http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52781,00.html
Jim Bell update: Way back in the 1980s, entrepreneur Jim Bell owned a
company that sold computer storage devices.
Now Bell works in a California prison, demolishing computers and their
monitors at the handsome wage of 46 cents an hour. "I've taken a day
job destroying computer monitors," Bell said in a phone call from
prison this week. "I've gone through about 100 so far."
Bell is the infamous author of Assassination Politics, an essay that
discusses ways to eliminate bothersome IRS agents. That captured the
attention of the feds, who charged him with stalking federal agents.
Last year, a jury found Bell guilty and he's been sentenced (PDF) to
10 years.
Bell says that it's easy to destroy a monitor without making it
implode. "That almost never is impressive, particularly if you do it
right," he says. "There's a little nib at the end of the CRT that if
you hit it just right with the hammer it creates a small hiss. There's
an ooomph if someone drops the monitor, but other than that it's
pretty innocuous."
He gets paid by Unicorp, the Justice Department-affiliated business
that markets prison labor to federal agencies. Eventually, Bell says,
he'll be making $1.07 an hour. "Some day."
