[104504] in Cypherpunks
rules of engagement
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Adam Back)
Wed Oct 21 18:30:59 1998
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:58:05 +0100
From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
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.
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.
The AP rants are perfectly defensible free speech and free-wheeling
political discussion. The chemical experiments also were I expect all
defensible (Jim has an MIT chem degree, and interest in the topic).
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 mockup AP bot I think was just that, a mockup, a joke. His rants,
when he was coherent, were well written, and humorously sarcastic
observations about the increasingly facist state.
Just an observation.
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.
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 say
creative tax minimisation, Duncan Frissel style "it's not illegal to
do blah with social security numbers", Tim May style "I've got X
number of now illegal armament Y", (unless you also have the money for
good lawyers) and so on, whether technically legal or not, as one
would be taking above average risks in doing so, because governments
are watching this list, and a number of it's subscribers.
Of course that doesn't stop them framing you -- fabricating a
purported crime.
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
--
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)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`
