SL Baur's Journal: USA -vs- Jim Bell

(As a Blue passport, I plead the 5th with regards to any questions regarding this posting)

I've never read through an entire case transcript before and this is fascinating. On the face of it, Jim Bell now (I presume) imprisoned cypherpunk, was being prosecuted for championing his Assassination Politics essay. There's more to it than that and the idea isn't original with him, Tim May wrote about something similar in the Cyphernomicon

cyphernomicon.

Certainly one moral of this story is DO NOT testify as a defendent. Jim is certainly a very bright technical person and one even versed in debating political theory, but as one can see from the transcripts, he is ripped to shreds when he decides to testify on his behalf and even worse, argue with court assigned lawyer.

I found the debate on the instructions to the jury remarkable, though perhaps I should not. It appears that at least in 2001, there still WAS some semblance of rule of law not men.

The only suppressed fact that I am aware of in this trial was how IRS agent Jeffrey Gordon pursued his prey. He made it clear that every subscriber to the cypherpunks mailing list in the 1997 timeframe were targets, in a very personal way and every bit as chilling as the acts described in this case. What kind of a frame of mind does one wish to induce when every (posting) list member gets emailed a PR-like announcement of the arrest of Jim Bell?

The court transcripts are here:

Cryptome.

It's long, but fascinating reading and certainly an argument against current and forthcoming thoughtcrime laws. Jim never intended to threaten anyone, My ex-wife has threatened me with death on many occasions and usually with resort to terrorist rebels in the hills of Mindanao. She laughed it off as a joke when we were before the chief of police in Banaybanay.

33 months in prison for puting a smelly chemical in an IRS office, plus however many years he received for this conviction. I also find it fascinating that it is acceptable to throw real death threats at Acceptable Governmental Targets, like the AIG guys.