IRS Prosecutes Outspoken Dissident: A Sierra Times Exclusive Report

[Matthew Gaylor]

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  This is an article that appeared on J.J. 
Johnson's Web News Site Sierratimes.  J.J. Johnson currently lives in 
Nevada and is married to the 1992 Libertarian Party VP candidate 
Nancy Lord Johnson, M.D. and attorney http://www.nancyjohnson.net/. 
Prior to that he lived in Columbus, OH (And a short stay in Atlanta) 
and was the media coordinator for the Unorganized Militia, a position 
he resigned from.  He also co-founded the civil rights organization 
EPU http://www.epuohio.org/ . You can view a picture of JJ at 
http://www.sierratimes.com/welcomemat.htm  Which is something to do, 
as he is not what you'd expect.  I personally know both JJ and Nancy 
and have known JJ even before he became well known and before he 
developed more libertarian leanings.  I can remember discussing the 
war on drugs with him a number of years ago, as he at the time 
favored the war on drugs.  But anyone with a brain and exposed to the 
facts will come to the conclusion the WOD is a sham and harmful to 
American Liberty.   According to Sierratimes the author's name of 
this article is being withheld for security reasons.]


IRS Prosecutes Outspoken Dissident
(Jim D. Bell Convicted on Two Counts)
A Sierra Times Exclusive Report

http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/apr/13/arst041301.htm


SierraTimes 04.13.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Dalton Bell may remind you of somebody you know. He's very 
bright, dresses and looks like a nerd and,
most importantly, he dislikes the IRS. In that last respect, he is 
not in a minority.

Where Jim Bell does fall into a minority is that instead of merely 
grumbling quietly, he decided to do something
about it. And that's why he was just convicted in the Washington 
Federal District Court in Tacoma on Tuesday
[4/10/2001].

Jim Bell has been a lifelong libertarian, ever since he was a 
teenager. Bell's view of government was that it was unnecessary. Is 
he an anarchist? Only, as he puts it, in the sense of "I believe in 
order; I do not believe in orders." He disparaged the huge 
hierarchies that have evolved in current bureaucracies, and believed 
that such hierarchies were unresponsive and dehumanizing. And, as 
Bell would personally learn, such a hierarchy creates two classes as 
outlined in George Orwell's Animal Farm: those who are part of the 
government hierarchy, and those who are not.

Not Politics as Usual

Jim Bell was disillusioned with the political system, as the majority 
of people were. Rather than wallow in discontent, in 1993 he started 
thinking of ways to change the system based on an article that he saw 
in Scientific American on blind signatures. (Blind signatures are a 
means of authenticating a document that do not reveal who the signer 
is, but verify that the signature is valid.) Bell started thinking 
about how cryptography and betting pools could be used to limit 
abuses by government officials.

Over the next three years, Bell worked up his ideas into an essay 
that he jokingly entitled "Assassination Politics" .

"Assassination Politics" or AP outlined a plan whereby people could 
use anonymous digital cash to bet on when a public official might 
die. The person who came closest to the time of death would be able 
to anonymously collect the money in the pool. Obviously, someone with 
inside knowledge about the official's death would be the most likely 
to collect, though that clearly wasn't guaranteed by the design.

Bell originally believed that AP would be used to deal with "bad 
guys" like Saddam Hussein. He saw an assassination betting pool as 
superior to the results that the US obtained in Desert Storm: over 
100,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, killed in bombing; another 250,000 
civilian deaths from starvation and disease attributable to embargoes 
on medicine or destruction of sanitation systems. Most important, 
Saddam Hussein was still in power as firmly as ever. Bell saw AP as a 
way to deal with the problem without dragging many innocent civilians 
into a conflict, and forcing taxpayers to underwrite an 80 billion 
dollar "police action."

Bell first published a draft of AP on Fidonet in 1995. Some months 
later, he published it to the internet. He kept improving the design 
of AP based on the discussion, some of it quite emotional, that his 
essay generated.

Think Globally, Act Locally

Bell, who lived in Vancouver, Washington-across the Columbia River 
from Portland, introduced his essay to a number of political groups 
there. The specific groups mentioned in his trial were the Multnomah 
County Common Law Court (CLC) and the Clark County Libertarian Party 
meetings. Bell frequently took diskettes of his essay and handed them 
out at meetings, hoping to engage people in discussions of his ideas. 
And it was during at least one of these meetings that he unwittingly 
ran into trouble.

Bell also had other ideas about how to constrain government abuse 
besides AP. In the CLC meetings, he suggested that participants 
gather the names and home addresses of IRS agents and post them on 
the internet. He called this activity "Operation Locate IRS." Bell 
believed that if the home addresses of IRS agents were known, they 
would be considerably less likely to engage in the sort of abuses 
that have been well-documented in numerous forums.

Not surprisingly, the IRS was not amused. One agent in particular, 
Jeff Gordon, started investigating Bell's writings and postings on 
the internet and concluded that Bell was a distinct danger to IRS 
agents. Gordon, a Special Agent for the Inspector General for Tax 
Administration, had the job responsibility of providing security to 
IRS agents and their families. He believed that Operation Locate IRS 
was a serious threat to the safety of IRS agents, and that it would 
inhibit the ability of the IRS to go about business as usual.

Gordon sent an undercover agent wearing a wire to meetings of the 
CLC. Over a period of about four months, the agent ran into Bell only 
three times at the Common Law Court meetings, while the agent went to 
a couple of dozen meetings. The agent tried to get Bell to commit an 
illegal act-selling him a "pirate radio" FM transmitter, but Bell 
refused to do so, saying that it was illegal and that he wouldn't do 
it.

Bell was not naïve about the presence of an agent at the Common Law 
Court. Before attending the Court for the first time-which he went to 
merely out of curiosity and "because it was at a pizza joint and he 
could never turn down a pizza"-Bell fashioned a field strength meter, 
which would alert him with a vibration when he came close to a 
transmitter. The device detected such a transmitter during the 
session at the Common Law Court.

The agent-again wearing a wire--also visited Bell at a meeting of the 
Clark County Libertarian Party. (In the trial, Gordon denied that the 
IRS was trying to spy on constitutionally-protected political 
activities.)

The Prankster

Although the undercover agent was unable to entrap Bell into doing 
anything illegal, Bell gave the IRS the excuse that they needed to 
arrest him. During March, 1997, Bell dispersed mercaptan in an entry 
way to the IRS offices in downtown Portland. Mercaptan is harmless 
but very smelly. It is the additive that is put in otherwise odorless 
natural gas that gives the gas its distinctive odor. Mercaptan, a 
sulfur compound, is related to the chemical that makes rotten eggs or 
skunks smell bad, but is less corrosive and less toxic.

Bell meant it as a clever prank, but again the IRS was not 
amused-especially since they had to close down the office for several 
days and neutralize the odor. IRS agents arrested him at his home on 
April 1, 1997, and charged him with obstructing the enforcement of 
IRS laws. Bell was also charged with using false Social Security 
numbers: an error, Bell claims, based on a simple mistaken 
transposition of two digits on a tax form. (One could wonder what the 
IRS does to dyslexics.)

Most importantly, Bell's computers were seized at the time of arrest. 
The importance of this became more apparent in the recent trial.

Bell went on trial in the fall of 1997. Bell's essay and political 
beliefs figured prominently in that trial, and in a plea bargain, he 
received over 30 months. In the plea bargain, he agreed to tell 
federal agents everything he knew about the chemicals he was working 
with, and to give the government his PGP keys and passphrase. IRS 
computer forensics specialists had been unable to read much of Bell's 
email, and the keys gave them a means to decrypt and read all email.

The Plot Sickens

Bell served approximately eleven months of the original sentence 
(including the time he was held before the trial and sentencing), 
then was released on probation. During his release, he resumed work 
on AP and Operation Locate IRS. Within a matter of days, his 
probation was revoked, and he was sent back to prison to serve out 
the remainder of the sentence.

Bell was released in April, 2000. He soon became a presence on the 
cypherpunks mailing list. In various emails, Bell talked about the 
investigation that he had undertaken to find out who was behind 
people whom he believed had intimidated him into accepting an 
unfavorable plea agreement. Bell was specifically interested in one 
Ryan Thomas Lund, who had been convicted on charges of possessing 
methampetamines and illegal possession of a firearm. Bell said that 
Lund had assaulted him in prison before Bell's final sentencing 
hearing, telling Bell that "he had better accept the plea bargain 
terms or else."

When Bell was released from prison in 2000, he obtained the criminal 
prosecution record of Lund from the Tacoma court. Listed in the case 
file as the agent in charge of the search of Lund's home at the time 
of his arrest was ATF agent Mike McNall. Bell believed, based on the 
fact that Lund, a multiple offender, who had received a much lighter 
sentence than what could be reasonably expected under federal 
sentencing guidelines, was acting as an informant for the ATF. Bell 
had seen several other indicators that Lund was an informant; this 
was confirmed by Lund's file.

Bell surmised that McNall might know if Lund was an informant, and 
was keenly interested in finding out if the government had made a 
deal with Lund to intimidate Bell into accepting the government's 
offer. Bell said that he didn't want to contact McNall at his office 
in the Portland Federal Building because McNall was unlikely to speak 
candidly in that setting, but believed that he could get McNall to be 
more forthcoming if he was away from the office. To that end, Bell 
researched property records and the Oregon DMV databases for McNall's 
address.

Bell also researched the databases for Gordon's home address as well. 
While "McNall" is an uncommon name in Oregon, Bell found numerous 
"Jeffrey Gordon" listings in the databases. Bell's reason for finding 
Gordon was different from that for finding McNall: Gordon had been 
very active in prosecuting the 1997 case, and Bell wanted to picket 
Gordon's home as a form of political protest.

Bell set out to methodically investigate all of the possible 
addresses where ATF agent McNall and IRS agent Gordon might live. He 
found a former home of McNall's; and visited the home of an unrelated 
Jeffrey Gordon. Bell posted the results of his research to the 
cypherpunks list.

Bell made a critically foolish mistake when he went to visit one of 
the Jeffrey Gordons. The Gordons were not at home, and Bell, by his 
own admission during the recent trial, took mail from their mailbox. 
He opened the mail, looked at the contents, then threw the mail away. 
He did not disclose this action until he was on the stand; even his 
attorney was caught by surprise. It was this particular mistake that 
bolstered the government's contention that Bell was not acting as an 
investigator, and it seriously impacted the jury's perception of Bell.

In early November, 2000, federal agents executed a warrant to search 
Bell's home. They seized Bell's papers, three more computers (only 
one of which appeared to be used by Bell), and other items. While 
Bell and his parents were detained inside, an agent attached a 
GPS-enabled tracking device to Bell's car.

The IRS tied in the signal from the tracking device to a computer 
system which had been programmed to alert Gordon when Bell left the 
area near his house. Agents were then able to watch Bell's movements 
as he visited a couple of addresses over the next 11 days. The 
addresses that Bell visited were not those of federal agents; 
however, Gordon stated in testimony that "Bell was getting close" to 
discovering the true address of at least one agent. Bell was arrested 
on November 17, 2000, and remained in prison until his trial.

Déjà Vu

Most of the events mentioned above were culled from the testimony at 
the trial. During the trial, the government prosecutor put on 
numerous witnesses who testified not only to Bell's meatspace 
activities, but concentrated particular focus on Bell's political 
beliefs. Most of the government witnesses were federal agents of one 
stripe or another, and most frequently brought up Bell's 
Assassination Politics essay.

The government did not have a strong case based only on Bell's 
activities in 2000. There was very little evidence of intent to 
"injure or harass" as required by the federal statute that Bell was 
being charged under. Bell had failed to find any agents' homes, nor 
had he taken any clear steps to be a threat to such agents, such as 
arming himself or making direct threats. The existing evidence of 
intent is more likely to support Bell's insistence that he wanted to 
find out the truth.

So the prosecution brought in evidence from Bell's activities in 1996 
and 1997. Bell's attorney objected strenuously, pointing out that 
Bell had been tried and convicted on this evidence in 1997, and that 
the government was trying him twice. The prosecutor said that the 
evidence was necessary to prove Bell's intent. The 82-year-old judge, 
who at times appeared confused by the attorneys' legal arguments and 
who had at least once fallen asleep during the trial, allowed the 
introduction of the old evidence.

The evidence clearly had an effect on the jury, which was obviously 
what the government prosecutor had been hoping for. Not only were 
Bell's old emails and his essay introduced into evidence; the 
prosecution introduced pictures of the firearms that Bell used to own 
prior to his arrest in 1997, which had not been in his possession 
since then. (They were in the possession of the IRS until October 31, 
2000, when they were released to a friend of Bell's, who then stored 
them at the house of someone Bell didn't know. All evidence points to 
the fact that Bell never saw the firearms again after April 1, 1997.)

The government also brought up the fact that Bell knew how to make 
such chemicals as Sarin, the chemical used by the Japanese cult Aum 
Shinriko in the Tokyo subway system in 1995. The prosecution implied 
that Bell was a terrorist on the order of Aum Shinriko, insinuating 
that Bell would release Sarin gas. It took two objections by Bell's 
attorney before the Judge disallowed such mention. By that time, 
however, the suggestion had been firmly implanted in the jurors' 
minds. Coupled with the pictures of Bell's former guns, old emails 
discussing AP and Operation Locate IRS, and the text of Assassination 
Politics, the prosecution was able to convince the jury that they 
were in the presence of a Really Scary Guy. Many of the emails came 
from Bell's computers that the IRS had seized in 1997 and still had 
in their possession; only now the IRS also had Bell's PGP passphrase 
and keys and could introduce previously encrypted email into evidence.

Some Animals are More Equal than Others

Bell, in his defense, stated that he had signed the LP oath that he 
would not initiate violence. And there was absolutely no direct 
evidence that he had ever initiated violence against anyone. People 
that he had come in contact with in his 2000 investigation 
characterized him as polite, and did not see him as threat. And Bell 
had obviously taken no discernible steps that would equip him to 
initiate violence.

So what the government was left with was prosecuting a thought crime: 
intent. Because Bell had used his freedom of political speech to 
write such items as "Assassination Politics" and disclose IRS agents' 
home addresses, he obviously had to have the intent to harass federal 
agents. And the harassment was loosely construed. Any attempt to find 
one, to disclose any personal information about an agent can be made 
to fit federal law against "intention to harass or injure" an agent.

Several times during the trial, the prosecutor made it clear that 
such an investigation was inappropriate and illegal merely on the 
basis that the subjects of such investigation were federal agents. 
Numerous times he cited the special privilege that agents hold that 
ordinary citizens don't possess. Federal agents are, indeed, a breed 
apart and must be specially protected, he insisted. While they could 
surveil and investigate ordinary citizens, it was illegal for 
ordinary citizens to do the same to them.

Did the jury even detect this Orwellian Animal Farm argument? 
Probably not. This jury was selected mostly from outlying areas of 
Washington state; anyone who appeared to be young, more than 
marginally internet-aware, or who had been involved in an unpleasant 
encounter with the IRS was excluded from the jury. But it was not 
lost on this reporter, or on the reporter from Wired News, or the 
correspondent from 60 Minutes.

The Verdict

The jury deliberated for about three hours on the five-count 
indictment. After two hours, they gave a hint of what issues they 
were considering when they sent a note to the judge asking for a 
definition of "intent." The judge ruled that no definition would be 
provided, and that the jury would have to determine the definition 
from the instructions he had given.

At the end of three hours, the jury sent a note to the judge that 
they had voted unanimously for a verdict of guilty on two of the 
counts, but that they were hung 11-1 on the other three counts. 
Because the jury actually announced the verdict on the note, which 
was part of the court record, the judge had to dismiss the other 
counts. The government asked the judge to dismiss them without 
prejudice, so that the government could refile the counts at a later 
date. The judge agreed to do so.

Next on the Menu

Sentencing for Bell has been set for July 6. The prosecution has not 
only hinted that they may refile for the three counts that had to be 
dismissed, but that they might also prosecute Bell for mail theft, 
and for perjury on the Financial Affidavit that he filled out to get 
a court-appointed attorney.

One thing is clear: the IRS is interested in putting Bell away for 
espousing the ideas in Assassination Politics. At least twice during 
the trial, in a manner reminiscent of Stalin-era Soviet courts, the 
prosecutor pointedly remarked that Bell has failed to recant his AP 
essay. The lesson is obvious: writing or saying anything that the IRS 
finds threatening will make a person a target to be dealt with by 
almost any means possible.

Beyond the Bell Case

Considerable speculation has been taking place on and off the 
cypherpunks mailing list about who the next target of the government 
will be. Bell's case is not unique; in 1998, C.J. "Toto" Parker was 
convicted for threatening a judge and IRS agents. Just the 
publication of information that could even vaguely be construed as 
"personal" is enough to be considered threatening.

The law that made stalking federal agents a crime will continue to be 
used with increasing frequency. The law, enacted in 1996 and amended 
in 2000, has already been upheld in the Fourth and Eighth Federal 
District. Stalking itself is defined based on the slippery slope of 
intention, not on action, which brings up the specter of an 
increasing number of Stalinesque thought-crime trials in the future.

Complain about IRS treatment, go to jail.

Mention an IRS agent by name, go to jail.

Joke about the IRS, go to jail.

Welcome to the new millennium, comrade.

Author's name withheld for security reasons.
All inquiries about this report may be submitted to editor at Sierra Times.com


Permission to reprint/republish granted, as long as you include the 
name of our site, the author, and our URL. www.SierraTimes.com
All Sierra Times news reports, and all editorials are © 2001 
SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SierraTimes.com A Subsidiary of J.J. Johnson Enterprises, Inc.


 

 


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