From: winsock@rigel.cyberpass.net (WinSock Remailer)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 21:03:59 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Assassination Politics (was Re: Feds reading this list, Jim Bell, and threats)
Message-ID: <199704050502.VAA06922@sirius.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote:

>Timothy C. May wrote:
>>
>> Political advocacy is one thing, but making threats, even veiled ones, is
>> another matter.
>
>Absolutely, that is why I was keen for people to oppose Bell's views.
>If his ramblings had gone unchallenged he would now be being
>presented as a representative of Cypherpunk/ pro-crypto views.

  Likewise, we wouldn't want your ramblings to go unchallenged, as you
might be presented as a representative of Cypherpunk/pro-crypto views.

>Besides anything else Bell was like the party bore with a
>hobby horse he just has to talk about. I'm somewhat more
>sensitive than most to advocates of murdering government
>officials, some of my relatives are in government and have
>had well publicised assassination attempts against them.

  Maybe they deserved them.  Making politics more risky may have the
benificial effect of thinning out the ranks of politicians to truely
dedicated ones, instead of the fat parasitic beurocrats we have now.

>I think that Bell's posts were entirely different from Tim's or
>for that matter almost every other person on the list. Tim
>demonstrated that a covert information sales organisation was
>possible with Blacknet but he never advocated setting it up.
>Indeed part of the point was the ethical responsibilities. Bell
>on the other hand was likely to respond to any post with his
>AP piece. I have throughout considered these to be incitement to
>murder.

  Given certain political views contrary to your own, the government
not only incites but commits murder daily, on a much greater scale.
Is it so wrong try to put an end to this by a little strategic
assassination?

>paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
>> Not at all, Jim advocates the use of necessary force against an
>> initiator of violence, as you would see if you have read Jims AP
>> overview essay he does not advocate the use of AP to kill innocent
>> people, indeed he does not intend it to kill anyone at all, Rather to
>> act as a deterrent to government which would violate the NAP.
>
>Who decides what "innocent" was?

  Certainly not the government.

>In Jim's world it was very clear that he decided who was innocent,
>he decided what his rights were, he decided who he could murder.
>
>He limited the justifiable targets of AP to be those he thought should
>be targets. His argument with the IRS appears to have included the
>claim that they infringed his rights which under Bell's manifesto
>gives him the right to murder them.

  You're completely off the mark.  Have you read his essay at -
http://www.prairienet.org/bureau42/public/apfull.txt

  He cited government officials involved in Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the IRS
as examples.  But, he clearly stated that:
    
 "It would be impossible, for example, to set up some sort of
  "Assassination Politics Dictator," who decides who will live and who will
  die, because competition in the system will always rise to supply every
  demand, albeit at possibly a very high price.  And if you believe the maxim
  that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," you wouldn't want to accept any
  form of centralized control (even, perhaps, that of your own!), because any
  such control would eventually be corrupted.  Most rational people recognize
  this, and I do too.  I would not have invented a system where "Jim
  Bell" gets to make "all the decisions."  Quite the contrary, the system I've
  described absolutely prevents such centralization.  That, quite frankly, is
  the novelty and dare I say it, the beauty of this idea.  I believe that it
  simply cannot be hijacked by centralized political control.

  As I pointed out in the essay, if _I_ were running one of the organizations
  accepting those donations and offering those prizes, I would selectively
  list only those targets who I am genuinely satisfied are guilty of the
  violation of the "non-agression principle."  But as a practical matter,
  there is no way that I could stop a DIFFERENT organization from being set up
  and operating under DIFFERENT moral and ethical principles, especially if it operated
  anonymously, as I antipate the "Assassination Politics"-type  systems will
  be.   Thus, I'm forced to accept the reality that I can't dictate a
  "strongly limited" system that would "guarantee" no "unjustified" deaths:  I
  can merely control my little piece of the earth and not assist in the abuse
  of others."

>> Also, an inevitable consequence of anonymity and untraceable ecash is
>> that assasination pools will become a feature of the political
>> landscape.
>
>No, it is not. If it were then Digital cash would never be possible.
>Society simply would not allow it and they would be right not to
>do so.
>
>It is because Bell's scheme is entirely preposterous that Digital
>cash is possible. There is simply no way an AP contract could be
>enforced. The betting pool is simply one of a long line of failed
>attempts to prop up the scheme.

  If this is so impossible, then why do you later claim that:
"I have plenty to worry about, Bells plan would lead to murder of
innocent people."?

  You do have a point, though.  The actual payment would be hard to
enforce.  This is just a technical difficulty that can be overcome with
dedicated effort.  The idea is sound in all other ways.

>No country could allow such a betting pool to operate from its soil,
>nor any other such cover. If an IRS agent was murdered as a result
>of a contract placed in an Anguilla betting pool the marines would
>be landing the next week. No country that is small enough not to be
>threatened by AP has the necessary millitary strength to resist
>invasion. The benmefits of hosting the AP pool are marginal if any
>therefore no country would ever host it.

  Ever heard of "virtual corporations"?  They may exist without heed
to national borders.  The technical means also exist for complete
anonymity on the internet, so that even the location of servers
may be concealed (via. Onion Routers, and their ilk).  Besides,
all interaction with the corporation could be conducted through
email, for which a rather high degree of anonymity exists already.

>>Of course there is nothing to stop someone betting that an
>> innocent person should be killed, this is a great problem in the
>> scheme, but if this did occur the friends and family of the victim
>> would normally have a pretty good idea who placed the bet and could
>> place a bet on their imminent death...
>
>There is everythingt to stop bets being placed period.

  This is debatable, as much as you fasion yourself the arbiter of
what is possible.

>Of course the main use of AP would be to murder familly members,
>business rivals etc. AP is simply an unrestrained murder machine
>with absolutely no safeguards.

  Assassination transactions against anyone can be carried out
anonymously right as we speak.  There are absolutely no safeguards 
against that.  However, AP is different.

  AP calls for a large pool of money donated in generally small ammounts 
by large numbers of individuals.  The incentive for killing officials 
who garner retribution from whole populations would be much greater 
than that of some random individual.

>> Besides which you seem not to have read and understood AP as you have
>> ignored Jims comments about the problems of innocent people being
>> killed.
>
>This "not understood" conciet is bogus. I have read and fully
>understood Bell's article. It is in my view an incitement to murder.
>
>I have degrees in Nuclear Physics, Electronic Engineering, I have
>been offered a contract for my book on the philosophy of
>communication. If Bell can't communicate his idea to me then that is
>his fault, his responsibility. I am arguing against the plan
>he describes. Do not try the patronising "you are not clever enough
>to understand this" line. In this case it is bluster.

  H.L.Machen perceptively ts, merely suspected infringment.

  This may or may not be true.  Some donations to AP organisations may
have no basis in fact whatsoever.  The public is verry malleable, I'll
grant you.  However, others, such as large scale repression, will
have very real basis in fact.  Imagine the will of the Black people
being harnessed through AP organizations during American Slavery.

>The state employees suspect Bell plots infringement of his rights. 
>Therefore under Bell's own theory they have the right to respond by 
>infringing his rights, without trial.

  Of course.  However, the state employees are few.  The subjects,
or "beneficiaries" of the state are many.

>AP does not contain a coherent normative ethical theory.

  Of course it does, I don't think you've read closely enough.  Perhaps
you should stick to Nuclear Physics and Electrical Engineering.
Scientists are notorious for not "getting" ethics, or completely
ignoring them in wanting to stick to "pure" science.

at's no surprise.  It would be surprising
for the subjects of this state to wake up and pre-emtively protect
themselves from the state.

>> If I may make an analogy you are saying that were I to be attacked in
>> the street, and I pulled a gun on the attacker he has a "moral" right
>> to kill me to protect himself?
>
>He could well have that legal right in certain circumstances.

  You didn't answer his question.

>> > However, I also think that there is a possibility that his statements,
>> > either on cypherpunks or elsewhere, may have gone over the line in
>> > terms of threatening behavior.  It may be a moral weakness on my part,
>> > but I am not too inclined to defend someone who advocates shooting me.
>>
>> Then you are of weak character and a closet statist.
>
>Good, now we have discovered that names like statist, liberal etc
>are not insults even if bellowed by idiots at the top of their
>lungs we can return to sanity.

  Ah, sanity.  The Crusades seemed sgain, what do you have to worry about if, as you say, "Bell's scheme 
is entirely preposterous"?


   -=- A concerned citizen