Epilogue: U.S. v. Jim Bell trial in federal court in Tacoma

[Declan McCullagh]

Four articles are excerpted below:
  Wired News on government's motion to seal public court records
  Sierra Times: "IRS Prosecutes Outspoken Dissident"    
  About.com: "Jim Bell's show trial"
  Cluebot.com on how government surveillance killed the cypherpunks list

-Declan

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43064,00.html

   The U.S. government wants to seal public court records in a trial of
   an Internet essayist for privacy reasons.
   
   Assistant U.S. Attorney Robb London this week asked a federal judge to
   seal all documents -- including exhibits and transcripts -- that might
   include personal information and home addresses about people who
   testified in the trial of Jim Bell. A jury found Bell guilty of two
   counts of interstate stalking.
   
   London said: "We are concerned that information in these exhibits not
   be published... (We) don't need to have that information posted on the
   Internet."
   
   While the charges are crucial to understanding the case against Bell,
   the government feels uneasy about the home addresses of federal agents
   being easily accessible to the public. London cited the addresses of
   agents dozens of times in open court, and displayed digital
   photographs of the homes Bell visited.
   
   U.S. District Judge Jack Tanner thought about London's request for a
   moment, then denied it. "I don't think I have the authority to do
   that," Tanner said.

   [The meaning was changed slightly in editing. The fourth paragraph
   should be "addresses of people Bell *believed* to be federal agents
   but were not. One was, for instance, a real estate agent. --DBM]

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

   IRS Prosecutes Outspoken Dissident 
   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.

   [...]
                                      
   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
   or 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.

   [...]

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http://civilliberty.about.com/newsissues/civilliberty/library/weekly/aa041101a.htm

   Jim Bell's show trial
   Cypherpunk Jim Bell was found guilty of making the feds nervous
   Dateline: 4/11/01
   
   Jim Bell has been probed, raided and arrested. He spent time in prison
   for "obstructing" Internal Revenue Service agents and using a false
   Social Security number. Now Bell has been convicted for get this
   stalking government arm-twisters.
   
   Stalking? Well ... that's what they call it. Bell gathered the sort of
   information on them that they compiled on him and many, many other
   people for years. For that offense, the feds decided to send Bell away
   again, and they did everything in their power to fix the trial.
   
   A cypherpunk and libertarian, Bell originally got official skirts in a
   bind when he penned Assassination Politics, a provocative think piece
   that postulated an Internet-based system for anonymously rewarding
   people who knock off abusive government officials. All hot and
   bothered by the article, the feds made Bell a target of an intense
   investigation. Soon, he was an unwilling guest of the government, and
   the powers that be thought they were done with yet one more thorn in
   their sides.

   [...]
   
   Whatever the paper charges, Jim Bell was clearly arrested and
   prosecuted for loudly criticizing the government and for being
   abrasive and unrelenting in the process. Bell may be something of an
   eccentric, but he had enough moxie to make federal agents nervous.
   
   That's the worst crime as far as any government official is concerned.
   
   [...]

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http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/11/238254

   [...]
   
   Government prosecutors now appear to qualify as technical experts on
   the cypherpunk phenom, having scrutinized listmember behavior as ants
   under lenses. London told the jury yesterday that "the one unifying
   theme that defines someone as a cypherpunk on the Internet is the
   ability to encrypt mail." One could say the same thing about a NAI
   marketing flack, but that wouldn't be as quotable.
   
   It's all so sad and predictable and sad again. The cypherpunks list
   had its glory days: Wired magazine cover stories, blossoming
   technology, and, yes, even those damnable tentacles. Now it's become a
   convenient way for the Feds to land convictions.

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