Re: How to Exit the Matrix
At 07:27 PM 8/1/2005, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Network Forensics Evasion: How to Exit the Matrix https://n4ez7vf37i2yvz5g.onion/howtos/ExitTheMatrix/ Tor (tor.eff.org) required "Privacy and anonymity have been eroded to the point of non-existence in recent years. In fact, in many workplaces, employers spy on and control their employees Internet access, and this practice is widely considered to be acceptable. How we got to a legal state where this is allowed, I'm not quite sure. It seems to stem from an underlying assumption that while you are at work, you are a slave - a single unit of economic output under the direct and total control of your superiors. I believe this view is wrong. All of those problems derive from the fact that you are using your employers computing resources. Spend the $500 for your on laptop and connect to the Net via E VDO or one of the competing services. Then the only issue is your personal productivity which is completely under your own control. Obviously, if you are fighting the Great Enemy more advanced solutions are required.
Re: Well, they got what they want...
At 02:08 PM 7/22/2005, Duncan Frissell wrote: entrance until you make it into the system without a search. Or you can decline to use government transportation entirely and call 212-777- for the Tel Aviv car service (most of who's drivers are the sons of Hagar rather than the sons of Ruth in spite of it's name). DCF Oops! I meant, of course: Or you can decline to use government transportation entirely and call 212-777- for the Tel Aviv car service (most of who's drivers are the sons of Hagar rather than the sons of Sarah in spite of its name).
Re: Well, they got what they want...
At 11:00 AM 7/22/2005, Tyler Durden wrote: OK, OK...so the police are deterrents against a few lone crazy copycats, who don't have enough sense to enter away from police line-of-site. But it sure seems damned silly to be giving up constitutional protection for the sake of an image of protection. For now you can refuse the search just as with the airlines by declining to travel. Since the searches are "random" you can try again via another entrance until you make it into the system without a search. Or you can decline to use government transportation entirely and call 212-777- for the Tel Aviv car service (most of who's drivers are the sons of Hagar rather than the sons of Ruth in spite of it's name). DCF
Re:The Nazification Of America ("Show Me Your Papers" - Day 1)
Fine, I'll just order the birth certificate and get it over with, right? Wrong. New York wants affirmative proof of identity for a copy now: passport or your [missing] original birth certificate. Anyone else see a circular problem here? http://www.health.state.ny.us/vital_records/birth.htm Identification Requirements - application must be submitted with copies of either A or B: One (1) of the following forms of valid photo-ID: Driver license Non-Driver Photo-ID Card Passport Employment ID Two (2) of the following showing the applicant's name and address: Utility or telephone bills Letter from a government agency dated within the last six (6) months Employment ID (like school ID) can be issued by anyone since anyone in America can employ or teach others. If you want to be fancy, pick up one of these. http://www.staples.com/Catalog/Browse/Sku.asp?PageType=1&Sku=AVE02900 DCF
Re: Got.net and its narcing out of its customers
On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Tim May wrote: > It happened in one of the "movies" groups (rec.arts.current-movies), > when the thread was on DVD copy protection and the (claimed) illegality > of making DVDs of movies. > > I explained how I was cheerfully making an average of a DVD a day of my > favorite current movies. > > A couple of "nyms" went ballistic and foamed that they had forwarded my > "admissions" to the RIAA and how I would face civil penalties and jail > time, oh my! > > Then one of them claimed he had arranged to have my account yanked, for > "violation of the DMCA." He claimed he had sent copies of my "criminal" > admissions to Got.net, to the RIAA, to "law enforcement" (shudder!), > and so on. I gather that the denizens of alt.video.dvd have yet to read the Betamax case. Perhaps they should expand their reading before they opine on the state of IP law. This is one of several times that the readers of Tim's posts have reported him to the authorities. I recall the Santa Cruz sherrif's office call of the early '90s occaisioned by a simple admission that Tim legally posessed weapons at home. I'm constantly amazed by the things that people think are illegal that aren't. Reporting people to the authorities is such an impolite thing to do. In a less enlightened era it would have led to an unfortunate breach of the peace. If you have a problem with someone's behavior speak to him nicely, first. And make damned sure that he's doing something wrong before you complain. Remember -- "Since Sodomy is a Virtue, can anything be a Vice?" DCF
Re: [declan@well.com: [Politech] FBI visits John Young, asks about anti-government activity [fs]]
It's a little late for Special Agent Todd Renner to avoid publicity: http://www.networks.org/?src=cnn:2003:US:Northeast:05:22:explosives.arrest "Todd Renner -- an FBI special agent assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force in New York" DCF At 02:39 PM 11/5/03 -0800, Eric Murray wrote: - Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 17:01:52 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Politech] FBI visits John Young, asks about anti-government activity [fs] John Young is a longtime supporter of open government and public access to government information. See: http://www.mccullagh.org/cgi-bin/photosearch.cgi?name=john+young -Declan --- http://cryptome.org/fbi-cryptome.htm 4 November 2003 Cryptome received a visit today from FBI Special Agents Todd Renner and Christopher Kelly from the FBI Counterterrorism Office in New York, 26 Federal Plaza, telephone (212) 384-1000. Both agents presented official ID and business cards. SA Renner said that a person had reported Cryptome as a source of information that could be used to harm the United States. He said Cryptome website had been examined and nothing on the site was illegal but information there might be used for harmful purposes. He noted that information in the Cryptome CDs might wind up in the wrong hands. SA Renner said there is no investigation of Cryptome, that the purpose of the visit was to ask Cryptome to report to the FBI any information which Cryptome "had a gut feeling" could be a threat to the nation. There was a discussion of the purpose of Cryptome, freedom of information, the need for more public information on threats to the nation and what citizens can do to protect themselves, the need for more public information about how the FBI functions in the field and the intention of visits like the one today. SA Kelly said such visits are increasingly common as the FBI works to improve the reporting of information about threats to the US. Asked what will happen as a result of the visit. SA Renner said he will write a report of the visit. Cryptome said it will publish a report of the visit, including naming the agents. Both agents expressed concern about their names being published for that might lead to a threat against them and/or their families -- one saying that due to copious personal databases any name can be traced. Cryptome said the reason for publishing names of agents is so that anyone can verify that a contact has been made, and that more public information is needed on how FBI agents function and who they are. Cryptome noted that on a previous occasion FBI agents had protested publication of their names by Cryptome. Cryptome did not agree to report anything to the FBI that is not available on the website. ___ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) - End forwarded message -
Re: Year in Jail for Web Links
On Tue, 5 Aug 2003, Eric Cordian wrote: > An anarchist has been sentenced to a year in jail for having links to > explosives information on his Web site. AmeriKKKa is further fucking the > First Amendment by restricting whom he may associate with in the future, > and what views he may espouse. You can't protect people from cowardice. Jim Bell plead the first time. Michael Milkin plead. Bill Gates plead. Various Arabs plead recently. If you plead you can't be acquitted unless you can convince a judge to let you withdraw your plea tough. Courage. Prosecutors and cops are allowed to lie to you about their intent. Know the law. http://technoptimist.blogspot.com/2003_08_03_technoptimist_archive.html#106012921668886203 DCF
RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
At 12:43 PM 3/29/2003 -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: I totally agree. The US has lost everything in terms of world opinion. We are morons led by an insane lunatic and the US needs to be dealt with accordingly. Once we start invading Syria, the world will retaliate in a big way. We're already building excuses to do so, so I won't be supprised if the US "accidentally" bombs a few targets inside Syria. Washington are very capable of doing something really stupid and I don't think they appreciate how much military power can be brought to bear against them. If it stays in Iraq, the US has a chance. If they decide to make it bigger, the US will be toast. So when the rest of the world retaliates with all their military power that the US fails to appreciate, what strategic war plan does the rest of the world have for handling a couple thousand nukes? Just trying to figure their options? DCF
Re: COWed news networks not showing Baghdad market dead
At 05:02 PM 3/29/2003 -0800, Eric Cordian wrote: Let me quote a few of their comments, as it gives new meaning to the term "World Arrogance," and illustrates why we should "Support Our Troops(tm)" only if they are on their way to the gallows via an international tribunal, along with their Commander in Chief. Luckily for them, the US didn't sign on to the treaty for the World Criminal Court. So no jurisdiction. There's unlikely to be a special war crimes tribunal for this minor war either. The UN and the Frogs will be too busy trying to get a piece of the reconstruction action. There will be a few war crimes trials arising out of it but the "Coalition Forces" will probably conduct them. Eric, any explanation of why Nat Hentoff is neutral and Chris Hitchens supports this little contretemps. I didn't think you were a believer in national sovereignty yourself. I know I'm not. DCF
Re: Porn for neo-conservatives
Yes, I think it's terrible that tax money is stolen to buy weapons for public employees. Very immoral. That village should be destroyed by mercs operating on the free market. Perhaps for the oil companies. Then we could judge its morality depending on the guilt of the targets. As it is, such activities can only be wrong since those toys are paid for with stolen funds. DCF On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Steve Schear wrote: > >It is at http://www.thenausea.com/usa.html . Download from the link > >described thus: > > > >Afghanistan > >AC130_GunshipMed_a.wmv (4,69 Mb). A small village is destroyed (from a > >AC130 airplane) and everyone is killed mercyless. Men, women, children: > >from that altittude you are only an infrared spot. > > > >Or directly: > >http://www.thenausea.com/elements/usa/AC130_GunshipMed_a.wmv > > steve
Re: A prediction
At 03:24 PM 2/18/03 -0800, James A. Donald wrote: -- The Iraq war will, as everyone knows, be launched on the 27 or 28th of february. I was thinking about 0400 hours (GMT+3) on the morning of the 28th (that being "Sunday" in Muslim countries). Sunday the 2nd is dark of the moon and an earlier attack would lead into it nicely. DCF "Western Civilization didn't invent tyranny, slavery, racism, or the oppression of women. What it did do is eliminate those evils (to the extent they have been eliminated). The rest of the world should be damn grateful and if they're not we should return them to the ancient tyrannies from which we so recently rescued them. Would serve them right."
Re: Supressed? speech by Sen. Robert Byrd -- Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences
At 05:49 PM 2/16/03 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: Peter: I think you're right. It's had some, spotty coverage: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22robert+byrd%22+war+iraq+floor&btnG=Search+News One reason why it may not have been picked up (speaking as a political journalist, albeit not one who writes about this area) is that it's not particularly novel: Some Democrats have been saying this for a while. Introducing a bill to rescind Bush's war power, calling for impeachment, endorsing Rep. Paul's legislation, etc. would have been far more newsworthy, and more than just talk. The right-wing alternative media covered it. I saw clips on Fox and heard clips on Rush & Sean. They used it as an opportunity to beat up on "KKK-Byrd" as well as the content of the speech. DCF "The government is just people." "People, my eye, they're Democrats." --The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Guns & Duct Tape
Curtis & Kuby on WABC Radio On WABC radio in NYC this morning, Curtis Sliwa (head of the Guardian Angels) and Ron Kuby (radical lawyer, communist, and partner of the late William Kunsler) were chatting about terrorist attack preparations. Ron repeated his point that guns and plenty of ammo were the most important part of any emergency survival kit. Ron's classic quote: "Guns will get you through times of no duct tape better than duct tape will get you through times of no guns." -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 2/14/2003 9:26:27 AM Powered by Blogger Pro
Re: The Statism Meme
On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Tim May wrote: > I'm struck by how many of them this year treat civil liberties as gone, > either as old-fashioned or as just plain ignorable. I love the frequent use of facial recognition systems on TV as well. With, of course, no mention of the fact that they don't work. DCF
RE: The Statism Meme
On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Blanc wrote: > Years ago I asked a group of Libertarians at a meeting what they would do if > a particular politican, who was then running for President, won and turned > everything into a bona-fide, outright statist state like Russia was at the > time. They couldn't adequately answer my question; they couldn't come up > with any ideas of how to deal with it, what they would do if they suddenly > were faced with having to live with it. Maybe they were just being You mean no one said, "I'd grab the .30-06 and head for the hills"? We're not quite there yet. Since no one did it during WWII when the oppression was greater -- 200,000 internees, rationing, travel controls, bans on posession of radio equipment, conscription, etc. -- we have some time to think. DCF
Re: bin Laden, Hanssen, Inslaw Promis, Oh My!
At 09:58 AM 1/9/03 -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030106-75579570.htm --- Greets to the TLA moths flitting to the flame of keywords.. Though the article would be better if it had named the former NJ Governor Thomas H. Kean instead of "David H. Kean." DCF
Re: citizens can be named as enemy combatants
On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Tim May wrote: > Fuck the U.S. Fuck it dead. Do it soon. > > This is one of the rulings which completes the shredding of the > Constitution. Every member of that Court should be killed for their > crimes against the Constitution. It's a good thing he was captured by the Feds instead of a militia or a Private Defense Force of some sort. Note that such forces are not required to accept surrenders and can simply kill enemy forces (and vice-versa of course). Private citizens are not bound by the Constitution either of course (it binds only the governments). The Padilla case will be more important than the Hamdi case because he was arrested in Chicago rather than Afghanistan. Under the traditional laws of war, Padilla (if he is an enemy soldier) could have been executed as a spy since he entered the country in civilian clothes rather than in uniform. All Al-Quida combatants in the US should definitely wear their uniforms so they can "get off on a technicality" if captured. I wonder what an Al-Quida uniform looks like? DCF
RE: JYA ping
On Fri, 4 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > We paid a surprise Sunday morning visit to the CIA back entrance, got > surrounded by HMMVs and spiffy guards with hands on guns, interrogated by a > swell looking Ms. Security who ran our Duncan Frissell ID card through the > master file, idled for 1/2 hour observing gaps in the maginot line, and then > received a heartfelt thanks for cooperating, Duncan, wink. Aren't you glad that I kept my files vacuumed just for you? Clean Team-Dirty Team. Works every time. DCF Don't nuke Mecca. Build a cathedral there instead.
Raise the Fist Webmaster pleads guilty
RTF Webmaster Pleads Guilty RTF Webmaster to be Convicted on Monday, Sept 23rd Raisethefist.com, Sherman Austin will be convicted on Monday, Sept 23rd as he pleads guilty to felony count: 18 U.S.C. 842 (p)(2)(A): DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION RELATING TO EXPLOSIVES, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WITH THE INTENT THAT SUCH INFORMATION BE USED IN FURTHERANCE OF A FEDERAL CRIME OF VIOLENCE. The plea bargain gives Austin a felony conviction with 1 month in jail, 5 months in a half-way home and 3 years supervised release. Austin does not start his sentencing on Monday, but will find out the exact date at his court appearance. The arraignment is at the downtown federal building in Los Angeles on 255 east temple on the 3rd floor at 8:30am Another one of those unfortunate chicken defendants we seem to get. He would have got a max of 4-5 at trial. So now he has a felony conviction anyway plus endless parole supervision which gives the Feds way too much control over you. And he gives up a chance to challenge the "Publish Bomb Plans" go to jail law. If you go to trial and lose and do your time you are then free of supervision. Plus you never admitted any crime. A plea is an admission. When you are in custody, your cooperation is the only thing you can deny your captors. See some of the actual links: http://www.raisethefist.com/news.cgi?artical=wire/9846413t4a.article and http://www.raisethefist.com/news.cgi?artical=wire/9845643t4a.article -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 9/25/2002 1:54:34 PM Powered by Blogger Pro
The SSA in Peace and War
>From Syracuse's invaluable Transactional Records Clearing House site: The SSA in Peace and War The federal agency with the most international terrorism referrals in April was a surprisethe Social Security Administration. It recommended 78 individuals be indicted for such crimes, compared with only 39 referrals during the month from the FBI. The Department of Transportation was third with 23 new referrals, followed by the INS and Customs. The FBI was the source of most referrals for domestic terrorism. See table. We warned you that the Social Security Administration would become an instrument of totalitarian control back in 1935 when it was created. But you didn't listen -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 9/5/2002 2:52:44 PM Powered by Blogger Pro
Selling Privacy for ETC
A Faraday Cage for your EZPass: EZShield.com EZPass is an Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system used in the Northeast. A small white box is attached to your windshield and is queried by radios in passing toll booths. Your account is debited for the toll. Your account lists all the booths passed and when so it can be very useful for law enforcement and civil attorneys (including domestic relations lawyers). EZPass has already been featured on an episode of Law and Order. In addition since the system is protected by weak or no encryption, attackers with radios could extract some information by querying your EZPass. Perhaps duplicating it to steal tolls from you. The EZShield is a little box with a drawer to hold your EZPass. According to the photo, it doesn't increase the EZPass form factor by much. What you are supposed to do in open the drawer to expose your EZPass only when you want to use it and keep it enclosed when you don't. The interesting thing is that EZShield's sellers believe that there is enough interest in a technological privacy fix that they are willing to advertise it on mass media. I heard it just before the Rush Limbaugh show on WABC in NYC. -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 8/19/2002 1:52:02 PM Powered by Blogger Pro
RE: White House Sounds Call For New Internet Standards
On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Lucky Green wrote: > > How about IPv6 with IPSEC? > > --Lucky > Isn't that a creaky, cranky 10-year-old protocol? DCF
Is Latvia Offshore?
So I wonder. Is Latvia Offshore? I am in receipt of a fun piece of spam: Dear Customer, Looking for a superior asset protection and tax management tool? Concerned about preserving your wealth in the heart of Europe without personal identity disclosure? We have a superior solution, which is able to meet the most demanding asset protection needs of our prospective customers. Please take your time to study this incredible and exclusive opportunity at www.offshore-cards.com -- Offshore Cirrus ATM card Complete anonymity when withdrawing cash No ID requirements Would cost you just $180 http://www.offshore-cards.com/anoncir.htm So I wander over to NSI and discover where "the Heart of Europe" is (OFFSHORE-CARDS.COM) and discover that it is Latvia. Now it is certainly possible that heroic Latvians could be offering fabulous anonymous bank accounts and credit and debit cards but how would one know this in advance. Then there's the fact that the record was created in May. A bit young. Give it a while to age. DCF -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 7/30/2002 9:52:30 AM
A Q&A exchange between me and Eugene Volokh
A Q&A exchange between me and Eugene Volokh: [Eugene's responses in square brackets.] The topic was Gilmore v. Ashcroft -- FAA ID Challenge in which John Gilmore is suing the Feds to be allowed to fly domestically without ID. So, does John have a chance? [No.] So it is your view that the Feds can ban anyone (except those wealthy enough to rent, buy, or build their own aircraft) from flying, for life, using secret orders, and without any access to judicial process. Seems a bit extreme to me. Could they do the same thing for riding in a car or walking? What about boats? [My view is only that they can insist that people show id.] So if there is a "Don't Fly" list, you would support people being able to sue to get off it? [Of course.] How can they force you to present something that they can't force you to have in the first place? [Same reason as for driver's licenses to drive. If you don't want an identification, that's fine -- but then you won't be allowed to do certain things where identification is necessary for security reasons.] I promised that I wouldn't send him any more mail for at least a week but now the time is up. One doesn't need a driver's license to ride in a car. The government is now claiming that you need ID to ride in a commercial aircraft. Since the development of passports for international travel at the beginning of the 20th century, passports (or other travel documents) have been necessary to enter other nations. Commercial carriers began to check them on boarding not for security reasons but because if passengers were refused entry at their destination the carrier was responsible for their maintenance and return. The problem with such ID requirements is not merely that ID is required. The problem is that the activity can be barred for reasons other than lack of ID. You will also be banned for your characteristics. After all, what's the point of requiring ID to fight terrorism if you can't ban terrorists from flights. Or people who fit a terrorist profile. Or people who owe child support (drivers licenses, fishing licenses, and passports are denied to those owing child support). An ID requirement, when you combine it with online verification and authorization, creates a federal license requirement to engage in the particular activity. In the above case, a federal license to fly on a commercial aircraft. In other proposals, a federal license to take a job, open a bank account or rent an apartment. A federal license that can be denied for any reason since it is issued via a computer analysis system driven by a secret algorithm. It's a license because the federal government is required to affirmatively grant you permission before you can do something. The right to fly is controlled by the Computer Assisted Passenger Profile System (CAPPS) -- soon to be replaced by the presumably wider-ranging CAPPS2. At the heart of CAPPS is a secret algorithm that determines whether you are or may be a terrorist. You can't know what facts or behaviors cause CAPPS to ban you from a flight since the algorithm is not for public consumption. In fact, since the Feds have not set up an administrative procedure for you to challenge a denial of flight boarding (or any of the future activities that will be subject to CAPPS2 and similar systems) only those with the $25K to 100K needed to bring a federal civil suit will be able to challenge their denials. The Feds require private businesses that deny you credit to follow an appeals process but don't impose such a requirement on themselves in the much more significant denials that CAPPS2 will make. And even for the rich, these court challenges will be hard to win since the reasons for the denials will be a state secret. So those who support such ID requirements and such federal licenses should be required to answer a basic question -- what activities should be subject to state and federal permission and which activities should not? DCF -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 7/30/2002 10:40:04 PM
Pizza with a credit card
<http://villagevoice.com/issues/0230/baard.php>Buying Trouble In which the Village Voice discusses the use of commercial databases including supermarket discount cards in hunting terrorists. One useful piece of advice: Don't but pizza with a credit card: Oddly enough, "one of the factors was if you were a person who frequently ordered pizza and paid with a credit card," Ponemon says, describing the buying habits of a nation of college students. "Sometimes data leads to an empirical inference when you add it to other variables. Whether this one is relevant or completely spurious remains to be seen, but those kinds of weird things happen with data." Course all those terrorists buying their pizzas with cash get away clean. DCF Posted by Duncan Frissell to <http://technoptimist.blogspot.com>The Technoptimist at 7/29/2002 10:19:30 AM
Hollywood Hackers
Congressman Wants to Let Entertainment Industry Get Into Your Computer Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers' computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material. I've been reading things like this for a while but I wonder how practical such an attack would be. They won't be able to hack into computers with reasonable firewalls and while they might try DOS attacks, upstream connectivity suppliers might object. Under current P2P software they may be able to do a little hacking but the opposition will rewrite the software to block. DOS attacks and phony file uploads can be defeated with digital signatures and reputation systems (including third party certification). Another problem -- Napster had 55 million customers. That's a lot of people to attack. I don't think Hollywood has the troops. DCF
How to Defeat DVD Zone Controls
From Ditherati: YOU CAN'T FIRE ME, I SUBMIT "I care more about this than getting myself fired, but the fact is that getting myself fired today would have hurt Hewlett-Packard's Linux program." Open-source guru Bruce Perens, on his courageous decision to keep drawing a paycheck instead of teaching conference- goers how to hack a DVD player, Wired News, 26 July 2002 http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54168,00.html Insteard of going to a conference, you could go to your favorite Hypermarche in Belgium or France and buy a multi zone DVD player. Course then you can't use your NSTC tv set to connect it to but that's another problem. DCF
RE: Are the Feds Wimps or What?
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Trei, Peter wrote: > Well, the other possible interpretation is that the Feds are not > black-at-heart, Big Brother, neo Stalinist fascist JBTs > pouncing on any opportunity to make confetti of the Bill of Rights; > but rather are actually trying to respond to 9/11 with a minimal > impact on US Citizens. > > ...but of course, that would be an unpopular interpretation on > this mailing list. I agree. I assume that they have enough on their hands without adding wholesale oppression. Takes time. Very expensive. That's one of the advantages of an advanced market economy. Salaries and other operating costs are high and the wealth of your adversaries is also so high that unless you're making a profit on the transaction it's hard to "buy" too much of something even if that something is oppression. If the activity to be regulated doubles in size, the regulators had better double in number too or they begin to fall behind. SEC? Markets can adapt to demand changes because the actors are self-financing in the long run so they scale well. Government actors aren't self-financed (only a small number are in charge of theft) so scaling is difficult. Also voluntary transactions are easier to complete than coerced transactions (think prostitution vs. rape) since there is no resistance. We'll see. DCF Governments do not become nicer or nastier because of their capabilities and attitudes. They become nastier or nicer because of *our* capabilities and attitudes.
Are the Feds Wimps or What?
So far the massive crackdown by the Feds that has stripped me of my civil liberties hasn't managed to do much. They have to work a bit harder. I'm back to not showing ID to get into work just like before the war. The states where I choose not to obtain a drivers license have upped their ID requirements for initial license applications but I already have one and don't patronize them in any case. They still let foreigners drive with foreign licenses so I will become a foreigner if they get too uppity. Flight delays only slightly worse than usual (particularly since I mostly fly internationally and have always shown my passport). Domestic flight ID fascism is 6 years old this August so no change there. As far as we know, only a little more than 1000 detained out of a pop of 270 megs. I was expecting that we would at least make WWII levels -- 200,000+ out of a population of 132 megs. I guess there could be a few more internees but they'd be tough to hide. Too many others would note their absence. I thinks the Feds are just to wimpy to indulge in actual oppression these days. At least on a wholesale basis. Maybe I'm wrong but I need more evidence first. -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 7/20/2002 9:06:27 PM Powered by Blogger Pro
Highjacker's Banking Problems
Sept. 11 Hijackers Said to Fake Data on Bank Accounts Sayeth the New York Times: July 10, 2002 Sept. 11 Hijackers Said to Fake Data on Bank Accounts By JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, July 9 The Sept. 11 hijackers were able to open 35 American bank accounts without having legitimate Social Security numbers and opened some of the accounts with fabricated Social Security numbers that were never checked or questioned by bank officials, a senior F.B.I. official said today. ... With no scrutiny from the financial institutions or government regulators, the hijackers were able to move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Middle East into the United States through a maze of bank accounts beginning more than a year before their attacks. A spokesman for SunTrust, which is based in Atlanta, said the bank had been cooperating with the F.B.I.'s investigation. The spokesman said it was possible for foreigners without Social Security numbers to open bank accounts in this country, but he could not provide details of what forms of identification the hijackers used to open the SunTrust accounts. ... One of the first signs of a large infusion of cash coming into the United States for use by the hijackers appears in bank records dating from 2000, when $100,000 was deposited in bank accounts controlled by some of the leading hijackers, including Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, Mr. Lormel said. ... Note that it is as legal as church on a Sunday for non-residents to open financial accounts in the US or Switzerland or the UK etc. Many US banks don't accommodate foreigners but that is because of sloth not law. Certainly online brokers (who are quasi banks) do market to foreigners. One reason that SS numbers were not verified is that the SSA has traditionally refused to verify for privacy reasons and the alternative method involves doing a credit check which takes time and money. And in the case of non-interest-paying current accounts there are no tax issues. Banks located in the "red states" are not as bureaucratic as banks in the "blue states" and have been much slower to adopt the controls popular on the coasts. This is changing of course but there are still many social differences which make account transactions easier in the free states. But let's assume for a moment that Homeland Security shuts the banks down and requires verified DNA samples and licenses from 10 separate agencies to open a financial account in the US. So the middle class Egyptians and Saudis with no criminal records who attacked us are faced with the ultimate challenge of getting the $500K they needed into the US. By dint of heroic effort, the future highjackers manage to open bank accounts in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. They receive ATM, debit, or credit cards to draw on those accounts. Perhaps they encourage their French or British co-conspirators to open accounts in those countries. They arrive in the US and withdraw the $500 to $1000 per day maximum (per account) from ATM machines. Assume they have only managed to open 5 accounts. That's $2500 to $5000/day. Or 100 to 200 days to withdraw $500K. Not much of a trick particularly since they are not limited to 5 accounts and can get cash advances at any bank with any credit cards they have. But then Homeland Security outlaws ATMs and credit cards (or at least the international connections of same). This is tantamount to imposing exchange controls which the US has never done. So the attackers have to fall back on Krugerrands. At $333 a pop, they have to get 1500 KRs into the country. Since bullion coins are not considered currency, they aren't covered by financial instrument import reporting laws. But you can just mail them one or two at a time. Most of them will get through. No big deal. The truth is that it's a bit tricky to block the movement of small amounts of money like this. -- Posted by Duncan Frissell to The Technoptimist at 7/10/2002 10:30:45 AM Powered by Blogger Pro
Re: Tax consequences of becoming a US citizen.
On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Tim May wrote: > Why do you think a person without a green card is exempt from IRS > jurisdiction? I assumed that he meant a US non-resident. Obvi > > Unless one's stay is a short one (see below), income or other money > earned while in the U.S. (and maybe earned outside the U.S. if the IRS > can make a nexus case) is taxable. Illegal aliens are supposed to file > tax returns...and they certainly don't have green cards! > > Here's what Uncle Sam says: > > "You will be considered a U.S. resident for tax purposes if you meet the > substantial presence test for the calendar year. To meet this test, you > must be physically present in the United States on at least: > > 1.31 days during the current year, and > 2.183 days during the 3-year period that includes the current year > and the 2 years immediately before that, counting: > * All the days you were present in the current year, and > * 1/3 of the days you were present in the first year before the > current year, and > * 1/6 of the days you were present in the second year before the > current year. > > --end IRS quote-- > > There are some exemptions, for student visa persons and athletes > competing in games, but basically the idea is that you owe tax on money > earned in the U.S., regardless of citizenship, green card, or other > status. > > > or > > get a US citizenship since you're already in their jurisdiction anyway. > > > > I think this is terrible advice. Becoming a U.S. citizen exposes a > person to not only the _current year_ tax scheme but also the "for ten > years after you leave the U.S." tax scheme. (Yes, any U.S. citizen who > moves anywhere in the world must, technically, file U.S. tax returns for > 10 years after leaving. And pay various kinds of taxes, though the > amount may be different from what he would have paid had he remained in > the U.S.) > > Also, a person having extensive offshore (outside the U.S.) assets may > well find his assets are now taxable in the U.S. And for those with > capital assets not taxed in their home countries (e.g., Germany, Japan), > this may be quite a shock. > > A U.S. passport buys almost no protection. The U.S. will not defend its > citizens, only its imperialist interests. > > > > --Tim May > "That government is best which governs not at all." --Henry David Thoreau
Re: [OT] why was private gold ownership made illegal in the US? (Re: "to outlaw general purpose computers")
On Tue, 2 Jul 2002, Adam Back wrote: > Just curious, but what was the rationale under which private possession > of gold was made illegal in the US? It boggles the mind... > > Adam Eric's comment are correct. A bit more info. The US wanted to devalue the $ and substitute a general gold standard for a government to government gold standard. The gold standard price of gold was $20.67/ounce. By forcing Americans to turn in their gold before devaluation, the Feds got more gold for less money. They also wanted the freedom to inflate. Gold clauses were common in contracts and they would have made soft money difficult. As is traditional under US law, gold ownership was banned for US citizens and permanent residents anywhere on earth. There were controlled exemptions for coin collectors, jewelers, and dentists. Gold smuggling became popular during the Vietnam war and the monetary crises of the '60s and '70s. It was re-legalized in January of 1975 (the only decent act of the Ford Admin). DCF
Choate a Spammer or a Victim?
Has anyone noticed genuine spam wrapped in Choatian wrappers? Perhaps someone who's good at header analysis can comment. This is the header of a mailing list sales pitch I retrieved from my trash file (where Choate and MattX go. I also got some porno spam. Innovation thy name is spam. DCF Received: by mail1.panix.com (mbox frissell) (with Cubic Circle's cucipop (v1.31 1998/05/13) Tue Apr 23 10:26:19 2002) X-From_: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sat Apr 20 17:33:35 2002 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Received: from slack.lne.com (dns.lne.com [209.157.136.81]) by mail2.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD5DF9029 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 17:33:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by slack.lne.com (8.11.0/8.11.0) id g3KKwsS17398 for cypherpunks-goingout; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 13:58:54 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: slack.lne.com: majordom set sender to [EMAIL PROTECTED] using -f X-Mailsort: cypherpunks From: "Jim Choate " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 14:57:47 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: SAFELY Message-ID: <3CC181EB.19337.2529338@localhost> In-reply-to: <3CA5CC82.15240.6A42ED@localhost> References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.01) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-description: Mail message body X-Unsubscription-Info: http://einstein.ssz.com/cdr Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Status: RO X-Status:
Supremes Legalize Virtual Kiddieporn
According to WABC at 10:30, the Supremem Court overturned the ban on virtual or morphed kiddie porn. DCF
Re: Among the Bourgeoisophobes
Not to mention continent-wide free trade zone since 1790-1803 or so. Lower taxes. Relaxed regulatory environment. Free(er) media and art industry. DCF On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Julian Assange wrote: > > and awe (arrogance), the rejection of superstition (godlessness), > > Europeans certainly don't dislike Americans for Godlessness. The > extraordinary religiosity (whether over Gods or Presidents) in the > US is one of the reasons for European frowning over that country. > > Americans would do well to consider its scientific and economic > successes as primarily stemming from: > > a) Lack of distruction in WWII > b) large graph where the edges speak a common language and common > rules. > c) A large tax base with substantial centralisation of tax > assets. > > -- > Julian Assange|If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people >|together to collect wood or assign them tasks and > [EMAIL PROTECTED] |work, but rather teach them to long for the endless > [EMAIL PROTECTED] |immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint Exupery >
Re: One for declan Mc CATOhead,pass it on dec!
On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, matthew X wrote: > http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/12/1018333413565.html > 700,000 awarded against British American Tobacco.Possible 1,000,000 fine > for destroying evidence. > Put that in your pipe and smoke it you cheap shill. > I thought "
Re: One for declan Mc CATOhead,pass it on dec!
On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, matthew X wrote: > http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/12/1018333413565.html > 700,000 awarded against British American Tobacco.Possible 1,000,000 fine > for destroying evidence. > Put that in your pipe and smoke it you cheap shill. > But I thought: "No opinion a law -- no opinion a crime." ---Alexander Berkman Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. DCF
ID & Citizenship Believe it or Nots
Identification & Citizenship Believe it or Nots by Duncan Frissell http://technoptimist.blogspot.com/?/2002_04_07_technoptimist_archive.html Last September's attack on the United States vastly increased debate on identification, citizenship, and immigration. For your education and amusement, here are some truly strange facts about these topics. ... 2) World War II was won by US Army Generals and Navy Admirals who commanded armies, air forces, and fleets and possessed and used all manner of weapons up to and including nuclear bombs -- all without ever having proved their identities to the US government. ... 8) One is not required to apply for a Social Security Number. ... 18) The machine-readable lines on your passport (at the bottom of the page that has your picture on it) include space for a National ID number. ... 21) It is not a crime to be an illegal alien in the US. It is a civil matter. It is a crime to use fraudulent documents to gain entry. It is a minor offense to evade inspection when crossing the border. But if you overstay your visa, it is not a crime. You can, of course, be arrested and deported but the mere status of being illegally present in the US does not constitute a crime. DCF If you worry that Multinational Corporations or National Governments control your life, simply employ a random number generator to determine what actions you take. By this simple technological fix, you will guarantee that no one (including yourself) is Master of Your Fate and Captain of Your Soul.
Re: DOJ press release: Visa offshore records to be turned over
At 07:17 PM 3/28/02 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE >FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > >COURT APPROVES IRS SUMMONS FOR OFFSHORE CREDIT CARD RECORDS Records from >VISA International Will Identify People Who Use Offshore Credit Cards to >Evade Federal Income Taxes WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal court in San >Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday issued an order authorizing the IRS to >serve a summons on VISA International for offshore credit card >records. The court acted just two days after the Justice I guess it must be almost April 15th. As sure as the crocuses bloom in the spring, press releases blossom in the Department of the Treasury. "Al Capone, Lou Costello, Willie Nelson caught by heroic Agents of the Infernal Robbery Service. You may be next." If I were one of those 2 million offshore card holders I'd really be sweating it. Why I might end up being like one of the 632 Americans prosecuted in 2000 for tax evasion. http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/findings/national/aousc.html. 2 million offshore card holders (plus another 8-10 million non-filers and 8-10 million filing evaders who *don't* have offshore credit cards) being taken down at the rate of 632/year. It won't be long before they're all in stir. 3.16 convictions per 100,000 evaders in 2000 vs a murder rate of 6-9 per 100,000. http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/findings/aboutIRS/keyFindings.html "The IRS's use of levies has continued a long-term slide. Liens, while going up somewhat last year, remain extremely low compared with past years. IRS seizures have for all practical purposes been abandoned. Tax delinquent investigations aimed at both individuals and businesses were down last year. (See graph and table.) The law authorizes the IRS to bring civil suits in federal court against recalcitrant taxpayers. In 1992, according to data recorded by United States Attorneys, the agency filed 2,519 such actions. In 1999, it filed 641. (See graph and table.) An even more serious sanction involves allegations of criminal tax violations. According to federal court data, federal tax prosecutionsmost of them by the IRSrecently have dropped by more than half1,550 in 1987 (at its peak), 632 in 2000. (See graph and table.) " DCF [1] And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. [3} ... but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? [7] And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel. 1 Chronicles 21.
Is Illegal Immigration Illegal?
I'm trying to figure out the answer to what should be a simple question. Is it illegal to be Illegal. I've wandered through various US Code sections: TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 75 > Sec. 1546. Sec. 1546. - Fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1546.html TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part V > Sec. 1253. Sec. 1253. - Penalties related to removal http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1253.html TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > Sec. 1325. Sec. 1325. - Improper entry by alien http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1325.html TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > Sec. 1324d. Sec. 1324d. - Civil penalties for failure to depart http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1324d.html and it looks like there are the normal criminal penalties for forgery and uttering a false document and a minor misdemeanor charge for sneaking accross the border but merely a fine for overstaying a visa. If you fail to leave after you are ordered to do so you may be imprisoned but the language is the language of "civil" penalties rather than "crimes." Is this correct? I know that Illegals are usually just subject to deportation and that this is a civil matter. (Which is why all the detainees arrested after September 11th don't have the right to a free lawyer since they are not charged with any crimes.) As far as any of you know, are there any "pure crimes" involved in illegal immigration other than those outlined above? If not, this should be pointed out in arguments on the topic. DCF
Eudora filter file for Cypherpunks
Sample filers.pce file for Eudora. Filter file transfers all incoming cypherpunks mail to a mailbox called cypherpunks and then transfers certain posters posts to trash: 3 rule +Any Header;cypherpunks transfer cypherpunks.mbx incoming header +Any Header; verb contains value cypherpunks conjunction ignore header verb contains value rule From:[EMAIL PROTECTED] transfer Trash.mbx incoming manual header From: verb contains value [EMAIL PROTECTED] conjunction or header From: verb contains value [EMAIL PROTECTED] rule From:[EMAIL PROTECTED] transfer Trash.mbx incoming manual header From: verb contains value [EMAIL PROTECTED] conjunction or header From: verb contains value [EMAIL PROTECTED] rule From:[EMAIL PROTECTED] transfer Trash.mbx incoming manual header From: verb contains value [EMAIL PROTECTED] conjunction ignore header verb contains value DCF
3rd & 4th Quarter 2001 Taxpats Lists Up
Late and messy,the Service has finally published its Taxpatriates lists for the last half of 2001. I've updated my Official Taxpatriates Page: http://www.frissell.com/taxpat/taxpats.html and, as always, a .csv database is available at: http://www.frissell.com/taxpat/taxpats.csv. Not too much news generated by these lists. A casual perusal doesn't turn up any names that are famous (to me). The lists are messier than usual in that they are not sorted in any discernable order and contain fragmentary entries like: "Julienne". Perhaps the Service should hire me to so their list. Either because of increased patriotism or because the Feds had something better to do, the 4th Quarter featured only 21 renunciations -- the lowest number since the list was first issued in 1996. Here are the actual numbers from all the lists: 96Q490 97Q1237 97Q21205 97Q3254 97Q4116 98Q1136 98Q275 98Q3151 98Q436 99Q1128 99Q2107 99Q3118 99Q481 00Q1185 00Q289 00Q388 00Q469 01Q1225 01Q2122 01Q3123 01Q421 3656 DCF "Western Civilization didn't invent tyranny, slavery, racism, or the oppression of women. What it did do is eliminate those evils (to the extent they have been eliminated). The rest of the world should be damn grateful and if they're not we should return them to the ancient tyrannies from which we so recently rescued them. Would serve them right."
Re: Teen Anarchist Back Online Despite FBI & Big ISPs
On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, Brian McWilliams wrote: > Yahoo "honors the spirit of the First Amendment and free speech," according > to spokeswoman Mary Osako, but she noted that Yahoo's terms of service > prohibit posting "content that incites violence." So I guess there are no pro government or military groups permitted on Yahoo Groups since such groups 'incite vilence'. Is Yahoo under the impression that it is never OK the 'incite violence'? DCF
Re: Film a fed building, get deported
At 07:12 PM 3/5/02 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: > While he was outside the building Dec. 6, he said, > his filming was stopped by security guards and he > was interviewed by Santa Ana > police, who wrote > down his driver's license. On Dec. 11, FBI agents > were at his doorstep. > > Within three weeks, Vasquez was sent to an > immigration detention center in Lancaster for one > month, then released on bond. Classic example of why not to have your DL point to your actual residence. Completely unjustified risk. DCF [1] And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. [3} ... but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? [7] And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel. 1 Chronicles 21.
Re: Recruiting Agents
At 08:43 AM 2/28/02 -0800, John Young wrote: >You know, he said, I'm very troubled by what my company >is doing, but I think in times of danger we all have to do >what we can to protect the nation, and I think you should >get in touch with the authorities to be sure information >you get is okay to publish. No, I said, that's not for me, All purpose response to recruitment or general national defense arguments: I think that it's important to defend myself, my family, and my community. In fact, I think it's so important that I'm not comfortable delegating it to a collective monopoly. None of us can be sure exactly what will be needed to defend us from our enemies. Public and private authorities thought for years that the crew and passengers of highjacked planes should submit meekly to their highjackers. This turned out to be a bad mistake. Maybe the Feds know best, maybe someone else knows best, maybe I know best. Neither the Feds, nor someone else, nor I can be sure what's the best way to defend our community in a complex strategic and tactical environment. It is possible, for example, that the best way to defend our community is for all of us to carry weapons at all times and kill any terrorists we happen to encounter. Or maybe not. Small-group personal attack, was the method used by the passengers of UA93 to stop its use as a weapon of war. In any case, many different approaches are possible. I think that it's important that we try all sorts of different tactics to defend our community. Time will tell which are best. So the government will deploy its strategy and tactics and the rest of us will deploy ours. I call it Open Source Community Defense (OSCD). DCF Back in April of '75, my 5th great-grandfather Captain William Frizzell defended his community against an Evil Empire by grabbing his rifle and marching from Woodstock, Massachusetts (now Connecticut) to Cambridge to protect its magazine from British gun and powder grabbers.
Choate, Matt, and Seth -- Agents of the Vatican!
Now we have the proof: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_20020228_ethics-internet_en.html PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS ETHICS IN INTERNET "The ideology of radical libertarianism is both mistaken and harmful not least, to legitimate free expression in the service of truth. The error lies in exalting freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of valuesIn this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and being at peace with oneself'. There is no room for authentic community, the common good, and solidarity in this way of thinking." *** Boy, I'm glad I'm an Anglican these days. DCF
Dell Computers Screening Customers for "Combat"
http://www.jackweigand.com/Dell.html " It seems someone in Dell had already canceled my order, when I asked why I was told Dell was afraid I was going to use the machine for illegal purposes. When I asked why someone would think that I was told it was because of the name of my business Weigand Combat Handguns Inc." "I was informed by a Dell supervisor not long after all of this the reason I was refused was because of their post September 11th policy of screening buyers." DCF
Re: Cheney: "Atrocity of 9/11 to save tech sector"
On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Graham Lally wrote: > Technology to pimp itself out to a capitalist police state (anyone have a > transcript of the speech?) : > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/24204.html > > Atrocity of 9/11 to save tech sector - Cheney > By Thomas C Greene in Washington > Posted: 26/02/2002 at 12:46 GMT > > A profitable surveillance state may rise from the ashes of Ground Zero if the > Bush Administration has its way. Indeed, high-tech gizmos will play an > increasing role in US military ventures and homeland security, Vice President > Dick Cheney said Thursday during a speech at the Tech Museum of Innovation in > San Jose, California. It's faster to find such transcripts than it is to ask for them: http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20020221.html DCF
Re: Trends in criminal acts against civil aviation 1992-2000
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Greg Newby wrote: > I was surprised to see that the number of US-registered air carriers > involved in hijackings (and most other acts the FAA considers in these > reports) from 1992 - 2000 is zero. > > This stuff happens to non-US airlines, and usually outside > of the US. > The last bomb that detonated on a US domestic or US originating flight was in 1962 (unless flight 800 was a bomb). I think the last (domestic) highjacking (before 11 September) was in the 1980s. An interesting note is that a bomb or a highjacking are not considered accidents so the September 11th deaths are not counted against US airline safety records and in spite of the AA crash in NYC on November 12th, last year was officially one of the safest years in the history of US commercial aviation. DCF
'Raise the Fist' Owner Busted in NYC
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/40632.htm BABY 'BOMB' BUST By BRAD HUNTER and LARRY CELONA of the New York Post February 5, 2002 -- A would-be teen terrorist, wanted by the FBI for allegedly posting a how-to-blow-things-up Web site, was nabbed during World Economic Forum demonstrations, cops said yesterday. Sherman Austin, 18, of tony Sherman Oaks, Calif., was arrested Saturday for disorderly conduct during a demonstration at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue. They soon discovered that Austin was suspected by the feds of posting explosives information on the Internet. When investigators raided his apartment Jan 24, they said they discovered a treasure-trove of mischief-making tools. In addition to computers, they found literature advocating revolution, gas canisters, iced-tea bottles filled with flammable material, gas masks and an anarchist flag. Austin's car contained fertilizer, cans of brake fluid and two gas canisters. He runs an anarchist Web site that provides a litany of methods that can be used for urban thuggery - including making explosives. He has been turned over to the feds. Meanwhile, the final day of demonstrations wrapped up in front of Arthur Andersen's 1365 Sixth Ave. offices with nary a whimper. About 150 protesters slammed the corporate gluttony of Enron and its embattled auditor Andersen, but refrained from confronting a wall of cops. The march was watched closely by about 150 cops, and there were no arrests. Chanting, "Andersen cooks Enron's books," the anti-globalization protesters included an array of aging hippies, college students and union members. "We believe we have a right to be here," said "Starhawk," who said she lives in San Francisco. "Our resolve is strengthened despite police intimidation." Organizers said that many of the protesters who had traveled to the Big Apple to protest the World Economic Forum at the Waldorf-Astoria have now gone home. Starhawk said the Sept. 11 terror attack on New York was a key factor in lowering the tempo of the demonstrations. She said the New York organizers wanted any action to be peaceful.
Re: FBI Raid Silences Teen Anarchist's Site
> Sherman Martin Austin, 18, is believed to have violated federal computer > fraud and abuse laws, as well as statutes prohibiting the distribution of > bomb-making information, according to an FBI affidavit. I wonder what statutes those are? DCF
Re: [FP] Transcript: AAMVA's InterNational ID Press Conference
On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Ken Brown wrote: > I have neither a driving licence (I don't drive) nor a credit card, > which made visiting the USA interesting. But I did have id because you > lot wouldn't have let me in without a passport. Does that not apply to > Mexicans any more? Or am I missing a subtext which implies that these > are illegal immigrants? (A category of person that I guess libertarians > and anarchists ought to be very much in favour of, as they are going > about their business with no licence from the State). Mexicans, Canadians, and the residents of some of the islands of Caribe can enter the US without a passport. Presumably many Mexicans don't have one because of cost(?). US banks are notorious for resisting opening accounts for non residents even though there is nothing to prevent them from doing so, Provincial. > Ken Brown (Bike-riding British Christian Socialist - that makes me sound > almost like a Canadian...) Not with Christian in the description. Canada is officially irreligious these days. Note that the US and UK memorial services on 14 September were held in Cathedrals and featured prayers and hymns. The Canadian one was not in a church and had no religious trappings. DCF
Re: [FP] Transcript: AAMVA's InterNational ID Press Conference
> SCAN THIS NEWS
> 1.20.2002
>
> TRANSCRIPT FROM AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MOTOR VEHICLES'
> PRESS CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL ID PROPOSAL.
>
> [BEGIN]
>
> http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/AAMVAtranscript.html
>
> [Alan Cockman] Good morning. We'll get started. I'm Alan Cockman, {Koe~man},
> the International Chair of AAMVA, the American Association of Motor Vehicle
> Administrators. Thank you for joining us this morning.
>
> {Brief introduction omitted}
>
> Now, everybody who's here today has been asked to show a form of
> identification, and I doubt if many of you flinched when you reached for
> your state-issued drivers license or ID cards. That's what we do most of the
> time. And over the past year or so, I've used my driver license since like
> last night to get back into a hotel, to get into other secure buildings, to
> ah, get onto the airline check-in, to get onboard the plane, to cash a
> check. As a piece of identification used to get a passport which is an
> interesting thought. Also to get a library card -- the subtle difference
> between those two. And also to rent a car and perhaps that's the only
> connection that there is to the original intent of the drivers license.
That's funny, I only use my DL when I rent a car, am stopped by the police
while driving (once every two years or so), or when I renew my license
every 4 years. I don't cash checks. And I use other ID documents when I
fly.
If someone chooses to use their DL for all this extra stuff, that's their
problem.
DCF
"Since starting businesses and schools is not controlled in America,
employment ID and scool ID is not controlled in America."
Re: Canadian Flag Censorship
> Dear Friends, > > A few days ago, Canadian government ordered FORCES Canada to remove Canadian > flag from its website. They said the flag is a trademark of the government > (!). Since no other site has been forced to do it, many argue Canadian > government legally attacked FORCES (http://www.forces.org) since it is a > pro-right to smoke organization. Please find below the incredible story. > Hope you find this of interest. > > Best, > carlo They should post the Red Ensign -- the real Canadian flag instead of that dumb Maple Leaf. http://www.canadafirst.net/maple_leaf_forever/ DCF "What country had the world's third largest navy in 1946? -- Trivial Pursuit question.
Re: Cypherpunk Agitprop.
> http://www.anarchymag.org/52/violence.html > > "Stop the Violence!"? > Policing the antiglobalization movement > > The antiglobalization movement will continue to build in numbers, > coherence and effectiveness as evidenced by the recent events in Gothenburg, > Sweden and Genoa, Italy. NBL. The international organizations will merely relocate their meetings to more defensible locations. The Canadian Rockies will be a little harder to storm during the next Gang of Seven meeting. Davos relocated to NYC where the 40K cops are used to imposing frozen zones and indulging in anti terror policing. Some may also choose to meet in US sunbelt cities whose auto-friendly streets are not protest friendly. Open prospects easy to defend. Politicos and police departments not friendly to socialists from out of town. And with an armed citizenry (concealed carry laws) and the death penalty. > (This will happen despite the currently > overwhelming mainstream-media focus on Bush's crusade against non-US- and > non-Israeli-controlled terrorism.) Just as importantly, more and more people > around the world are increasingly sympathetic with the range of messages and > goals associated with the antiglobalization movement. As a direct result, > the establishment media around the world continue to work overtime to put a > negative spin on the movement, while the national and international forces > of repression are also becoming increasingly active, violent and deadly. Even the Euro-wimps are starting to crack down on foreign terrorist cells operating on their soil. May make it harder for mass demo organizing. World War IV - The War on Terrorism - has already been and will continue to be hard on a movement that uses demos (as opposed to entity building) as its main strategic and tactical technique. DCF "Kill a Commie for Christ" -- Courtesy of the National Commission for the Preservation of Ancient Right Wing Slogans
Re: registering Cypherpunks movement ...
On 14 Jan 2002, Anonymous wrote: > Not a joke. Also not news. > >http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=corp&group=34001-35000&file=35000-35007 > > "35001. This title is enacted in the exercise of the police power of > this State for the protection of the public peace and safety by > requiring the registration of subversive organizations which are > conceived and exist for the purpose of undermining and eventually > destroying the democratic form of government in this State and in the > United States." Most of the states have had variations on Criminal Anarchy statutes for years. They claim to regulate or punish Anarchy. They are mostly dead letter law after various decisions by the Supremes. Like Bill O'Reilly vs. NAMBLA such statutes are based on the (currently) mistaken belief that it is illegal (in the US) to advocate illegal activity. DCF "A Beautiful Mind" -- Economists are suddenly sexy.
Re: Rogue terror state violates Geneva Convention
On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Jim Dixon wrote: > Conventionally, in order to be a prisoner of war you have to be a > soldier. To be considered a soldier, you have to be in uniform > and you have to be part of an organized military force, meaning > that you have a rank and, unless you are the commander in chief, you > have a superior to report to. This is an essential requirement, > because PoWs are supposed to be handled through their own chain of > command. In addition, in order to be covered by the parts of the Geneva Convention dealing with POWs, you have to be soldiering for a signatory state. Afghanistan signed the Covention a few decades ago but I don't know if the Taliban would be covered. > In the second world war, people out of uniform but carrying guns > were often just shot out of hand. If taken prisoner, they weren't > treated as prisoners of war but as spies, bandits, or terrorists. > Some of us remember the chief of police in Saigon dealing out summary > justice during the Tet offensive on this basis: the VC wasn't in > uniform, so he just shot him, right in front of all of those > cameramen. > > Those fighting on behalf of the Taleban appear to be an unorganized > militia - no uniforms, no ranks, no saluting, just guns and lots of > spirit. You can't make them PoWs because they don't recognize any > chain of command. The reverse of this BTW is that civilians defending their homes against "unlawful combatants" are in the best position. They aren't bound by the Geneva Convention either and can use "expanding rifle ammo" (dum-dums) and other goodies. If civilians are defending against irregulars (say Al Quida troops on the streets of New York) they don't have to accept surrender offers and can be pretty much as nasty as they want. DCF War was invented to restore to men in agrigultural societies the legitimate excuse to get away from home that hunting had provided in hunter-gatherer societies.
Re: Reg - Linotype copyright action on Adobe-format fonts
I thought everyone knew. Fonts aren't copyrightable. Font *names* are. The reverse of the norm. With a story or novel the body of text is copyrightable, the title isn't. DCF On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > Why wouldn't an original typeface be covered under U.S. copyright laws? > > -Declan > > At 10:12 AM 12/18/2001 -0800, David Honig wrote: > >IIRC fonts are not copyrightable in the US, but are elsewhere, yes? > > > >Assuming that's correct, then an algorithmic font (eg Postscript) could be > >turned into an albeit large static set of pixels which wouldn't be > >copyrightable in the US.
Re: Who Am I Anyway?
At 05:10 PM 12/13/01 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: >Which is beside your point. Your statement was that the government didn't >do ANY identification for ANY of the soldiers in WWII. Patently wrong. >Quit trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. >AFTER the war started, not before. When the initial draft was executed it >was for 21-25 year old males only. They were required to register so that >the government knew who was getting drafted. That qualifies as >'identification' and is proof contrary to your assertion. There's a difference between registering for the Draft or signing enlistment papers and proving your identity. I contend that proof of identity was not required for US military service in WWII. I'll investigate further and see what I can come up with about the enlistment process. DCF
Re: Duncans frizzleling.
On Fri, 14 Dec 2001, mattd wrote: > >>If Womyn and Victims of Color think that it is tough to make it in an > advanced capitalist society, they should have tried doing it the way Dead > White European Males had to do it -- building an advanced capitalist > society out of ancient tyrannies from the ground up stone by stone.<< > > I sincerely hope you join them soon. > Don't have to. My ancestors did all the heavy lifting. Now all I have to do is to continue their work. Kill a few savages run a few roads through the trackless wilderness. That sort of thing. DCF
Re: Who Am I Anyway?
On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
> Bullshit, if they had birth certificates they were required to produce
> them. And if you worked on the neuclear weapons then the FBI most
> certainly did do a background check.
But of course they weren't required to have birth certificates. It also
seems to me that a large number of under age troopies managed to enlist.
Now I didn't fight in WWII but when I applied for an SSN in *1968*, they
didn't ask for any proof of anything. They just took my word for it.
Typed it up and gave it to me as I stood there. I'll bet they were looser
in 1941.
I'll bet that the AAC grunts loading the Enola Gay on Tinian Island had
not been backgrounded by the FBI. In any case, a background check is a
third-party check. You can have one performed on you w/o having supplied
proof of identity.
Hate to quote myself:
http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.1996.01.04-1996.01.10/msg00365.html
In the early 1950's Robert Heinlein and his wife Virginia took a trip
around the world ("Tramp Royale" recently published by Ace Books). He had
to apply for a Passport and got a Certificate of Delayed Birth
Registration from Missouri since his county had not kept birth records
when he was born.
"I breathed a sigh of relief; at last I was me. I had attended school
[Annapolis BTW], been commissioned in the armed services, held two civil
service jobs, married, voted run for office, drawn a pension and done all
manner of things as a flesh-and-blood being through more than four
decades, all without having had any legal existence whatsoever."
DCF
"Back when I was a lad, smoking was a virtue and sodomy a vice. Who'd a
thunk it."
Re: codetalkers get some press
"Windtalkers" from John Woo and MGM. Due out June 14th 2002. DCF On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, David Honig wrote: > Last night the local SoCal TV news had some Navajo > codetalkers on the tube, and (today? weekend?) they > will be feted at a parade. Supposedly hollywood > will be milking their accomplishments in a movie soon. > > All part of Pearl Harbor (tm) hoo-hah.
What's Our National Identity?
http://sierratimes.com/archive/files/dec/06/eddf120601.htm What's Our National Identity? By Duncan Frissell 12.06.01 Oracle's Larry Ellison and Harvard's Allen Dershowitz have been all over the media recently pitching a National ID Card. One poll indicates 70% public support for the notion. Most critics of a National Identity Card mention Hitler, police stops, and personal privacy to argue against the proposal. Those are good reasons to oppose a National ID Card, but they miss the idea's worst features. Proponents of a National ID Card have a responsibility to tell us exactly what the system will do to day-to-day life in America. They are unlikely to do so because most thoughtful Americans would be alarmed at the prospect. A National ID card is *not* really about identity. It is about authorization. ... When you present your National ID to complete a transaction, you will actually be asking the Federal Government for its permission. It converts most significant transactions that you make from private ones to public ones. It creates a government license for all jobs, all travel, all medical care, and many purchases. This is a profoundly troubling departure from American traditions. ... DCF "War is Heck!"
Re: CJ sent you a Yahoo! Greeting
On Thu, 6 Dec 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > And a happy bomb day to you too CJ :-) > Many happy _returns_ !!! And last night was Guy Fawkes: http://www.bonefire.org/guy/ Gunpowder and all. DCF "At least John Ashcroft protects tha 2nd Amendment Rights of aliens so he hasn't tossed out the whole Constitution."
Re: Reputation of a Reputation
On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Tim May wrote: > By the way, a topic I talked about a month or two ago, the bogus nature > of the _Economics_ prize, has been in the news. Some of the descendants > of the Nobel family want the Economics prize to have no connection to > the name "Nobel." > > Their claim is that Alfred Nobel didn't create or fund the prize, so why > is it called "Nobel"? > > I think the subtext is that the Econ prize is trivializing the other > prizes. It's actually called the "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics". And even though "Moral Philosophy" is not a science, it is a bit easier to award reasonable prizes in than Literature and Peace. "Toni Morrison call your agent." DCF "War was created so that men in primative societies would have a valid excuse for deserting the wife and kids."
Re: Reputation of a Reputation
At 03:39 PM 12/3/01 -0500, Faustine wrote: >Great points, but consider the example "Harvard University." People are >willing to pay a premium to be associated with it regardless of the academic >worth of the individual programs in the eyes of specialists. A lot of students >are after the cachet and couldn't care less about the curriculum. But then, >I'm sure it's a mistake to assume education for it's own sake has the >slightest >thing to do with why the majority of people bother going to college at all. > >Ridiculous how so many employers put such stock in a word on a piece of paper >too--pure credentialism. How ironic when you contrast that with the fact that >the great Herman Kahn didn't have a PhD. I wonder where he'd end up today. Special agents should read the Economist in addition to NLECTC Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology News Summary http://www.nlectc.org/. http://WWW.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=S%26%2BX%28%2FQ%21%3B%26%0A The lemon dilemma Oct 11th 2001 From The Economist print edition This year's Nobel prize for economics honours work inspired by a simple observation about used cars ... This year's other two laureates, Michael Spence of Stanford University and Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia, won their prize for analysing how firms and consumers separate the gems from the lemons in a variety of industries. Mr Spence's early work focused on how individuals use signalling to communicate their abilities in the labour market. Job applicants, for example, want to distinguish themselves from the mass of other hopefuls. They may try to do this in a number of ways, from a fancy suit to a fancy education. But for signals to be believable, Mr Spence observed, they need to differ substantially in their cost of acquisition. For example, for education to work as a credible signal, it must be harder for less able employees to get. Indeed, even if such an education gives a student no tangible skillsreading classics at Oxford, sayit can still be a useful signal of relative quality to employers. Signalling is used in many markets, wherever a person, company or government wants to provide information about its intentions or strengths indirectly. Taking on debt might signal that a company is confident about future profits. Brands send valuable signals to consumers precisely because they are costly to create, and thus will not be lightly abused by their creators. Advertising may convey no information other than that the firm can afford to advertise, but that may be all a consumer needs to know to have confidence in it. Perhaps advertising, as a signal, is not money entirely wasted, as some economists argue. ... It's all about signaling. DCF What was the plea bargain which featured the greatest sentence reduction in the history of the criminal law? A reduction from a charge of Sodomy to a charge of Following Too Close. --Courtesy of the National Commission for the Preservation of Politically Incorrect Law School Jokes.
Re: CNN.com - Bush defends tribunals, saying 'we're at war' -November 29, 2001
But they won't be. In any case, how are they "levying War against them [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort? DCF On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Harmon Seaver wrote: > Dubbya should be impeached, and both he and Asscruft arrested for > treason. > > -- > Harmon Seaver > CyberShamanix > http://www.cybershamanix.com >
Drivers License as ID Card
Americans and their Drivers Licenses. There's something funny about them. ** http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32717-2001Nov2?language=printer "States Devising Plan for High-Tech National Identification Cards By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 3, 2001; Page A10 State motor vehicle authorities are working on a plan to create a national identification system for individuals that would link all driver databases and employ high-tech cards with a fingerprint, computer chip or other unique identifier." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53795-2001Oct25?language=printer "4th Arrest in Probe of Hijacker ID Fraud Man Accused of Helping Suspects in Sept. 11 Terror Attacks Exploit Va. Loophole By Patricia Davis and Brooke A. Masters Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, October 26, 2001; Page B09 A fourth person was arrested and charged yesterday with helping the Sept. 11 hijackers illegally obtain Virginia identification cards less than five weeks before the terrorist attacks. ** Both civilians and officials seem to think that there is some magic about a drivers license that would make it a good national ID and requires that it be protected from misuse by unauthorized persons. Apparently unknown to these worthies is the fact that terrorists, criminals, or just plain folks can do anything they want to do without a drivers license issued by a US state. As surprising as it may seem, one can drive, rent cars, fly domestically or internationally, get a job, start a business, rent accomodations, open bank accounts, and do anything you like without a US drivers license. Holders of foreign drivers licenses can drive in the US. Among the four million US expats are many native born US citizens who have an absolute right to enter, live, and work in the US but who do not *currently* even have a right to obtain a US drivers license since they are not *resident* in the US. Any US citizens who care to can characterize themselves as being in this group. A drivers license issued by a US state is no more than evidence of identity. It is not evidence of right to reside in the US, right to work in the US, etc. One must use other documents to establish right to reside and right to work (if those documents are required). One can use other documents to establish identity. Including most significantly a passport (whether foreign or domestic). With 300 million US border crossings by aliens annually, it is clear that plenty of aliens are travelling around the country almost none of whom have drivers liccenses issued by a US state. I hope that a "new, improved, drivers license" takes some of the heat off the National ID concept. DCF
RE: Nuclear Pipe Bombs
On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > Won't work on Berkeley, though. The City Council declared Berkeley a > "Nuclear Free Zone." Guess that leaves only conventional weapons. > > > S a n d y > Those restrictions usually also prohibit the *design* of nuclear weapons (don't know if Berzerkeley's does) in which case they are unconstitutional because of the First. DCF
Re: Sedition
At 05:13 PM 11/13/01 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 02:20:28PM -0500, Faustine wrote:
> > It sure is. That's why I think (and have always openly said, here and
> > everywhere) we need more pro-freedom policy analysts in Washington.
>
>Of course, if you're a hardcore libertarian ("abolish all
>unconstitutional federal agencies, and that's most of 'em! let's
>revert back to the firearms laws we had 150 years ago!"), then you
>don't get listened to.
>
>Having more "pro freedom policy analysts" in Washington won't
>accomplish much until other things change too.
>
>-Declan
Anyway, don't we have dozens (hundreds?) of pro-freedom policy analysts in
DC. Between CATO and all the rest. Haven't the commies been complaining
about our massive numbers "funded by the corporations".
DCF
Re: Osama bin Laden as SF fan
On Wed, 31 Oct 2001, Ken Brown wrote: > Ken McLeod posted the following to rec.arts.sf.fandom > > > Forwarded with permission from China Mieville, fantasy writer > > and student of international relations: > > >> --- Forwarded message follows --- > > >> My supervisor, an expert in the Middle East, told me about a > >> rumour circulating about the name of Bin Laden's network. > >> The term 'Al-Qaeda' seems to have no political precedent in > >> Arabic, and has therefore been something of a conundrum to > >> the experts, until someone pointed out that a very popular > >> book in the Arab world, Arabs apparently being big readers > >> of translated SF, is Asimov's _Foundation_, the title of > >> which is translated as 'Al-Qaeda'. > *** http://www.jerrykindall.com/2001/october.asp Apparently, "al-Qaeda" means "the base." Which will almost certainly lead to an obnoxious rash of "al your Qaeda are belong to U.S." sightings. *** The name came into use when Osama used his cash to bankroll a series of bases in Pakistan to assist fighters on their way Afghanistan to fight the Commies. He used the opportunity to collect a rather valuable direct marketing list of somme 40,000 names and addresses of dedicated Musselman Warriors for future use. Wonder what dbase software he uses? DCF "War is a great excuse to get out of the house and away from the wife and kids."
Re: Pravda Propaganda On The NRA, GOA and Militias
At 10:51 AM 10/26/01 -0700, j eric townsend wrote: >AIt's been done that way for years on television vote tallies. They never >use, say, purple and orange, almost always red and blue (and green, I >think for independents). I'm not sure, but I think GOP has always been >red and Dems have always been blue. >-- But the colors are backwards. As in the UK, the party of the Left should be Red and the party of the Right blue. Color of communism v the color of patriotism. DCF "In 1776, fewer than 10% of Americans owned firearms. This proves that the American gun culture of today is an evil creation of gun manufacturers and the NRA." "In 1776 fewer than 10% of Americans owned a coach and four. This proves that the American car culture of today is an evil creation of General Motors and the AAA."
Re: Where The Torture Never Stops...
At 01:11 PM 10/26/01 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Duncan Frissell wrote: > > > Besides, "Prison is not punishment to the literate." > >Please tell me this is not meant as it reads. I keep trying, but seem >unable to find anything but a straight reading.. "Otium sine litteris mors est. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca But *with* literature, it's great. Unfortunately, some prisons deny a wide choice of reading matter to their inmates but as long as you declare yourself a Baha'i upon entry, you get to read all the world's scriptures (including the complete works of L. Ron Hubbard). DCF [1] And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. [3} ... but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? [7] And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel. 1 Chronicles 21.
Re: The end of the Fourth Amendment
On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Tim May wrote: > On Friday, October 26, 2001, at 05:38 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > Too many totalitarian surveillance state measures to comment on, but the > "sneak and peek" provision is such a slam dunk violation of the Fourth > Amendment that it bears special comment. > Unfortunately, the Fourth doesn't ban secret searches it just bans warrantless ones. And that ban was destroyed years ago: UNITED STATES v. MILLER, 425 U.S. 435 (1976) http://laws.findlaw.com/us/425/435.html Held: Respondent possessed no Fourth Amendment interest in the bank records that could be vindicated by a challenge to the subpoenas, and the District Court therefore did not err in denying the motion to suppress. Pp. 440-446. Since then most of our "papers and effects" have been open to warrantless searches. Any good computer mechanics out there who can rig an electro-mechanical interface for a computer-actuated spring gun. Double-barreled shotgun pointed at the keyboard. Enter the right passphrase within 30 seconds of starting your session or be splattered across the monitor. DCF "If you want to accurately foretell the future, predict war. You'll always be right." -- Robert Heinlein Worldcon 1976.
Re: James Glassman wants national IDs: "We have to give up" privacy
On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > [You can see James Glassman's bio here: > http://www.techcentralstation.com/Bios.asp?FormMode=Bio&ID=6 His column is > not merely poorly-reasoned, but poorly researched as well: He makes some > factual errors, such as saying the lack of a national ID card makes the > U.S. "almost unique." Try Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the > Nordic countries, Sweden, Mexico, and so on. --Declan] And most significantly - the UK. In spite of recent rumors http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1572000/1572026.stm DCF "Afridis have curious ideas as to the laws of hospitality; it is no uncommon thing for them to murder their guests in cold blood, but it is contrary to their code of honor to surrender a fugitive who has claimed asylum with them." -- .ROBERTS, (Field-Marshal, Lord, of Kandahar). FORTY-ONE YEARS IN INDIA from Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief... London: Bentley, 1897. Vol I Pg 32. [The author was the last foreign general to defeat the Afghanis.]
Re: Where The Torture Never Stops...
On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Steve Thompson wrote: > That would be my view. After all, mistakes do happen and so we should all be > understanding of our and their all-too-human failings which occasionaly lead > to minor inconveniences. Besides, "Prison is not punishment to the literate." DCF "Laws that target 100% of the population to control the behavior of 0.001% are also seldom productive, not least because they tell the 0.001% how not to get caught." --- WSJ Editorial 26 October 2001
Re: The Cost of Oil
At 03:22 PM 10/25/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Though the article was somewhat silly, or partisan, or both, in places. >Excerpt: > > >The Republicans oppose it as they oppose all taxes, especially ones > >that could harm the key industries--and important political > >contributors. > >Republicans opposing "all taxes?" Right. Whatever. > >-Declan > > >On Thu, Oct 25, 2001 at 11:15:56AM -0700, Steve Schear wrote: > > [Forbes catches up to cypherpunks] > > > > Americans are paying a bigger price than they know for cheap gas. > > Charles Dubow > > > > http://www.forbes.com/2001/10/22/1022oilcosts.html Likewise stupid quote: Congress has decided that basic fundamentals of energy policy as practiced by virtually every other nation are off-limits," says Pietro Nivola, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "Where is it written that Americans have a Constitutional right to dollar-a-gallon gasoline?" Gas taxes were high in Europe before anyone thought of having an energy policy. They were a luxury tax on cars - driven only by "the rich" in Europe at the time. A better question is why, if we are going to have taxes at all, should some goods and services be taxed more than others. And don't feed me that "neighborhood effects" bullshit or I'll suggest punishingly high taxes on Congresscritters so that their antisocial activities can be discouraged. [Concept stolen from Heinlein - TMIAHM] Why have an energy policy in any case if we don't have a Pokemon Card policy? DCF "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes." -- The Book of Judges, Chapter 17, Verse 6.
Re: MORE MENTALISM
At 10:54 AM 10/25/01 -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >C'punks, > >Penn asked Teller for a good book on mentalism. Teller suggested a "great >classic mentalism book is THIRTEEN STEPS TO MENTALISM by Corinda." I didn't >find it on Amazon, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere. > >Soon, you too will be "predicting" lotto winners. > > > S a n d y http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=&title=THIRTEEN+STEPS+TO+MENTALISM+&submit=Begin+Search&new_used=*¤cy=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr Looks like 13 books rather than one: Thirteen Steps to Mentalism - Step Five: Blindfolds & X-Ray Eyes Thirteen Steps to Mentalism - Step Three - Mnemonics and Mental Systems Thirteen Steps to Mentalism - Step Two - Pencil, lip, sound, touch and muscle reading Thirteen Steps to Mentalism: Step Four - Predictions Thirteen Steps to Mentalism: Step Seven - "Book Tests" and Supplement Five currently available via Bookfinder. DCF
Re: Your papers please
Don't do it in Massachusetts. They consider it wiretapping. Most states aren't so funny. But why take it out. Leave it in your pocket (save when clearing the metal detector, of ocurse). DCF At 03:48 PM 10/18/01 -0700, Jamie Lawrence wrote: >Sometime around 02:50 PM 10/18/2001 -0700, Steve Schear opined thusly: > > > >http://cgi.newcity.com/exitlog/frameset.php?close=http://www.citypaper.ne > t/articles/101801/news.godfrey.shtml&back=http://www.newcity.com > > >Does anyone know the legal issues surrounding the act of taking >a pocket tape recorder and recording at least my side of this sort >of transaction? > >I know what the likely result would be; I wondered if I had any >obligation not to record anything I might happen to say while >interacting with airport authorities. > >-j
Taxpatriates Page Updated
In spite of the war, the Feds finally issued the 4Q 2000 and the 1Q & 2Q 2001 Taxpatrates lists some months late on September 24th. See: http://frissell.com/taxpat/taxpats.html I trust that their inefficiency doesn't extend to tax collections. I've updated the various .csv and Palm OS databases on the site. As of the 2nd quarter of 2001, 3512 names have appeared on the Taxpatriate lists. The significant items on these new lists: Christopher Ronald Getty appeared on the 2Q 2001 list. He is now one of 4 Getty grandchildren who have renounced their US citizenship in deference to Erie. http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/millers/gettys1.html Shere Hite the '70s sex author "The Hite Report" appears on the 1Q 2001 list. Living in Paris and married to a German pianist, Ms. Hite has long complained of oppression at the hands of US puritanism. http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~amerika/tp/tp_311.htm Frederick Moulton Alger who was the first name on the first Taxpats list back in 4Q 1996 is back in the US and running his family investment firm Fred Alger Management after his brother David died in the WTC attack. http://frissell.com/taxpat/29ALGE.html DCF "You don't have to be nice to Nation States you meet on the way up if you're not coming back down." -- DCF
Re: Alert! Congress to target "TOXIC MOLD!"
At 08:17 AM 9/29/01 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >The correct response is to wipe down the highly visible mold >with dilute bleach solution, then leave a window cracked open >whenever you see condensation. Or live in a house made of real materials instead of wallboard. Or live in a cold climate. DCF
Re: crypto law survey questions
-Original Message- I wonder what's going to be in the emergency anti-terrorism bill that Bush will send Congress on Wed or Thurs. Maybe not crypto restrictions, but the language will likely bear a close read. -Declan I wonder about enforcement as well. Crypto was outlawed in WWII but I don't think too many people served time for using it. It was also not very widespread. Here you've got a popular technology who's suppreswsion nwill be more like Vice Squad work. Synbolic crackdowns without a serious expectation of success. Also crypto bans are meaningless without anonymity bans and anonymity bans haven't been too successful in court. And even with court support, anonymity bans are even harder to enforce than crypto bans. Also crypto bans are really *cypher* bans. Codes are not covered. Ubiquitous comms make code comms easier than ever. "East Wind, Rain". DCF
Re: I hope this war puts an end to PC nonsense
At 05:28 PM 9/17/01 -0700, David Honig wrote: >I spent a minute thinking about how to use my laptop as a shield. Wondering >how much a drink-cart weighs. I was thinking of what would be available and somewhat effective as an improvised weapon on a hijacked aircraft since we've been deprived of guns and decided that laptops fit the bill best. No Sony Vaios. Something a bit heavier. Held in front of you it could deflect an edged weapon. Slammed around it could make a short, blunt club. And laptops are certainly available. Even though your laptop would probably not survive the experience; if *you* did, you could probably get the manufacturer to give you a replacement in exchange for the good publicity. DCF Tank: What do you need -- besides a miracle? Neo: Guns. Lots of guns. -- Marcus Chong to Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix"
RE: I hope this war puts an end to PC nonsense
-Original Message- That so many millions of children are programmed to mutter about how "bigotry is our most important problem" and "terrorism comes from our hearts" shows how far we've sunk into the miasma of political correctness. I hope if nothing else good comes from recent events, at least we see the death of crap like this. --Tim May In addition to destroying Pop Culture (at least temporarily) the attack has put a lot of nonsense into perspective. As I said to some one the other day, "If this is war no smoking regulations. SWmoke 'em if nyou've got 'em." DCF.
Re: Naughty Journal Author Denied Plea Change
On Wed, 5 Sep 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > This is the case I had in mind when I made my recent assertion that > thought==action in today's "court". How can anyone see this case, and not > conclude otherwise? This dude is going to spend a long time in stir, for > a *pure Thought Crime*. > > > Yours, > > J.A. Terranson > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To which the mentally retarded twit plead guilty. If you plead guilty (like Michael Milken or Jim Bell 1) you don't get to challange the prosecution. People who plead guilty in political cases like these get more time (on average) than those who contest them. Kipling had some advice for these sorts of cases: Dane-Geld A.D. 980-1016 It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say:-- "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away." And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane! It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say:-- "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away." And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane. It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say:-- "We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!" DCF
Border Control Protocol Failure
But the question is: How can the Canadian Border Guards tell if a "letter from mom" is genuine? Major protocol failure. DCF >CANADA > >[John McCaslin, columnist for the Washington Times just returned from >vacation] > >U.S. passports are not required for entry into Canada, but as my 13-year-old >daughter and I rudely discovered during our northbound journey to climb >British Columbia's Mount Serendipity, a letter from "mom" is all but >mandatory. Upon our arrival at the Toronto airport, a female immigration >officer inquired if we carried a letter from my daughter's mother, giving >permission for her to travel with her dad. (I immediately wondered if >mothers are similarly expected to carry letters from fathers when traveling >with their children. I expect not.) When I replied that no such letter was >required under U.S. or Canadian law, my daughter was abruptly asked: "Does >your mother know you are on this trip?" Despite our mutual assurances that >mom all but packed bologna sandwiches for our much-anticipated mountain >trek, we were led to a special holding area where a second woman >interrogator soon launched an emotionally draining 15-minute >cross-examination that left my daughter in tears. "Is your mother aware that >you are on this trip?" my daughter was quizzed again. Yes. "Do you want to >be here?" Yes. "Are you sure?" Yes. "Is this your father?" Yes. Objecting, >for a second time, to the high degree of personal probing, I was warned that >such outbursts could land me in the Canadian gulag. "For all I know you >could be from Turkey," the woman said (I'm half Norwegian, half >Scotch-Irish). "Fortunately for you, you have an accent. Do you have any >criminal record?" At that point, seeing the tears well in my daughter's >eyes, I reached into my carry-on pack and retrieved my White House >correspondent's credentials, telling the officer to call George W. Bush if >she didn't believe me. "You don't have to get rude," she snapped. "For your >daughter's sake, you should be thanking me. Now you'll know next time." > >http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm
Re: your mail
On 31 Aug 2001, Anonymous wrote: > When I saw the "general response to bombz" post with the below mentioned book, I >asked my significant other to please order a copy for me, because she gets a very >nice reduction on prices of books she buys as an employed of Borders Bookstore chain. > > She refused to enter this request into their computer system to place an order, >because she claims that the store monitors orders for some categories of special >orders, and reports these orders to the police as a custom of policy! > > Buyers of bookstores beware. > > -- > Eissler, M. "A Handbook on Modern Explosives: A Practical Treatise, with > Chapters on Explosives in Practical Applications" London: Crosby Lockwood > and Son, 1897. 2nd, Enlarged, fair, illus., appendices, index. > I wouldn't use Borders for my OP book searches in any case. I use addall.com. That particular book doesn't show up currently but a title search on 'modern explosives' does turn up some other books by Eissler that may be of interest to the well-heeled fans of explosive devices. http://used.addall.com/SuperRare/submitRare.cgi?author=&title=modern+explosives&keyword=&isbn=&order=TITLE&ordering=ASC&dispCurr=USD&binding=Any+Binding&min=&max=&timeout=20&match=Y&StoreAbebooks=on&StoreAlibris=on&StoreAntiqbook=on&StoreBiblion=on&StoreElephantbooks=on&StoreHalf=on&StoreILAB=on&StoreJustBooks=on&StorePowells=on For educational purposes only. Note that the unlicensed private use of explosives may be legal in America depending on time and place. Need any stumps cleared? How can we stop that Canadian armoured column slicing through Buffalo and heading down the Thruway towards NYC? DCF And the Rockets' red glare, the Bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there
Re: kuro5hin.org || How Home-Schooling Harms the Nation
On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > All I said was that actions can have unintended consequences. Make well > considered choices. Look at the power industry deregulation in CA. Too > much, too quickly and poorly crafted. By all means let's improve the > educational opportunities in this country but not with some stooopid > knee-jerk approach. Try and do it in one fell swoop based on right-wing > war chants and I'll bet you do more harm than good. Since we don't depend on the government for food, steel, concrete, or medical care (60% private money not much actual government acre delivery); why would we think that teaching by government employees would be efficient. We can argue about payment later (although taxing the poor to pay for the college education of the rich seems unfair), but no rational person can argue that socialist provision of services is superior to market provision in case like this. > This statement is neither entirely true nor entirely false but it sure > as hell is a knee-jerk reaction to the issue. Sounds like the sort of > foolishness that Rush Limbaugh vomits on the airwaves. I can pick any public school teacher at random and cross ex them on the stand and establish that they don't know diddly squat. The concept that one should institutionalize one's children for 8 hours a day so that public officials can attempt to modify their knowledge, understanding, and physical and psychological deportment is the worst kind of child abuse. At future war crimes trials America's parents will have to answer for their crimes. (For those of you who attended slave schools, that last is a joke.) Can you seriously argue that governments do a better job of education or that it's safe to trust them with the souls (in the religious and non-religious sense) of the innocent. Apart from everything else one can say, attending slave schools subjects the child and the family to the full force of government record keeping. If you are not on the dole and you have no children in slave schools, your chances of having any sort of interaction with the minions of the coercive state apparatus are very substantially reduced. Much safer. > >While you claim to favor choices, you have just argued that these choices > >should not be available. Yes, just like the employment choice of "slavery" should not be available because it's wrong (at least within my proprietary community). > Uh, nope, that's not what I said. I said I would be in favor of > carefully considered proposals. Proposals that are fair to individuals > and beneficial to the community. Again, the two goals are neither > completely compatible nor mutually exclusive. What's the community got to do with it? I should give up money and children because people who are demonstrably stupider than I am think it would be a good idea? I don't give barbers who can't cut my hair the way I want my money or my hair. Why on earth should I do it to my children? The slave school teachers of those making that argument did at least that part of their work well. DCF
RE: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, John Young wrote: > Tanner's courtroom, she's very dirty. Jeff and Rob and the > undercover agents behaved exactly the same and > relished displaying the effect of their sucker punches > to the jury. But that's no excuse for JB not sucker punching back. The only reason for running your own defense is so that you can get nastier in cross-ex than a lawyer can. If you can't do it, you're better off having a lawyer do everything. I think JB had the worst of both worlds - a lawyer who he alternately ignored and fought with. I wasn't there but just an impression. > Anybody who has been responding to Aimee's emails in a > manner that has her name in the To: is fucked, but the > same is true if you didn't do that but decided instead > to eat her bait and flaunt your superior intelligence. I think Jeff used up all the low-hanging fruit on the list. Anyone else he goes after comes expensive. Maybe Choate but would he really be worth it. Anyone with half a brain could put on a stronger defense than the two previous victims. We either have the money or the emotional resources to corral a defense. CJ & JB didn't really even try. For example, neither got real lawyers. > I figure there is more than one operation underway here, > and not all of them know what the others are doing. Christ, > the feeding is so bountiful they're probably shiteating each > other's. Which is what happens when cybercrimebusters > have resources beyond their abilities. They need an overt act. Mere chat won't be enough. DCF Do under others as they would do unto themselves. -- The First Rule of MetaLaw. The problem with the Golden Rule is that tastes may differ.
Re: The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot
> It remains a challenge to identify groups that are both (A) wealthy, (B) > in need of anonymity technologies, and (C) morally acceptable to support. > Freedom fighters don't fit all that well, in today's world. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hutus, Tutsis, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russians, Commodities traders, Branch Davidians, homosexuals, hetrosexuals I could go on for pages but I'm telnetting. Some members of all of those groups have satisfied your somewhat arbitrary requirements at various times and in various places in the last 60 years. DCF If you want to get rid of communists in government jobs; get rid of the government jobs. - Frank Chodorov.
Re: Borders UK and privacy
On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Bill Stewart wrote: > David Brin's book "The Transparent Society" suggests that you > might as well get used to it. Technological change driven by > the Moore's Law effects in computing power are making > video cameras and computer image processing get cheaper rapidly, > so the marginal benefit of using them doesn't have to be very high > to outweigh the marginal cost. The real issues are still getting data, On the other hand, the technology of disguise and the public taste for radical body modification and active clothing all suggest that many of us will soon be denying a useful image to the opposition. Then we won't have to worry until genetic sniffers become popular. Genetic sniffers, however can probably be defeated by devices that give off clouds of genetically random human biological material. Offense and defense back and forth forever. DCF Marshal de Vaubin -- No stronghold be ever invested stood. No position he ever defended fell.
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
So does anyone know who's handling Jim's appeal or is he proceeding in forma pauperis, or is he declining to appeal? DCF At 11:41 AM 8/25/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Two consecutive (not concurrent) sentences, sez the judge yesterday. Jim >made a statement to the court. Judge agreed with prosecutors' maximum >penalties (otherwise sentences would have been concurrent). See Wired >News, probably on Monday, for details. > >-Declan
Re: BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity)
At 10:24 PM 8/15/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >Liar, check the archives. I never said anybody was dangerous. What I did >say was that I felt the C-A-C-L philosophy was dangerous. I stand by that. >I believe that were the C-A-C-L philosophy to take hold the results would >make the death counts from Nazism and Communism in this century pail in >comparison. You have to be wired a little funny to think that a free society would suffer the murder rate of those slave societies with their organized mechanisms of extinction. Killing the 170 Megs of people that socialists of all stripes murdered in the 20th century is hard work. Takes a big killing organization. For fun I tried to guestimate the number of murders private individuals committed in the 20th century and even making assumptions that inflated the final figure, I was only able to come up with a max of 30 megs of people. (Derived by applying the peak US murder rate of 10 per 100,000 to a somewhat arbitrary average world population of 3 billion during this century) DCF In normal operation, a 1000 MGW coal-fired power plant releases more radioactivity than a 1000 MGW nuclear power plant.
Re: lawyerpunks-in-training...? [OT?]
At 05:56 AM 8/20/01 +, David E. Smith wrote: >This is a fairly big list, and there aren't very many lawyerpunks on it. >(And they all seem to be tied up arguing with Choate. :-) There are entirely too many DCF How can you, an anarchist, be a lawyer? My father was a physician. That doesn't mean he believed in disease.
Re: FBI Tries to Set Up Brian K. West
At 06:02 PM 8/20/01 -0700, John Young wrote: >Come to think of it Aimee's reminds of Jeff, and the timing >is pretty good for another raid. > >Hark, wipe your disks. Save that Jeff is fresh out of soft targets, unless Choate qualifies. DCF How to prove that 95% of the people are either anarchists or stupid. Ask the following question on a public opinion survey: "Some groups advocate violence as a means of achieving social change. Do you agree with these groups? Do you advocate violence as a means of achieving social change?"
Re: FBI Tries to Set Up Brian K. West
At 09:11 PM 8/19/01 -0700, Paul Harrison wrote: >Now here a conundrum for Mr. Sperling, Esquire: If your >classmate's web homepage doesn't directly >link to the page with your home address, home phone, wife's >name, etc. then does the fact that Google's spiders and bots >finked you out (probably because your dearly beloved classmates >linked to the page from their own vanity home pages) >constitute intentional unauthorized access to a protected >computer system under 18 USC 1030a2C? Perhaps someone can write to him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and ask. Looks like someone is watching the list because Mr. Sperling's details have been turned off on the Alumni page. A bit too late. They will endure as long as mankind endures in an archive somewhere. DCF Why is a tight skirt like a covenant running with the land? Because they both bind the assignee. --Courtesy of the National Commission for the Preservation of Politically Incorrect Law School Jokes.
Empire of the Air
I'm grateful to Michael Hardt, co-author with Antonio Negri, of the social satire "Empire" for reminding me of a *very* inconvenient fact that the foes of Media Monopoly hope we'll forget. On the WBUR (Boston) program "The Connection" after talking about the initial promise of radio as a liberating medium he said: "The way radio and television have developed have been ways in which democratic voices have been excluded systematically and have been controlled by the forces of capital -- the ones who own these media." See: http://www.theconnection.org/archive/2001/07/0723a.shtml Listen: http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/connection/audio/2001/07/con_0723a.rm (quote appears just after 16:00). What he hopes the rest of the world will forget and Americans will never know is that from the dawn of broadcasting until the last few years almost all of the Earth's radio and television were owned and operated by the various national governments. Read the history of the pirate radio ship Radio Caroline if you want to see the lengths to which governments went to secure their monopoly: http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/history/index.htm With all of the different channels into our brains (many of which didn't exist 25 years ago), it is hard to argue that electronic media is less competitive than it was when most of it was controlled by governments. DCF When I was growing up, three white guys in NYC determined everything 90% of Americans saw on TV. Most towns had no more than two newspapers. Radio was exclusively Top 40 format. Yet, today, with 6 broadcast networks, 1000 newspapers available online, netcasting costing $39.95/month, and 5 Gigs of webpages extant, those commentators who themselves favor monopoly *government* complain that a Media Monopoly exists. There are more media outlets than ever.
Re: Salon: The real enemies of the poor
At 05:53 PM 7/25/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >I strongly want global trade and cultural exchange. I do not want global >government or corporate enterprise. I want direct interaction of business >in government to be prohibited. Great idea. As Frank Chodorov suggested during the McCarthy Era. "Worried about communists in government jobs? Just get rid of the government jobs." If we get rid of the government, no business involvement. Only practical way of accomplishing same. DCF "The government is just people." "People, my eye, they're Democrats." --The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Re: Salon: The real enemies of the poor
At 05:53 PM 7/25/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >I strongly want global trade and cultural exchange. I do not want global >government or corporate enterprise. I want direct interaction of business >in government to be prohibited. Great idea. As Frank Chodorov suggested during the McCarthy Era. "Worried about communists in government jobs? Just get rid of the government jobs." If we get rid of the government, no business involvement. Only practical way of accomplishing same. DCF "The government is just people." "People, my eye, they're Democrats." --The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
RE: Killing the G8 Anarchists
At 04:56 PM 7/20/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >Just as much as these protesters object to having their cultures and >planet raped and pillaged for the God $ Fascist good (and not their own). Presumably "their cultures" and "their planet" are the "property" they are defending according to your prior post. I thought they didn't really believe in property? In any case, culture is something that exists in the minds of people and in the choices those people make every day. One can only claim to "own" a culture if one claims to own the minds and choices of others. A bit totalitarian and impossible for commie thugs to do these days since even governments with nukes are having trouble controlling the minds and choices of others. As for the planet, a bit big to be owned at this point though people will be able to own them later when we're richer and have access to more of them. Though why one would want to own a gravity well is beyond me. DCF --- Statism, gravity, and death -- Mankind's three greatest enemies.
