From: PhneCards@aol.com
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 13:32:48 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!
Message-ID: <960925181241_529563116@emout20.mail.aol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Did you know this company is using your email address as part of
an unlawful email bomb?

I would advise you to write to them at cypherpunks@toad.com
and owner-cypherpunks@toad.com and advise them to stop
using your email address for this type of activity.

It is illegal to use a invalid return email address.  If this continues, I
will
be forced to prosecute the return email address - which they are
making to look like you.

Below is the letter that I received in my email box
=================================================

In a message dated 96-09-25 14:05:23 EDT, you write:

>Subj:	Re: Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!
>Date:	96-09-25 14:05:23 EDT
>From:	jimbell@pacifier.com (jim bell)
>Sender:	owner-cypherpunks@toad.com
>To:	bdavis@thepoint.net (Brian Davis)
>CC:	cypherpunks@toad.com, jf_avon@citenet.net
>
>At 11:50 PM 9/24/96 -0400, Brian Davis wrote:
>>On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, Rich Burroughs wrote:
>>
>>> <AP stuff>
>>> Anyone who mistakes the lack of "repudiations" for AP on the list for
some
>>> kind of tacit approval is not getting the whole picture, IMHO.  
>>> 
>>> Is this how journalists do their research nowadays -- "give me some info
>or
>>> I'll write something really bad about you that you'll regret?"  Cool.  I
>>> guess I thought there might still be some kind of pursuit of the truth
>>> involved.
>>> 
>>> I personally don't have the time or energy to contribute to the AP
>threads.
>>> That != approval for the idea.
>>> 
>>> I hope you include your above quote in your piece.
>>> 
>>
>>Amen to that.  Add that at least one lawyer (and former prosecutor) on 
>>the list is confident that successful prosecutions will ensue is AP ever 
>>gets off the ground. 
>
>I don't doubt that there will be harassment.  (you can't deny that charges 
>would be brought even if it is tacitly agreed that no crime has been 
>committed; "the harassment-value" of such a prosecution would be desired 
>even if there is ultimately an acquittal.)  AP will resemble, more than 
>anything, gambling.  While gambling is illegal in some areas, it is quite 
>legal in others and there is no reason to believe that locales can't be 
>found in which an AP system could operate legally.
>
>Make American laws apply everywhere?  That'll be hard to justify, unless you

>want to unleash a world where an all people can be subject simultaneously to

>the laws of EVERY country, should they choose to enforce them!  Would you 
>like to be arrested in Red China for something you said years earlier in 
>America about their leadership? 
>
> And are you ignoring the fact that the intentional isolation of one 
>participant from the knowledge of the actions and even the identity of the 
>others makes opportunities for prosecution on "conspiracy" charges mighty 
>slim.  And since AP can operate across traditional jurisdictional 
>boundaries, you're going to have to explain how you can prosecute Person A 
>in Country B for giving a donation to an organization in Country C, to be 
>paid to a person D in country E for correctly predicting the death of person

>F in country G, particularly when none of the identities of these people or 
>countries can be easily known given a well-crafted cryptographic and 
>message-routing system.  
>
>  Further, as you probably know as well as any, in order (at least, 
>supposedly!) to get a conviction you need to prove "mens rea," or "guilty 
>mind," and I suggest that none of the more passive participants in the AP 
>system have that.  (The ones who DON'T pick up a gun, knife, bomb, poison, 
>etc.)  Sure, they are aware that somewhere, sometime, somebody _may_ commit 
>a crime in order to collect a lottery, but they don't know who, what, when, 
>where, or how this will occur, if at all. (either before or after the fact!)

>  In fact, since it is possible for a target to collect the reward himself 
>(to be directed toward his designee, obviously) by committing suicide and 
>"predicting" it, it isn't certain to the other participants that there has 
>even been any sort of crime committed!
>
>Based on the mens rea requirement, I propose that there is plenty of room 
>for most of the participants to reasonably claim that they are guilty of no 
>crime.  They have carefully shielded themselves and others from any guilty 
>knowledge, and presumably they are entitled to protect themselves in this 
>way.  Morally, you could argue that these people are countenancing something

>nasty, in the same sense that somebody could equally well argue that if you 
>buy a cheap shirt in Walmart you're partly responsible for sweatshop labor 
>in El Salvador.  True, I suppose, but moral guilt does not always translate 
>into legal guilt.
>
>
>> And yes, I've read Jim Bell's manifesto.  The fact 
>>that no lawyer has dissected it from a legal standpoint has been used by 
>>Mr. Bell as support for the propostion that it is legal.
>
>I suggest that there is a greater likelihood that the "powers that be" will 
>just abandon all pretense of legality, and attempt to strike at the 
>participants if they can find them without benefit of any sort of trial. 
>This is a more plausible conclusion, because it cuts through all of the 
>legal difficulties which would hinder prosecution.  In effect, a low-level 
>undeclared war.  
>
>
>Jim Bell
>jimbell@pacifier.com
>
>
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>Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 00:55:21 -0800
>To: Brian Davis <bdavis@thepoint.net>
>From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
>Subject: Re: Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!
>Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com, jf_avon@citenet.net
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