CDR: Jim Bell arrested, documents online

[Ray Dillinger]

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Duncan Frissell wrote:

>So what're the sentencing guidelines for harassment of federal officials?
>
>I hope James will argue that he was gathering addresses so that he could 
>picket them (which is legal).  Petition the government for redress of 
>grievances...
>
>I know James gets carried away with rhetoric.  It' better to say things in 
>such a way that you are immune to prosecution.  You can say and do pretty 
>much the same things.  It's all in the words.

I have just read his paper on Assassination Politics, at 
http://www.jya.com/ap.htm.  It seems to me that he has a 
not-very-realistic view of how laws are interpreted in  
courts, and no understanding at all that governments will 
make new laws or amend old ones as needed to cover new 
situations. 

Basically, assassination is illegal, and the courts will 
interpret the law in whatever way they need to in order 
to stop assassinations from happening.  There may be  
technical arguments against specific "Misprision of Felony" 
and "conspiracy to commit murder" laws, but if AP results 
in killings being performed and killers getting paid, a 
court cannot possibly return a verdict that permits AP to 
continue.  The choices are therefore "guilty" and "stop 
it now."  I'd put heavy money on "Guilty", myself. 

Even if they couldn't find a specific law to charge the 
operator of an AP server with, or couldn't get a conviction 
on the laws they'd charged him/her with, they would doubtless 
issue a court order commanding the operators of the server 
to cease and desist.

Also, if they couldn't get a conviction according to the 
law in any particular state on any particular date, the 
state would instantly follow up the court order by either 
passing a specific law against it or amending the wording 
of their existing "conspiracy to commit" law or "Misprision 
of Felony" laws. 

In light of his position that AP is legal and his assumption 
that, if found so, it could possibly remain so for more than 
a few hours, I'd have to doubt that he's sufficiently aware 
of how the law works to make the reasonable argument that you 
suggest.  Unless, of course, it happens to be true. 

				Bear