From: David Honig <honig@otc.net>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 03:07:16 +0800
To: 6ualdv8@sk.sympatico.ca
Subject: Re: 'Off' the parking pigs!
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19971202122124.007a4b60@otc.net>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19971203104104.007cbd60@206.40.207.40>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 04:31 PM 12/2/97 -0600, TruthMonger wrote:
>David Honig wrote:
>> relevant to anon remailers & society thread...
>
>> SANTA ANA, Calif., Dec. 2 (UPI) _ Saying the case has national importance,
>> federal prosecutors will
>> retry a 20-year-old man accused of sending threatening electronic mail to
>> Asian students at UC Irvine.
>
>> Stotler denied bail for Machado, noting that he fled to Mexico when he was
>> first charged.
>
>  Are we supposed to feel 'safer' in public, knowing that we may be
>surrounded by people to whom it may be worthwhile to kill a few cops
>and innocent bystanders in order to avoid punishment for sending 
>nasty email, or having an unpaid parking ticket?

Turn the facetiousness down a notch, Monger-san.  This moron sent death
threats to individuals.  Its stupid that Fed "hate mail" laws inflate
the case, when its already a death-threat case, and its stupid that it gets
press because its the internet, but hey, this is the 90's.

It is pretty reasonable IMHO to hold people responsible for direct threats
when AND ONLY WHEN they can be traced to them (duh).

As for the loser in question, 'fleeing' to Mexico is an short drive from
Irvine,
its not like he actually had to pull some desperado stunts that would have
endangered others.

I'm frankly surprised Machado (or his presumably more intelligent
attorneys) didn't try
to deny sending the messages ("I left my terminal to go potty").  (This may
have to do 
with the technical circumstances of his capture, of which I'm unaware.)
But if the messages
were traceable, I've not yet read a (usually brilliant) <T>Monger rave
wherein you argue
that personal responsibility for threats is a null concept.




------------------------------------------------------------
      David Honig                   Orbit Technology
     honig@otc.net                  Intaanetto Jigyoubu

Information is a dense, colorless, odorless material readily transmitted
across empty space and arbitrary boundaries by shaking charged particles.