a zillion dollars or something.

In the next 24-48 hours I'm working on a bunch of other FOIA requests, including appeals... so I could send requests regarding Cypherpunks off as well, if the list clarifies what agencies/offices are wanted.

Because, what agencies do you suspect might have long ago collections of Cypherpunk emails? FOIAs have to go somewhere, to some agency or office. Where, Jim and others, were y'all thinking of submitting FOIAs?

As far as I know, the raw data vacuumed up by federal spy agencies haven't and won't be handed out to the public via FOIA. They'll cite any one of multiple exceptions. I assume, but do not know for certain, that other people have tried such open records requests for laughs, like "From the NSA, I hereby request my photos I accidentally deleted back, I emailed them to myself 10 years ago, does Joseph Maguire at the ODNI have a copy please?"

It might be good to limit the request to the time frame from and including 1 Jan 1995 to and including 31 Dec 1996, because the smaller the scope of the request, the slightly less likely it is that the gub'ment will delay forever, charge fees, say they don't have anything, use some exception, ignore me much like my crushes, etc.

As I suggested above, I think it would be difficult/impossible to obtain cypherpunk emails through FOIA from some agency's covert or clandestine or otherwise shady program or other. Agencies usually use exceptions to block such requests.

However, I wonder if there were any overt programs, agencies, offices, bureaus, whatever that happened to keep an archive of the cypherpunks email list. Maybe some program was liaising with a university for some reason regarding computer-y internet-y technical crap. And that program housed a bunch of email lists for scientific or advertising or educational purposes.

In other words, don't think spies and covert shit. Maybe there's some really overt, goofy program from back then that collected cypherpunks emails as part of some straightforward educational or scientific or some other mundane thing...?

Also, regarding to which agencies these open record requests shoudl go, don't just limit imagination to the federal government. Many agencies/offices/bureaus/etc. at the state, local, county, and other levels of government will take open records requests as well.

Doug

On 2019-11-22 21:35, jim bell wrote:

...

To Ryan Carboni, It looks like you are familiar with the practice of writing and filing Freedom of Information Act requests.  https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/ryaz/  

Given that these requests can take a long time, I think it would be appropriate to make such a filing for any Cyperpunks mailing list emails, especially but not limited to those from 1995-1996.   Naturally, we will want the output on a computer readable format, such as writable CD, writable DVD, or some other downloadable file system.

  We will probably want to compare these emails from those that will be obtained by other sources.   What do you think?   Would you help this process?  Can you write the FOIA request?   Thank you.  

              Jim Bell e

Yes, it looks like this:  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6553646-Socialmediamonitoring.html#d...    will be an excellent case to limit the government's ability to assert various forms of secrecy.   The FOIA could be filed in the Northern District of California, in order to ensure that this precedent is applicable.  While in the last 3 years, we have seen a few examples of judges trying to interfere with President Trump's actions by filing nation-wide injunctions, the general rule is that a given Federal District Judge's authority is limited to the district he works in.  There are exceptions, and they are vague enough to explain what this interference works with.  Maybe the judge merely needs to issue a "finding", as phony as it might be.   This   https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-oip-guidance-privacy-glomarizat...    deals with the concept of "Glomarization", relating to a 1970' case:   From paragraph 2: "Specifically, a FOIA request seeking records which would indicate that a particular political figure, prominent businessman or even just an ordinary citizen has been the subject of a law enforcement investigation may require an agency to flatly refuse to confirm or deny whether such records exist. Such an extraordinary response can be justified only when the confirmation or denial of the existence of responsive records would, in and of itself, reveal exempt information. See FOIA Update, Spring 1983, at 5. This response, colloquially known as a "Glomar denial" or "Glomarization," was first judicially recognized in the national security context, see Phillippi v. CIA, 546 F.2d 1009, 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (raising issue of whether CIA could refuse to confirm or deny its ties to Howard Hughes' submarine retrieval ship, the Glomar Explorer), but it surely is applicable elsewhere.""STIGMATIZING CONNOTATIONThe application of "Glomarization" in the privacy context is appropriate because disclosure of the mere fact that an individual is mentioned in an agency's law enforcement files carries a stigmatizing connotation, one certainly cognizable under FOIA Exemption 7(C), 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C).See, e.g., Fund for Constitutional Government v. National Archives & Records Service, 656 F.2d 856, 865 (D.C. Cir. 1981) ("The disclosure of [the fact that specific individuals were the subjects of a criminal investigation] would produce the unwarranted result of placing the named individuals in the position of having to defend their conduct in the public forum outside of the procedural protections normally afforded the accused in criminal proceedings."); Baez v. Department of Justice, 647 F.2d 1328, 1338 (D.C. Cir. 1980) ("There can be no clearer example an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy than to release to the public that another individual was the subject of an FBI investigation."); see also Miller v. Bell, 661 F.2d 623, 631 32 (7th Cir. 1981) (identities of individuals merely mentioned in law enforcement records protected), cert. denied sub nom. Miller v. Webster, 456 U.S. 960 (1982); Maroscia v. Levi, 569 F.2d 1000, 1002 (7th Cir. 1977) (same)."                    [end of long quote] I believe that the Feds should not be able to use this exception to block the release of the content of the Cypherpunks email data:  The reason is that they did not suck up this data for the specific purpose of a "law enforcement investigation", and certainly not of a specific person.  And this information was originally shared among hundreds (eventually thousands?) of people (the CP subscribers) that the government WASN'T investigating.  A subscriber's mere participation in the CP email list should not be labellable as being "stigmatizing".     And presumably, this monitoring had been going on since shortly after the CP list began operating.  The fact that some people on the list may eventually have been investigated doesn't mean that the information collection was related to them.  And, the fact that the CP list monitoring occurred does not disclose that any of these subscribers were (or were not) under investigation at the time, or later. And, this was not a "covert" operation:  From the Feds' end, it would have been as simple as subscribing to the CP email list, and receiving the resulting emails, just as all of us do, and others previously did.   If that information was later on used, by them, for investigatory purposes, that wouldn't have affected the initial collection process.   I believe that we can label the CP email list as being the "social media" of the 1990's.  An email list was the tool people had to participate in joint discussions, long before the more-refined Facebook and Twitter.   The "tool" necessary to collect that data, at the time, would have been simple:  Just an email account, subscribed to the CP email list feeds.  This Northern District of California https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191119/13132743414/judge-says-fbi-cant-k...  case looks like it will support an FOIA case for the disclosure of the product of that monitoring.   This request should go to, at least, the FBI and the NSA.  Now, the NSA was not (in 1995) supposed to collect data not crossing international boundaries, but even if only a single subscriber to the CP list was outside the US, that would 'authorize' the NSA to collect the specific email sent to him.  And, that person would not have been 'under investigation'; they would simply have been receiving CP list emails.  So, the Glomar exception shouldn't apply.  And the NSA collected "everything", not simply specific wanted information.  So I don't think that the label "covert" applies to this, or a specific "investigation".   The NSA should still have this data:  Emails take merely a very tiny amount of hard-drive space.  The entire CP email archive could probably fit on 1/100.000 of the largest hard drive available today.  Three would have been no reason to erase any of it. I can understand a reason to, initially, limit the request to the time period 1995-1996.  And, probably there should be a FOIA request that is so limited.  But we don't merely want to get all the original data, thus allowing us to recreate what the CP email Archive should have revealed:  We want to find evidence of the forgery, if that is available.  Perhaps evidence of that would be revealed if we also request all email records of the relatively few people who were involved in the keeping of the data, and later the generation of the CP email Archive.  And yes, that will include all their private emails, not involved with the CP list, if those emails crossed international borders.                        Jim Bell On Saturday, November 23, 2019, 10:17:55 PM PST, jim bell wrote: Did you see this recent upload from me: jim bell To:CypherPunks Nov 22 at 11:54 PM Judge Says The FBI Can't Keep Refusing To Confirm Or Deny The Existence Of Social Media Monitoring Documents | | | | | | | | | | | Judge Says The FBI Can't Keep Refusing To Confirm Or Deny The Existence ... The ACLU is one step closer to obtaining documents detailing the FBI's use of social media monitoring tools. The... | | | How will this affect FOIA applications on Cypherpunks data?---------------------------- That is a case out of the Northern District of California.  United States District Court for the Northern District of California | | | | | | | | | | | United States District Court for the Northern District of California The United States District Court for the Northern District of California (in case citations, N.D. Cal.) is the ... | | |      I haven't read it in detail yet.  It deals with monitoring "social media".  While the term "social media" didn't exist in 1995, it is likely that the Cypherpunks email list is close enough to that to qualify.   To take advantage of that, we could find somebody in that judicial district who is willing to file a FOIA there.   I will respond further to your email soon, probably by tomorrow morning.                      Jim Bell  On Saturday, November 23, 2019, 07:06:44 PM PST, Douglas Lucas wrote: Via MuckRock I've filed nearly 100 requests: https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/douglaslucas/ Several of my requests have returned documents, and a few have formed the basis of articles by me, e.g this one regarding our gentlehearted friends at Stratfor -- https://web.archive.org/web/20160414073752/https://revolution-news.com/strat... -- or this one involving our scholarly friends at the Border Security Operations Center in Texas https://whowhatwhy.org/2014/07/16/exclusive-the-counterinsurgency-war-on-and... Because corporations have a few times repeated me in watered down form, i.e. because Vice and Salon have published me, echolalia or whatever, I usually have success in getting agencies to waive or minimize fees, saying the usual stuff about muh journalismszz. Not always though. A while back, I asked the Texas state police for certain Stratfor g00dz and they wanted a zillion dollars or something. In the next 24-48 hours I'm working on a bunch of other FOIA requests, including appeals... so I could send requests regarding Cypherpunks off as well, if the list clarifies what agencies/offices are wanted. Because, what agencies do you suspect might have long ago collections of Cypherpunk emails? FOIAs have to go somewhere, to some agency or office. Where, Jim and others, were y'all thinking of submitting FOIAs? As far as I know, the raw data vacuumed up by federal spy agencies haven't and won't be handed out to the public via FOIA. They'll cite any one of multiple exceptions. I assume, but do not know for certain, that other people have tried such open records requests for laughs, like "From the NSA, I hereby request my photos I accidentally deleted back, I emailed them to myself 10 years ago, does Joseph Maguire at the ODNI have a copy please?" It might be good to limit the request to the time frame from and including 1 Jan 1995 to and including 31 Dec 1996, because the smaller the scope of the request, the slightly less likely it is that the gub'ment will delay forever, charge fees, say they don't have anything, use some exception, ignore me much like my crushes, etc. As I suggested above, I think it would be difficult/impossible to obtain cypherpunk emails through FOIA from some agency's covert or clandestine or otherwise shady program or other. Agencies usually use exceptions to block such requests. However, I wonder if there were any overt programs, agencies, offices, bureaus, whatever that happened to keep an archive of the cypherpunks email list. Maybe some program was liaising with a university for some reason regarding computer-y internet-y technical crap. And that program housed a bunch of email lists for scientific or advertising or educational purposes. In other words, don't think spies and covert shit. Maybe there's some really overt, goofy program from back then that collected cypherpunks emails as part of some straightforward educational or scientific or some other mundane thing...? Also, regarding to which agencies these open record requests shoudl go, don't just limit imagination to the federal government. Many agencies/offices/bureaus/etc. at the state, local, county, and other levels of government will take open records requests as well. Doug On 2019-11-22 21:35, jim bell wrote:

To Ryan Carboni, It looks like you are familiar with the practice of writing and filing Freedom of Information Act requests.  https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/ryaz/  

Given that these requests can take a long time, I think it would be appropriate to make such a filing for any Cyperpunks mailing list emails, especially but not limited to those from 1995-1996.   Naturally, we will want the output on a computer readable format, such as writable CD, writable DVD, or some other downloadable file system.

  We will probably want to compare these emails from those that will be obtained by other sources.   What do you think?   Would you help this process?  Can you write the FOIA request?   Thank you.  

              Jim Bell e