Government vs. Steve Jackson (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

Forwarded message:

> From: Shane_Nifong at s2systems.com
> Subject: Government vs. Steve Jackson
> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 14:28:55 -0500

> Would someone summarize this case for me? Someone told me that the 
> government could seize your computer without a warrant or anything.  
> They said that it (computer) was not covered under the privacy act.  
> True?

There was an employee of SJG, Lloyd Blankenship (aka The Mentor), who wrote
material for SJG and helped manage the Illuminati BBS for SJG. Lloyd was
also one of the lead members of a group called Legion of Doom (LoD) and ran
an underground BBS called Phoenix Project. Members of LoD hacked many
systems and were well known by many in various agencies and was in the
middle of a 'turf' war with Masters of Destruction (MoD) based in Georgia.
Also a member of LoD was Erik Bloodaxe who also lived here in Austin.
Because of various shennanigans various law enforcement agencies, initialy
tripped off by Operation Sun Devil (not related directly to the SJG bust),
were interestedin Lloyd & Erik's activities and particularly interested in
the GURPS Cyberpunk module that Lloyd was writing. In an attempt to shut
down the Phoenix Project and put a hush on the GURPS module, which they
claimed was a 'handbook to hack', they obtained a sealed warrant for Lloyd,
Erik, and about a dozen other members around the country as well as material
at SJG. One Sunday morning in 1990 they arrested Lloyd and several others as
well as went to SJG and attempted to enter. Nobody could be found on a
Sunday morning with a key so they kicked the door down. In the process of
confiscating the GURPS material they also took the Illuminati BBS (run on an
old Apple II) as well as answering machines, dictation tapes, etc. After
several years of legal hassle Lloyd, Erik, & SJG were cleared and *most* of
their property was returned. One of the charges against Erik at least for a
short time was 'theft of a video game'. Seems he and I had bought various
stand-up arcade video games (he had PacMan I believe and I Stargate) from a
3rd party here in Austin (Rick Wallingford of Wallingford Electronics) and
because there was no receipt and Rick wouldn't produce one they thougth it
might be stolen. Both Erik and Lloyd knew they were under observation (along
with many others in LoD and simple bystanders) because of a bar-b-q at
Rick's about a month before the bust. A couple of undercover cops were noted
watching the bar-b-q because they would get out of their car down the street
and walk around with their jackets off - hence displaying their guns. Lloyd
also found out about phone taps because the weekend before he was busted he
and I were talking on the phone and he made a comment about burning approx.
50 lbs. of printouts. When he was busted the SS dilligently took all the
ashes in his fireplace. When Erik was busted the only computer equipment in
his apartment was a dumb terminal and a 2400 baud modem. Even though I was a
user of Phoenix Project and helped work out several hardware problems in
electronics I was never directly involved with LoD nor was I ever contacted
by the SS. I never inquired into whether my phone was tapped because of
Lloyd's paper incident or if it was just his phone.

Last time I talked to Lloyd a couple of years ago he still hadn't received
all his computers and disks back. Erik did two HohoCon's here in Austin but
because of various shennanigans (like cracking the Hotel 8 computer at
Highland Mall) the show is pretty much verboten here in Austin. Lloyd went
back to school in San Marcos and was working on a comp sci degree. I haven't
talked to either Erik or Lloyd in over two years so I don't know what they
are up to now.

The police can't Constitutionaly seize anything without a warrant,
unfortunately the courts don't see it that way all the time. Technicaly if
anyone but you also uses your computer and the police wish to seize it they
must produce search warrants for the other 3rd party work, considerd a
'work in progress', on that computer. If they don't and they do deny the 3rd
party access to that material in the process of their case then the 3rd
party has the right to sue for damages at something like $1k/day. It's one
of the reasons that I have multiple users on SSZ and support several mailing
lists like this one.

That's what I know about it.


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