Hi Peter,
Thank you for taking the time on this posting to brief me on Jim Bell, I much
appreciate it. I had studied the his case for a while but was rather confused
as to some of the “science” and “maths” and “politics” and “philosophies”
behind it. I have never really understood libertarianism, though I personally
tend towards some kind of peaceful and benign anarchy with a liberal drop of
discipline, self imposed, though imposed by society if all else fails...Also,
you, in a few words helped to put so much about his predicament into
perspective and confirmed a number of my own feelings about the debacle which
he got himself into, and the difficulty he had getting himself back out of it.
Whilst the article was fiction, his present and future actions regarding the
IRS weren’t, and he suffered the consequences. He certainly threw himself
headlong into a war with the state, and waged it on a powerful individual in
that state, a fight which he would never have won and never could win, and
really, had no right to win...not that it excuses the behaviour by those people
who control, manage and run the state. Martyrs are too easily made and it is
always a mistake to go to prison, in my view. What I respected about his
articles was the way he had put everything together, though I could never
agree with the outcome...and his law was faulty, in my view. His science too
has taken a kicking, Bitcoin is not anonymous now (if it ever was) but there
you are, history is history, and the struggle for civil liberties is always
based on a balance between the needs of the state and the rights of the
individual. Human thinking and perceptions, philosophy, art, the physical and
human sciences and history all play their part in producing an imprecise and
unpredictable hodge podge of human behaviour and misbehaviour,
misunderstandings and enlightenment.
Thank you too for attaching Deborah Natsios’s article “So, Say Goodnight to
Joshua...” I had done some research into Jim Bell previously and had come
across the article, but unfortunately had never really understood much of it.
That’s the trouble with all good philosophers, one needs the flesh to be put
upon the bones, so to speak and you managed to put it into a context in which I
could understand her work more fully. One should always read something which
is difficult at least 3 times and from different perspectives...if one wishes
to improve ones knowledge... J. Patience is not a virtue, it is a discipline.
As me dad used to say “Yer aye learnin’”
ATB
Dougie.
From: cryptome-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cryptome-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Peter M Howell
Sent: 07 June 2015 07:11
To: cryptome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cryptome] Re: Fwd: has there ever been a FOIA request leading to
initiation of criminal prosecution against the requestor?
Hi Dougie
It's a complex story that involves DARPA in dark ways - as expected.
I spent some time unraveling the knots but mostly it flows back to Poindexter.
His central idea was that gov should have access to all data and law abiding
citizens should submit - if they had nothing to hide !
The idea that Jim Bell developed was based earlier academic musings by others,
and in an odd way it seemed that he was 'encouraged ' to face off with Gov.
Smart and slightly anti Gov surveillance and very clearly outraged at Gov
omnipotence, political scumbaggery and the general unreasonable empowerment of
'lesser' individuals by Gov regs and the manipulation of the law. He became or
was slightly obsessed with the growing accretion of power that security and law
enforcement took on even in day to day interactions with the pubic. His essays
were a mind experiment with a touch of bravado. But he was warned when the IRS
started chasing him in 1997... It seems illogical that he would provoke Gov.
Declan McCullagh, the writer that publicized Jim Bel's Assassination Politics
essays , is another intriguing character in this Monty Python opera. He was
vaguely associated with cypherpunk event reporting before Jim Bell [ see Carl
Johnson v DoJ circa 1999 ] He was eventually a witness in the Jim Bell trial
in 2001 as 'author of the Wired article about Assasination Politics'. But the
DoJ prosecutor never attacked him as expected as it became apparent that nobody
was going down with Jim Bell, conspiracy was not the issue, the DoJ wanted to
keep the act of defiance and creation of 'bad ideas' focused as being
sufficient to get 'the man' on your back..
Bell may have been the part creator of the concept, he wrote: ''A few months
ago, I had a truly and quite literally "revolutionary" idea, and I jokingly
called it "Assassination Politics", which clearly implied that this was no
political philosophy , more a game that a smart MIT guy could play - but it
was McCullagh that repurposed the essays into a slightly shocking article in
the public domain using a fairly mainstream magazine.
It might be argued that Declan McCullagh was the 'publicist' that turned a
novelty into a dark and very troubling prospect for Governments world-wide. But
why was it promoted seemingly with the Wired legal team asleep at the wheel.
It was a clear provocation and an incentive to anarchists everywhere, the end
product was contract killing on the internet of anyone that disagreed with
one's views.
Without the Wired magazine articles, where Bell was described in descending
order of appeal, as an: 'Internet essayist' recipient of an award from Wired,
then, one of the Internet's ''most famous essayists" Then later as a ''crypto
anarchist'' and finally as "the world's most notorious crypto-convict'', would
there have been antyhing but an IRS prosecution of a slightly maddened
intellectual? This remodelling of Jim Bell's public persona may have been
editorial 'distancing' but it was all done and dusted in several months of
2000/20001 .
Truly an hero to zero event and Admiral Poindexter was no doubt watching ..He
reminds me of the mad reformed Nazi Doctor in How I learned to stop worrying
and Love the Bomb]
The attached pdf ''so say goodnight Joshua'' is a fair enough appraisal of the
life and times of Jim Bell circa 2001..
There is also a quasi 'book' published 2010.. Jim Bell was incarcerated for
putting all the pieces together - using charges created to get a result.
Jim was released in 2009 and rearrested for 'harassing federal agents' that
were watching him ! Imprisoned again and ultimately released in 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bell
--
So Gov has big data and uses everything from twitter to twaddle to analysis and
assess the potential for assassination probably using this stuff to determine
good entry points to start conflicts or join in with Geo-political gains in
mind. But none of the data mining gives the same point action result that the
concept of anonymous cash for assassination holds.
The future is troubling, because we cannot escape the past.
PMH
ps Not sure that Bell has a patentable /commercial idea but time will tell and
would that not be quite the turnaround.. lol
On 6 Jun 2015 20:16, "Douglas Rankine" <douglasrankine2001@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Peter,
I just found the link to the futures exchange project and Poindexter and co and
a couple of Senators...It was called PAM...crazy, stupid and dangerous...I
think it is called “blue sky” thinking... J. Unbelievable...Hitler didn’t die,
he just metamorphosed...
See url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market
ATB
Dougie.
From: cryptome-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cryptome-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Peter M Howell
Sent: 05 June 2015 17:49
To: cryptome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cryptome] Re: Fwd: has there ever been a FOIA request leading to
initiation of criminal prosecution against the requestor?
Yes. And he was lauded by Wired for innovative thinking. Nothing deceptive nor
was he advocating a new political reality, but it shre scared the heck out of
someone..
Think Adm.Poindexter later repurposed the concept into a middle east futures
exchange to include the likelihood of unfriendly leaders becoming historical
footnotes.. that lasted about 48 hours until congress realized .. a possible
response was a similar exchange / 'life auction' site might include usa
leaders.. Poindexter became unemployed for a while. James Dalton Bell -aka jim
Bell- was incarcerated in a max security black site in solitary for 12 years
on petty charges.
Life's a bitch if you are not a retired Admiral.
Pmh
On 5 Jun 2015 02:44, "Douglas Rankine" <douglasrankine2001@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear coderman and PMH,,
Not a lot changes in “disruption strategies” then, they are just bigger and
have better technologies. The prejudices remain the same, the violent
interventions they organised, provoking the stupid into using violence and
other illegal methods. They were called provocations in my day, organised by
paid state agents called agent provocateurs, (with a smattering of amateur
loyal volunteers). It has always been the way, ever since the development and
establishment of rulers and ruled. People had to be picked on, examples made.
When human societies got big enough to organise the division of labour in
tribal and feudal structures, they operated “watch and ward”, and I dare say
that it is little different today and will be little different tomorrow. One
can read in the UK declassified public records, reports from secret police
agents, all about the comings and goings of British and US communists and
labour and socialist reporters, and other “persons of interest” and the
prejudices of the state agents who watched them as they left and returned to
the country from the Soviet Union, and various other countries considered
extremist or a threat to the British state. To be fair, before the 2nd World
War, the “fifth column” the fascist parties and leaderships were also kept
under surveillance. Members of the ruling circles were generally left to
themselves, although there were a few exceptions. We are all equal under the
eyes of the state... J. Law for them and order for you... J.
ATB
Dougie.
P.S. Was that the Jim Bell who wrote that piece of literary fiction called
“Assassination Politics” ?
From: cryptome-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cryptome-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Peter M Howell
Sent: 04 June 2015 13:22
To: cryptome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cryptome] Re: Fwd: has there ever been a FOIA request leading to
initiation of criminal prosecution against the requestor?
Lots in cryptome archives re Jim Bell, all of which stinks to this day..much of
which relates to FIO activities Jim initiated in response to FBI and Homeland
security overreach.
PMH
On 4 June 2015 at 05:08, coderman <coderman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 5/29/15, coderman <coderman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
i would like to know if anyone is aware of past incidents where a FOIA
request results in a law enforcement agency initiating (accelerating?)
criminal action against the requesting individual...
