"Educating" the Court about Cypherpunks Considered Harmful

[Tim May]

>Seth Finklestein wrote:
>
>...
>  >	If you want to do something to help Jim Bell in getting a good
>  >defense, here is my suggestion, take it for what it's worth to you:
>>
>...
>  >	Explain the whole "cypherpunks", err, state of mind. Give the
>>guy a chance. Look at it this way - if he is in collaboration with the
>>prosecution, your discussion with him can hardly make things much
>>worse. However, if he is not, if he is an honest defense attorney
>>doing the best he can in a bad situation, then you are in a good
>  >position to aid him. The risk is low, the potential benefit is large.

Trying to "explain" the Cypherpunk ideology and outlook (such as it 
is), is not likely to be helpful. Not that John's or Declan's or 
anyone else's job is to help Bell in his defense. Bell chose his path.

Frankly, the more the court, or any of its officers, knows about the 
CP ideology, the less sympathetic and useful they will be.

Anyone think this would be useful?:

"Your Honor, I was given a lengthy briefing by members of the list, 
given copies of their posts and their manifestos. I now understand 
them. I now understand why Jim Bell is advocating the 
assassination-by-lottery of judges and prosecutors. Fuck the State, 
Man!"

Useful? Didn't think so.

Look, folks, Bell does not represent my views--and vice versa. Bell 
arrived late on the scene to the CP list, circa 1995 if I am 
recalling the dates correctly, having already written about his AP 
scheme. He lacked crypto and digital cash, and heard from someone 
else that our list had discussions of it. He learned enough about 
digital cash to weave it into his AP scheme. Given that digital cash, 
especially the "true" bidirectionally untraceable kind, does not yet 
exist, it is technologically impossible at this time to set up a 
robust AP system. There are other issues making AP not realistic in 
the near future.

(By the way, there had been discussions, though rarely advocacy, of 
untraceable contract killings in the early days of the list. I, for 
one,  talked about these things as early as 1988, in my Crypto 
Anarchist Manifesto. Not advocating them, just pointing out the 
technological and political forces and trends. Murder pools have also 
been discussed in fiction, as early as Jack London, IIRC.)

The notion that Bell's defense will be "helped" if only the Court or 
its various prosecuting and defending attorneys are given an 
education in The Cypherpunk Way is just plain ludicrous.

Also, I don't recall Bell being charged on anything relating to his 
AP ideas, even if his writings helped make a prosecution more likely. 
The "interstate stalking" stuff doesn't seem to have _any_ contact 
with the Cypherpunks list. So why would educating the Court and its 
officers in Cypherpunks issues help?

Should Bell ever be charged based on the AP ideas, then maybe expert 
witnesses could be called to point out that AP was technologically 
impossible at the time Bell was alleged--for instance--to have set up 
a real AP system.

But this is not that case.

Personally, I refuse to be drawn into either defending or repudiating 
Bell. Bell has one particular slant on things. I didn't find him one 
of the more interesting debating partners when he was on the list, so 
I had little contact with him. Probably this is what has saved me 
from being called as a witness for either side.

A journalist called me about the Bell case and I declined to say much 
about Bell. What little I _did_ say about Bell he agreed would be off 
the record and would not be taped or written about in notes. Nothing 
juicy (for those prosecutors now reading this!), just my impressions 
and recollections.

I probably should have said nothing to this journalist. If Declan is 
forced to testify,  beyond a very basic acknowledgement that he was 
the author of the articles in question, I sure plan to refuse to ever 
speak to any journalist again about anything which someone might 
twist in front of a jury. "Hey, Declan, nice weather we're having, 
eh?" I'll continue to be Declan's friend, presumably, but I just 
won't talk to him about anything that may get extracted from him in 
this or in any future star chamber prosecutions.

  (Unless I "need" to, a la Toto and Bell, to get my story out, to 
spin things in my direction---a sad state of affairs when largely 
neutral parties are unwilling to speak to journalists and only those 
with axes to grind want their stories told.)

--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns