From: lcs Mixmaster Remailer <mix@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:53:05 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: rules of engagement
Message-ID: <19981023152002.24725.qmail@nym.alias.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Adam Back wrote:
> 
> Re. the discussion of things like "first they came for Jim Bell, but I
> didn't speak up because I wasn't a tax protester, and then they came
> for Toto but I didn't speak up because I'm not crazy", etc.
> 
> The rules of the game from what I can see is that if one is outspoken,
> one either needs to be squeaky clean, or have enough funds to hire
> good lawyers, or to be anonymous.

[Notwithstanding my preference for the latter]...

Is it the cypherpunk response to back off with our tail between our legs?
I hope not.

I smiled when I read about Toto's plans to appear in court in a perl-RSA
T-shirt. Toto has balls so big he needs a wheel barrow to get around.

> That is to say, I suspect that Jim would not have been locked up if he
> had not a) used false social security numbers, b) not been involved
> with fake courts, c) not collected IRS employees home addresses, and
> d) not planted the stink bomb.

And, more importantly, if crypto-anachy and removal of governments weren't
on the cypherpunk agenda. Lets not pretend that Jim and Toto (and to a lesser
degree the scrutinee J Choate) are not scapegoats for all of our opinions.

> The AP rants are perfectly defensible free speech and free-wheeling
> political discussion.

Yes. "defensible", but they weren't defended. Jim pleaded. As would anyone
in the face of sufficient pressure.

> Similarly with Toto, the rants would have been ok, without a) the
> mockup non-functional "bomb" symbolically planted in the court house
> basement or where-ever it was, b) using real IRS employees, and judges
> names in his rant (apparently in support of Jim Bell), c) having
> tourettes syndrome.

The rants are ok anyway. They are clearly metaphors. But the prosecutors
aren't playing fair. The man is "dangerous". And not because he wrote "bomb"
in crayon on a cardboard box. But because he made waves. Waves that we caught.
Waves that the straights and sheeple might catch.

> His rants,
> when he was coherent, were well written, and humorously sarcastic
> observations about the increasingly facist state.
> 
> Just an observation.

Just.

> Having blemishes, or being vulnerable in some way makes one an easy
> target for governments.  Tourettes syndrome clearly isn't helping
> Toto's case -- they can basically lock him up as "crazy and dangerous"
> or whatever for as long as they like with no pretense of trial or
> anything if it came to it.

I thought this might be because of his excessive use of metaphor rather
than a persecution of a medical condition unrelated to mental competence.

> Clearly I think one should be able to say wtf one wants to, and in
> general I endeavor to do just that.  But I am suggesting that
> cypherpunks individually stear clear of grey areas, such as ...
> Tim May style "I've got X number of now illegal armament Y",

I took the frequency of little Timmy May's 2nd ammendment rifs as a sign
that he was clean on that score. (Tim always seems to be a couple of steps
ahead).

> My comment is that cypherpunks might be trying to hasten the demise of
> the nation state by deployment of tools of identity and financial
> privacy so that the individual can free himself from the burdens of
> the state, but cypherpunks themselves (at least the non-anonymous
> ones) should be squeaky clean.
>
> Write code, let someone else do the tax protesting, gun law
> protesting, and let someone else have the personalised arguments with
> over-zealous government employees.
> 
> Financial privacy and anonymity code, is the most caustic
> anti-government expression one can utter.
> 
> Adam
> --

You seem a bit down at the end there.

> print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

Illegal crypto export. That's more like it!