Jim Bell raid

[Sergey Goldgaber]

On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Toto wrote:

-> Christopher Blizzard wrote: 
-> > In message <Pine.LNX.3.95.970403153051.3400K-100000 at void.el.net>, Sergey Goldga
-> > ber writes:
-> > :Jim Bell's essay is, IMO, definately free speech.  And, as you can see from
-> > :the IRS Inspection report, he was not charged with anything relating to the
-> > :essay itself.  In fact, the raid happened a long time after he published
-> > :the essay, and may truely be unrelated.
-> 
-> > Of course, the papers only talk about this.
-> 
->   Buy a clue, dudes.

I wouldn't bother with my nitpicky distinction below if it weren't for this
patronizing comment.

->   The application for a search warrant made it more than plain that
-> the main basis for the search and seizure fishing expedition mounted
-> by the Feds was based largely on his promotion of AP.
->   Only a few, sparse lines of the application are related to valid
-> IRS concerns re: taxes, etc. 

The search warrant was not made public on the cpunks list.  As you can see
form the above excerpt, I was commenting on the "IRS Inspection" report, which
was virtually the first description of Jim Bell's arrest, long before there
were even requests for information on the procedures for obtaining the
search warrants, etc...

After following the debate, I would definately agree that AP played an
important part in sparking the paranoia of the govt. officials to arrest
Jim, which in turn sparked off paranoia on the list, and rather reactionary
comments towards AP, and reactionary flames towards the reactionaries.  :)
Hopefully this trend won't continue.


 ............................................................................
 . Sergey Goldgaber <sergey at el.net>      System Administrator        el Net .
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 .   To him who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say   .
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