From: lucifer@dhp.com (lucifer Anonymous Remailer)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 07:44:15 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of
Message-ID: <199705312314.TAA27646@dhp.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> > >   A major nail in the coffin of Justice for any accused in the U.S.
> > > was when the justice system promoted the concept of guilt by virtue
> > > of "circumstantial" evidence to the point where people can now be
> > > convicted as a result of speculation rather than evidence. Prosecutors
> > > now seem to need only to convince the sheeple that it was "possible"
> > > for the defendant to have commited the crime and that circumstantial
> > > evidence points *only* to the accused.
 
> I don't understand the animus against circumstantial evidence,
> frankly.  Some circumstantial evidence is extremely good evidence.

  The problem is the addition of a mountain of bullshit which is
presented as "evidence" in most prosecutions in order to throw
enough crap at the defendant to ensure that some of it will stick.
  For example, do we really need to have a forensic expert tell us
that a paramilitaristic individual (McVeigh) has traces of things
such as gunpowder, etc., in his clothing? This has about as much
meaning as producing "evidence" that McVeigh took a crap while
he was in custody to "prove" that he ate the food delivered to the
motel room in question.
  Do we need a series of people to bend over backwards to produce
evidence that a telephone calling card PIN number that could have
been used by anybody *might* have been used to place certain calls?

  Perhaps the above examples couldn't be used to support *real* 
evidence of McVeigh's guilt, but there seems to be precious little
of that. In contrast, there is even stronger evidence that precludes
McVeigh having been driving the truck used in the bombing.
  And what kind of "evidence" is a mountain of horrific examples
of dead bodies, etc? It is "evidence" that "somebody has to pay"
for the bombing. Would McVeigh be "innocent" if the prosecution
showed only *one* picture of dead bodies? 

  What we see in the justice system today is reflective of the same
mentality that pervades legal and social issues surrounding the
development, implementation and use of technologies which relate to
our privacy and freedom.
  The government "encryption prosecutors" use the same techniques
as criminal prosecutors to plead their case. They smear you and I
with the same brush used on drug dealers and child pornographers
so that use of cryptography is now "circumstantial evidence" of
our being guilty of "something." We are being prosecuted for use
of encryption on the basis of circumstantial evidence that someone,
somewhere is using cryptography and commiting crimes.

  I don't have any evidence that places Kent Crispin at the scene
of the OKC bombing, but we do know that use of PGP was involved
in the crime. Combined with Michael Fortier's testimony about
Kent's involvement, I think we can get a guilty verdict.

  As I said previously, the problem with circumstantial evidence is
that it is increasingly being combined with emotional rhetoric to
convict people who "could have" commited a certain crime, instead
of those "proven" to have commited the crime.
  I have no doubt that the government could replicate much of the
evidence against Jim Bell in a similar case against more than a
few cypherpunks, as well as producing even stronger evidence of
a similar nature in a full investigation of us. Anonymous and
Nobody would be in big, big trouble.
  In McVeigh's case, I wonder how many others the government 
could find similar or stronger evidence against in the OKC crime?
Regardless of the answer to that question, it is McVeigh who is
the one prosecutors are pointing at when they put up yet another
picture of dead bodies and say that "somebody has to pay" for
the crime.

TruthMonger
{Who has been proven to be Kent Crispin, by a plethora of
circumstantial evidence.}