Dropping out of the USA

[Declan McCullagh]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 08:50:46PM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
> descendants.   Basically, you're allowed to piss them off a 
> little, and they still need some kind of excuse to arrest 
> you.  But once you've pissed them off, any excuse will do, 
> even (as Bell's case teaches us)  the legal exercise of a 
> constitutionally protected right. 

At the risk of going against cypherpunkconvntionalwisdom, or what
passes for it, I would be wary of using the Bell case as an example of
a typical prosecution.

First, Bell was so terribly unlikeable as a defendant that it's a
wonder that he even got the jury to not convict on all counts. Second,
he was loopy, whether for effect or for real, when accusing his
attorney of making death threats against him and family. Third, he
didn't just spew opinions on a mailing list -- he let all the Feds he
could know that he was willing to devote his life to bringing them
down. Fourth, there's the home addresses and "Say goodnight to Joshua"
thang that put the jury over the edge.

This is not to say that his prosecution was justified, that the law he
was charged with violating is constitutional, that the Feds acted
reasonably, or that his conviction is appropriate. But even among
cypherpunks, Bell is an outlier.

-Declan