From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 05:41:10 +0800
To: Alan <alano@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Assassination Politics as revenge fantasy (Re: FCPUNX:McVeigh)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970609112236.19258B-100000@cp.pathfinder.com>
Message-ID: <v03007803afc21fae9271@[168.161.105.191]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 09:36 -0700 6/9/97, Alan wrote:
>On Mon, 9 Jun 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
>>
>> Actually, Bell's plan was simply the ultimate adolescent revenge fantasy.
>> Government thugs got your goat (or your computers, your car, your guns?)
>> Wipe them out. Supermarket clerk taking too long? Rub her out. Minivan cut
>> you off on the way to work? Kill them off.
>
>This is the best description of AP so far.  Jim had about as much chance
>of implementing it as most adolescent fantasies.  (At least he was not
>posting about porn fantasies involving the Brady Bunch meets Gilligan's
>Island or somesuch...)

This is a draft of what I wrote in my Internet Underground article:

	If nothing else, Bell's plan was inventive: few
	people like the IRS, but even fewer have ever
	concocted a way to eliminate it. In fact, Bell
	had devised the ultimate revenge fantasy. Upset
	at demanding creditors, former lovers, or
	jackbooted thugs? The 38-year old computer
	engineer described how you could find someone
	willing to kill them -- for the right price.
	It was sexy, too. Bell's plan relied on the
	Internet, anonymous remailers, untraceable
	digital cash, and unbreakable public-key
	encryption. He even gave it a catchy name:
	Assassination Politics.

[...]

	Bell was most interested in talking up
	Assassination Politics and predicting how it
	would eventually blossom. He had just published
	an op-ed in a local newspaper saying "the whole
	corrupt system" could be stopped. "Whatever
	my idea is, it's not silly. There are a lot
	of adjectives you can use, but not silly," he
	told me. "I feel that the mere fact of having
	such a debate will cause people to realize that
	they no longer have to tolerate the governments
	they previously had to tolerate. At that point
	I think politicians will slink away like they
	did in eastern Europe in 1989. They'll have
	lost the war."

	He told me why he became convinced that the
	government needed to be lopped off at the
	knees. Bell's epiphany came after he ordered
	a chemical from a supply firm and was arrested
	when he failed to follow EPA regulations. "That
	radicalized me," he said. "That pissed me off.
	I figured I'd get back at them by taking down
	their entire system. That's how I'd do it."'

	Moral issues aside, one of the problems plaguing
	Bell's scheme is that it's not limited to
	eliminating "government thugs who violate your
	rights," as he likes to describe it. If it
	existed, anyone with some spare change could
	wipe out a nosy neighbor or even an irritating
	grocery store clerk. After I pointed this out
	to Bell on the phone, he fired email back a few
	days later saying, "Assuming a functioning
	Assassination Politics system, nothing stops
	you from contributing to my death." He
	suggested that maybe assassins would develop
	scruples: "You'd be able to purchase deaths
	of unworthy people, but it might be only at a
	dramatically higher price. Doable but not
	particularly economical."

-Declan


-------------------------
Declan McCullagh
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/