Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy

[Declan McCullagh]

On Sat, 31 May 1997, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

> Of course, the "anti-spamming" laws will also be used to suppress the
> "politically incorrect" speech.  Recall that Jim Bell has already been
> accused of "spamming", in addition to other crimes.

Uh, no. Bell was charged with violating:

26 U.S.C. Section 7212(a)
42 U.S.C. Section 408(a)

Which are, generally, attempts to interfere with administration of
internal revenue laws and fraudulent use of a false SSN.

Besides, spamming isn't a criminal offense, last time I checked.

In the interests of completeness, I should note that I just finished a
rather long article about Bell's arrest and related events for Internet
Underground magazine. The government hinted that they might have
additional charges to file against Bell by the time the grand jury
convenes in probably two weeks. He is currently being held without bail, a
situation more common in Federal than state courts.

-Declan