Jim Bell Trial: Third Day

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Third Day:  Jim Bell trial

Rabatin (the computer forensics specialist) took the stand again.

He verified that more documents were pulled from Bell's computer:

1) Message to Ray Dillinger, 10/19/2000, "Judges Needed Killing".  Rabatin 
read an excerpt where Bell suggested a "chemical solution" whereby PCBs 
could be used to contaminate vehicles seized by government agencies, turning 
them from $10,000 assets into $100,000 liabilities.
2) The now oft-cited "Say Goodnight to Joshua" message of 10/24/2000.
3) Message to Jim East (friend of Bell's who testified on Wednesday) on 
10/24/2000, regarding Bell's investigation of addresses of a Jeffrey Gordon 
in Eagle Creek, OR, and Mike McNall.  An excerpt read by Rabatin:  "The 
new renter acted like he knew Mike McNall."
4) Message on 10/25/2000 to John Branton at the Vancouver Columbian, Re: 
Harry Browne in Portland.  Bell writes that he talked to Gordon and McNall. 
 Bell states that Lund got 10 years off sentence in exchange for assistance 
in intimidating Bell into signing the original guilty plea agreement.
5) Message to cypherpunks, 10/25, "CIA in Oregon."
6) Message on 10/26 to Branton, regarding Bell's search through the Oregon 
DMV database for a possible CIA operative.
7) Message to Bob Johnson on 10/26, with a reference to outing feds.
8) Message to cypherpunks, 10/27, regarding the CIA and Intellink in Oregon.
9) Another message to cypherpunks on the same date, same subject
10)   Message to Branton, 10/28, regarding "outing" of "CIA agent" Mueller 
in Bend.
11)   Message (to Branton?), saying that the Mueller in Bend did not have 
the same birthday as previously thought.
12)   Message to cypherpunks, 10/30, Re: Parties, urging people to make 
various public databases easily available.
13)   Message to jessicas at alum.mit.edu and darcy.bender at iis.com, with cc: 
to Declan McCullagh, John Branton, and John Painter.  Bell states that he's 
still interested in uncovering the truth concerning McNall and Lund.  He 
asks the recipients to call the ATF office where he believes that McNall 
works.  As part of the deal that Bell believes that Lund got for cooperation,
 Bell notes that Lund got 27 months instead of 10-12 years for possession 
of an illegal firearm and methamphetamines.
14)   Message to John Young, 11/2, describing his upcoming trip to Bend 
to check out the address of Mueller.
15)   Message to Blanc Weber, 11/3, similar to the previous message to John 
Young.
16)   Message to cypherpunks, 11/4, Re: CIA in Oregon and Intellink" describing 
the Mueller home in Bend, Oregon, and listing license plate numbers on cars 
he found there.

During the above testimony, the prosecution displayed the email messages 
on a monitor that was located about 20 feet from the jury box.  The jurors 
leaned over, squinting to see the messages. Although there had been two 
days of testimony where images had been displayed on this monitor, it wasn't 
until the third day that the judge asked if the jurors had difficulty seeing 
the messages.  Almost all raised their hands.  The judge then encourage 
the jurors to stand up and move around to get a better look at the monitor,
 which they did for a couple of exhibits.  After that, none of the jurors 
made significant physical effort to examine the exhibits.

London asked Rabatin: "How do you know authorship [of these emails]?"  Rabatin 
responded that the email programs are set up for multiple users.  However,
 he generally only looked at emails that were obviously either authored 
by or sent to Jim Bell. Rabatin noted that other family members used email 
on the same computer that Jim did, and that Rabatin had only made a cursory 
review of their accounts.

In cross-examination, Rabatin stated that he had only found email on one 
computer, although three computers were seized in the November 6 raid.  
(Obviously, the two computers that were seized but obviously not used by 
Bell were sitting in the courtroom and had not yet been returned to the 
family.)  In addition, Rabatin had failed to check the date and time on 
Bell's computer, but believed them to be generally accurate.

The prosecution next called Barbara Gordon, wife of a Jeffrey Gordon.  She 
pointed out her husband in the courtroom, a youngish, bearded working-class 
casually dressed man.  She verified that the information that Bell had gathered 
from public databases referred to her and her husband.

She testified that she had never received the October explanation of benefits 
from her insurance carrier, and stated that she and her husband were so 
busy that at times they did not pick up their mail for a couple of days 
at a time from the mailbox at the curb.

In cross-examination, Leen asked her where she had heard of Jim Bell.  She 
was unaware of Bell until Jeff Gordon had approached her.  Asked if she 
knew of any thefts or trespass, she said that she did not.

The next witness was Robert Dutra, Detention Enforcement Officer with the 
U.S. Marshall's Service.  He verified that he had taken a 10-print card 
of Bell's fingerprints on 11/20/2000.  Bell had signed the fingerprint card.

Succeeding Dutra was Sue White, a Senior Fingerprint Specialist with the 
Treasury Department.  She was qualified as an expert witness under rule 
702.

White was obviously experienced in testifying.  While most witnesses watched 
and responded to the attorney questioning them, White would listen to the 
question and then turn to the jury to respond.  Her responses were textbook-
quality, an introduction to fingerprint analysis 101.  Not until Jeff Gordon 
took the stand did any other witness so directly address the jury.

She stated that she examined Bell's notebook for prints, and also examined 
the notes left on cars (those that asked the owners to call John Branton 
at the Columbian).  Latent fingerprints from Bell were found on the notebook,
 but not on the notes left on the cars.

The court recessed for a break.  During the break, London tried to get the 
judge to admit a newspaper article about the Tokyo subway Sarin attack on 
the basis that it was corroboration for the fears of the IRS agents.  Tanner 
couldn't see the point, and ruled in favor of the defense.

London then brought up the matter of John Young being able to download the 
list of juror names from the Pacer system.  Pacer is accessible from the 
internet for a fee.  Tanner had barred anyone from publishing juror's names,
 but apparently one of his assistants had already published the juror's 
names to Pacer.  Tanner ruled that the names could not be reproduced in 
any medium.

The defense requested information about the tracking device that was attached 
to Jim Bell's car: the type, make, and where installed in the car.  London 
cited "law enforcement privilege" and argued that giving out that information 
would enable future surveillance subjects to find and dismantle such devices. 
 (Earlier in the trial, it was mentioned that this was the first use of 
a GPS tracking device in the area.)

When the jury returned, Christy Hanley took the stand.  She is an office 
manager for Unitel Communications.

She pulled the long-distance records for the Bell residence for the period 
5/2000 through 12/2000.  She stated that on 10/31/2000 at 10:34 a.m., a 
call had been made for 2 minutes to (503) 326-2246.

The next witness to take the stand was Brian Mayer, special agent for the 
ATF.  He stated that he had installed the electronic tracking device on 
Bell's car, a Nissan Maxima, during the 11/6 raid, pursuant to federal court 
order.

He said that the device received GPS signals from up to 12 satellites, and 
had an RF transmitter for broadcasting the location of the vehicle.  The 
GPS quality was "high quality, probably military."  The RF signal, which 
was always on, was broadcast to a receiver, and the data mapped onto a street 
grid coordinate system which could be displayed on a PC.  Mayer implied 
that the device also had a recording function when he stated that after 
he had removed the device from Bell's car on 11/20, he had "downloaded data" 
from the device into a computer.

The jury was then recessed for lunch.

The judge then called on John Young about the matter of publishing jurors' 
names.  Young asked for clarification.  Tanner told him not to publish any 
names before the end of the trial under penalty of contempt.  The prosecution 
tried to get all records sealed until the end of the trial, but Tanner said 
that the order extended to the names of jurors only, not the names and addresses 
of anyone else.

After lunch, Mayer re-took the stand.  He mentioned that he had tested the 
accuracy of the tracking device before attaching it to Bell's car, and verified 
it after he had attached it on 11/6.  He mentioned that he removed the device 
on Thanksgiving morning.  The device, he said, emits signal continuously 
even when the car is stopped.

On cross-examination, Leen asked him if Bell had also been tailed.  Mayer 
said that agents had relied on the tracker alone.

Next on the stand was Kevin Layng, patrol sergeant with the Clackamas County 
Sheriff's Office.  He testified that he had stopped Bell after Bell had 
been to the Groener's residence in Oregon City.  Layng had been alerted 
by Treasury agents that Bell's car was in the area, and found Bell driving 
about 2-3 miles away from the Groener's residence.  He stated that he followed 
Bell for about half a mile, during which time Bell crossed the center line 
of the road by about a foot when going around curves.  That was sufficient 
cause to stop him.  Layng's instructions were to stop Bell, then wait for 
a federal agent to come to the scene.

	Layng said that he questioned Bell and that Bell returned his questions 
with more questions.  Bell asked the real reason he was being stopped, who 
Layng had been talking to.

Leen cross-examined Layng, asking if Bell possessed any weapons, chemical 
or nerve agents.  Layng said no.  Layng stated that ATF agent Mike McNall 
had shown up and spoke briefly with him.  McNall expressed concern to Layng 
about the Groener's house.  Layng also mentioned that Bell was handcuffed 
during the stop, about 30-40 minutes, then released.

The next witness was Randy Oxford, Sheriff's office hazardous materials 
technician, Clackamas County.  He was called out to recover the notes that 
had been left on the vehicles (ones that asked the owners to call Branton 
at the Columbian), because Treasury agents believed that they might be contaminated 
with PCBs.  The notes were transferred to the Clackamas County hazardous 
chemical facility.

On cross-examination, Oxford stated that he did not know the outcome of 
the chemical analysis.  (These are the same notes that were later handled-
without unusual precautions, apparently, by Sue White when she did the fingerprint 
analysis.)

Called next to the stand was John Branton, police reporter for the Vancouver 
Columbian.  He stated that he had written several articles about Jim Bell 
over the years, and had talked on the phone and exchanged email with Bell 
a number of times.  He testified that Bell had told him that Bell had been 
researching Oregon DMV databases and had driven to government agents' homes 
and taken pictures.

Under cross-examination, Branton stated that Bell believed that he had been 
persecuted and was trying to gather proof from court records and license 
databases.  Bell felt that the government knew that he was getting too close 
to the truth, and that government agents hated him.  Bell mentioned in email 
to Branton that he wanted to ask Mike McNall about the deal with Ryan Lund.

On cross-examination, Leen asked Branton about the email with the subject 
"Re: Harry Browne in Portland."

Leen:  "Who's Harry Browne?"

Branton:  "I don't know who Harry Browne is."

Leen asked Branton if he thought Bell was dangerous.  Branton replied, "I 
asked Jim if he intended to hurt someone, and he said no."  In a later email 
that Branton read to the court, Bell gave a more ambiguous answer.

When Branton asked Bell if he was a terrorist "Are you just talking or do 
you intend to hurt someone?", he said that Bell "always seemed to be just 
talking."

After a short recess, Mike McNall, special agent of the ATF, Portland, took 
the stand.  He confirmed the ATF's address at 1500 SW 1st Ave., Room 680 
in Portland.

He stated that he was the principal agent in the Lund case, prosecuting 
him for felony possession of a firearm.  He hadn't heard of Bell until Jeff 
Gordon alerted him that his name had been mentioned on the cypherpunks list 
on 9/15/2000.

He stated that there had been no deal for Lund, that most cases of this 
type go into plea bargain.  He said that he hadn't been in touch with Lund 
since the original interview with Lund in 1997.

London asked McNall how he felt about being "stalked" by Bell.  McNall said 
his initial reaction was that it was part of being in law enforcement.  
But after learning about Assassination Politics, Sarin, and Bell's chemistry 
background, he was concerned for himself and his family.  He mentioned that 
he thought about getting a restraining order, but decided not to for two 
reasons:  (1) the difficulty of serving a restraining order issued by an 
Oregon court on a Washington resident; (2) the requirement (which might 
be waived with some trouble) of putting his home address on the order.

Instead he notified the local police, and arranged for them to show up immediately 
in case Bell came to his house, started locking up his garage rather than 
leaving it unlocked.  He stated that his wife became more aware of cars 
in the neighborhood, and that he himself cancelled a business trip scheduled 
for the time before Bell was taken into custody.

On cross-examination, McNall stated that he had never met Bell, and denied 
that Lund was working as an informant for the ATF.

On re-examination, McNall stated that Bell had gotten his name from researching 
Lund's case file.

The next witness was Jeff Gordon, special agent for the Inpector General 
for Tax Administration.  Although Tanner had initially excluded witnesses 
from the courtroom during the trial, Gordon had sat during the entire trial 
at the prosecution table, calling up exhibits on his computer, prompting 
D.A. London during questioning, and bringing in prosecution witnesses.

He said that his job was investigating threats against IRS agents and their 
families.  He first became aware of Bell in October, 1996, when his attention 
was drawn to a post on cypherpunks concerning a post with personal information 
of Joan Luthy and Lynn Rose (CID).

He then ran Bell's email address through a search engine, found Bell's AP 
essay and "similar language."  He also found an ad through the search engine 
of computer equipment for sale.  The ad had a phone number.  Gordon traced 
the phone number to a house in Vancouver, Washington.

Gordon also found references to "Operation Locate IRS" which he said alarmed 
him greatly.  The references were found in email sent to both the Common 
Law Court and the Northwest Libertarians lists.  He stated that Operation 
Locate IRS "directly targeted tax collectors."

During a six-month investigation, Gordon pulled Bell's IRS file.  In the 
file was a letter from Bell, where he threatened to take the IRS to the 
Common Law Court.  Bell owed money from previous years, and had failed to 
file tax forms for some years.  (Gordon did not disclose if Bell had sufficient 
income to file a return in those years; nor did Gordon mentioned that W-
2s or 1099s had been filed for those years.)

On May 15, 1997, Bell was arrested for obstruction of IRS operations and 
his home was searched.  A warrant was soon issued to search East's home 
because East and Bell had email conversations about using nickel-coated 
carbon fiber to sabotage computers.  Gordon complained that he didn't get 
much information from the email exchanges between Bell and East were encrypted. 
 "We know when two people exchange email, there's two copies of every email." 
 Only a few messages had been stored on hard drives unencrypted.

Why was East's house searched?  Gordon replied that Bell had been using 
East's house to receive mail and had used East's phone.

In 1997, Bell pleaded guilty to obstructing the IRS.

Starting early in 1998 in mail and phone correspondence with people outside 
of prison, Bell talked of the connection between Ryan Lund and federal agents. 
 However, Gordon stated, Bell assented in court during his sentencing that 
he had not been coerced into making a guilty plea.

Asked if federal agents had followed Bell, Gordon said that Bell may have 
been followed "once or twice" in 1997, but not in 1998.  He said that Bell's 
home had never been wiretapped, that evidence against Bell had been developed 
through legal means.

Gordon said that Bell "seems to be obsessed that his neighbors are spying 
on him and beaming things at him."

Gordon maintained an interest in Bell and decided to maintain a watch on 
him prior to his release in April, 2000, because he believed that there 
"would be substantial security issues when he got out of jail."

Gordon mentioned that when agents raided Bell's home in 1997, that the hazmat 
team wouldn't even go in because of all the chemicals in Bell's home.  Agents 
thought about abandoning the search, but decided instead to go in and search 
quickly.

Before release, Bell had gotten in touch with people outside of jail and 
some contacted Jeff Gordon to give him a heads up.  "He clearly wasn't backing 
off from the kinds of activities that he's been arrested for in the first 
place."  Bell was still advocating assassination politics and other ideas 
and that showed that he hadn't reformed.

After release people in the Vancouver voter registration office said that 
Bell had visited the office, looking up names.  During the summer, Bell's 
neighbors complained of black smoke coming from the chimney of Bell's house. 
 Gordon linked that with his concern that Bell was burning chemicals in 
the fireplace.

Bell said that he continued to monitor the cypherpunks list and USENET. 
 Apparently he used a search engine to look at USENET postings.  When he 
saw the "Judges needed killing" post, Gordon stated that it got him "worried 
enough" to open up a new investigation.

Gordon insisted that he was only monitoring public lists, and not monitoring 
private communications.

Court then recessed for the day.



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