CDR: Re: Bomb info and the terminally stupid (was: Survey meters)

[Alan Olsen]

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Jim Choate wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Bill Stewart wrote:
> 
> > - Cops, clueless or otherwise, trolling for business.
> > 	Some of them may just be looking for kiddies, or some may actually
> > 	think we're a worthwhile provocateur target.
> 
> Simply asking for and receiving bomb info is not a crime. However, if you
> were to say carry on a private conversation or help provide parts with
> such a person then the whole game changes; conspiracy. Where you'd fuck up
> in this situation would be in carrying on any sort of private email
> exchange outside of 'go the hell away punk'.
> 
> It's also no big deal to buy such books at the local bookstore.

Whoever said that law enforcement officials actually had a clue as to what
the law said anyways?  All you have to do it get an emotional issue like
"bombs" or "kid porn" (or anything else that gets the average person's
brain to stop thinking rationally) and add "the Internet" to it and you
have a "means-of-promotion" case for some publicity seaking DA.  Then,
when it gets let go because of lack of illegality, you have yet another
group of publicity hounds screaming "There Ought To Be A Law!".  The press
will report it because it is emotional and it scares people. (That is
what local and national news ratings are based on.)  It will then be
repeated with the next case when the previous one fails to get the proper
emotional support.

People are easily lead into tirrany when they allow themselves to be lead
by people exploiting their emotions and their hatred of others.

alan at ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
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    "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."