Re: Feds reading this list, Jim Bell, and threats

[Hallam-Baker <hallam@ai.mit.edu>]

Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> At 3:17 PM -0800 4/3/97, Anil Das wrote:
>     Gee. I too wonder about that, since I am pretty
> >sure the Feds don't have to time to read the cypherpunks
> >list.
> 
> This is simply not true. Various government agencies/employees read the
> Cypherpunks list.

Absolutely! I know quite a few who do.

Before Oaklahoma I spent some time trying to persuade people to take
notice of the net.activities of the likes of Ahmed Cosar, an agent
of the Turkish secret service who posted inflamatory material about
Armenia into various newsgroups under the name Hasan B. Mutlu and 
Serdar Argic. I'd guess that at this point the FBI has its own
version of DejaNews.

Its not hard to do analysis of USEnet, a bit of simple graph
analysis. The real loons tend to turn up on the net.kooks 
list quites quickly in any case.


> This is not a matter of thinking ourselves self-important; this is just a
> simple observation that there aren't a lot of places with more incisive
> analysis of issues of importance to these folks. 

Plus not everyone in the agencies are pro the administration line. 
I've met plenty of CIA and NSA people who think the GAK idea a
pointless and futile waste of time. 

I suspect that most analysts read c'punks for the same reason I
do, to get the widest possible range of views on what the posibilities
for the future are.


> Political advocacy is one thing, but making threats, even veiled ones, is
> another matter.

Absolutely, that is why I was keen for people to oppose Bell's views.
If his ramblings had gone unchallenged he would now be being
presented as a representative of Cypherpunk/ pro-crypto views.

Besides anything else Bell was like the party bore with a 
hobby horse he just has to talk about. I'm somewhat more
sensitive than most to advocates of murdering government 
officials, some of my relatives are in government and have 
had well publicised assasination attempts against them.


I think that Bell's on-list comments may well have been protected
speech but I'm not sure about his off list comments. I'm scanning
through my old mail files at the moment for missives from Bell
re-reading them. 

I think that Bell's posts were entirely different from Tim's or
for that matter almost every other person on the list. Tim 
demonstrated that a covert information sales organisation was
possible with Blacknet but he never advocated setting it up. 
Indeed part of the point was the ethical responsibilities. Bell
on the other hand was likely to respond to any post with his
AP piece. I have throughout considered these to be incitement to 
murder.


It seems quite likely that Bell may have made a statement to an
IRS official that in the context of his authoring the AP piece
may have constituted a threat. If he spouted "Common law court" 
theories as often to the IRS as he did AP on cypherpunks he would
certainly have been marked for scrutiny. Its not hard to 
connect with his AP piece which has been all over USEnet. According
to the story they got it from a copy left behind in Bell's 
seized Honda.


	Phill