From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 02:10:55 +0800
To: John Young <gbroiles@netbox.com>
Subject: Re: Jim Bell sentencing delayed
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19971031120116.00c62d58@pop.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <v03102808b07fbba42c7a@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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I'm not Greg, but I think the repeated delays in Bell's sentencing have
obvious reasons.


At 5:01 AM -0700 10/31/97, John Young wrote:
>Greg,
>
>What's your take on repeated delay in Jim's sentencing:
>
>1. A squeeze on Jim to finger co-conspirators.

Yep. This seemed apparent when he was remanded to the custody of U.S.
Marshals after his brief trial. Why was he not sentenced that very day, of
the verdict, or the day after? How can holding a person for six or more
months without a sentence possibly by justified, even in Amerika's fucked
up judicial system?

His incarceration is itself the best justification for his ideas.

(The au pair in Cambridge, MA was sentenced the day after the verdict, and
could've been sentenced the day of the verdict had it not been so late at
night. So why does it take six or more months to decide on Bell's sentence?
Because he's a political criminal.)

>2. Weak case, must use procedure to punish.

Weak case or not, he was already found guilty, so this is moot. If the
judge thought the case was so weak that he could not give jail time, then
why would the same judge effectively "give jail time" by the act of
continuance for so many months? It doesn't compute.

>4. Jim was up to something worse now being discovered
>(like 5 below).
>
>5. Jim is a secret gov agent, now feet up in Tacoma IRS
>laughing at those who fell for suckerbait, screwball AP
>written by IRS as a sting (a recent book package to Jim was
>returned marked "Not in Jail").

Probably just a screw-up in processing. I admit that I haven't tried to
contact Bell, or send him books, or visit him.

Bell might have _turned_, a possibility (which I doubt) one must always
consider. But he was almost certainly not an agent all those years he was
doing other things. For one thing, he didn't recruit others into doing the
things he was eventually charged with doing....kind of a non-starter for an
agent provacateur.


I hope that if and when I am ultimately charged, arrested, raided, shot,
declared insane, committed, whatever, that I have the decency to stand my
ground.

I don't know Jim Bell, except through his posts on Cypherpunks, but if the
recent letters reprinted here on the list are really his, he appears to be
a changed, or broken, man. I'd say the real reason for his six-month stay
of sentencing is this:

Real Reason: Psychological pressure, with the prospect of release for time
served held constantly over his head, and the prospect of heavy prison time
also held constantly over his head.

Instead of sentencing him and being done with it, letting Bell then adjust
to what was ahead of him, and probably remaining a supporter of his own
ideas, they instead subject him to the well-known psychological pressure
(even torture) of never telling him what's ahead.

Kafka's "The Trial" comes to mind.

No wonder the people are having their own trials of the criminals in the
judicial system.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."