Re: Jim Bell raid

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

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At 12:16 PM 4/3/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote:

>It looks to me like this is real. Yow. Jim Bell is a goddamn loon, but I
>haven't seen him write anything that I thought was criminal. 

The government persists in harassing or arresting people in these 1st
Amendment cases even though they know they will not even be able to survive a
motion to dismiss.  It seems to be recreational for them.  You can tell
they're not serious because they didn't arrest Jim.   

JB has certainly managed to get noticed amongst all the "noise" out there in
the world.  Very difficult to do.  And it's getting worse with the Nets.  How
many death threats must whitehouse.gov get these days?  They probably lack
the person power to investigate all of them.  

This will be another one where the raid gets publicity and the failure to
prosecute is only noticed by a few.  When they drop him, he should trumpet it
far and wide.  The dropping of the Jake Baker case got little publicity and I
even had another lawyer on one of the law lists say that he thought they
might try for another indictment.  I knew they'd never get anywhere.

In those very rare cases where you get a guaranteed government loss criminal
investigation/prosecution the party involved should verbally abuse the
government and point out their manifest pathetic weakness.  It is very rare
to be in that situation because the government won't usually back a loser.  I
urged Phil Z. to take an aggressive approach in his case but he felt
uncomfortable about the idea.  Perhaps as a "leftie" he granted the inherent
authority of the government and was reluctant to bash it.

So, JB, find a Portland cybercafe and let 'em have it.

DCF

"Obligatory John Donne quote:  Do Not Ask For Whom the Bell Tools.  It Tolls
For Thee."
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