BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity)

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, August 15, 2001, at 06:21 PM, Seth Finkelstein wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 08:17:02PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>> At one point Seth was capable of sane arguments and discussions
>> without insults. This was, of course, many years ago, and now he's
>> just nutty and should not be taken particularly seriously.
>
> 	I'm sorry Declan, I just can't take the cypherpunks list
> seriously anymore. After you testified for Federal government
> prosecutors, helping to put members in jail - not once, but twice -
> and anyone still respected you, I just lost all ability to regard that
> zeitgeist as other than a joke.
>

 From what I know of the situations, based on journalistic reports (from 
reports _other_ than from Declan), Declan took the obvious and legal 
steps to limit his testimony to statements of the form:

"Yes, I am a reporter for "Wired News.""

"Yes, I wrote the story you are referring to."

He was subpoenaed to testify, he and/or his employer hired lawyers to 
deal with the subpoena and to seek ways to state only things like the 
above, and, so far as I have ever heard, he did not offer "helpful" 
suggestions or speculations.

By contrast, Jim Choate was visited by the FBI for one of the show 
trials and offered speculations that I (Tim) am a dangerous person with 
lots of guns and money. The court records show these depositions from 
Choate. No such malicious help came from Declan, at least none in court 
records.

Declan has been to my house several times. (Choate has never been to my 
house and will never be welcome.)

If he writes a story about me, or you, or anyone, and the court demands 
for evidentiary reasons that he confirm or deny that he authored a 
particular chunk of text, he would presumably do so. However, if FBI 
agents on a fishing expedition ask him for incriminating speculations, I 
assume he would tell them to leave.

As for you, you are not to be taken seriously by anyone, narcs or others.


--Tim May