Ignorance is not a defense and nor should it be. If it was it would be almost impossible to arrest anyone. All you would need to do is have someone ask you to do it beforehand. Someone asks you to hold their box of drugs. Oh but you didn't know what was in the box it must be a big mistake. Someone asks you to help him into his locked house. Oh but you didn't know that it wasn't his house. Someone asks you to hide him from the cops. I guess it's alright because you didn't know he committed a crime. If you allow people to hide behind the fact that they simply didn't know with 100% certainty that what they were doing was a crime no one would ever be guilty. It's called personal responsibility, if your doing something it's up to you to ensure its legal.
Someone that has drug deals happen in his yard does have a defense. He didn't let them. If he had said 'Sure come on in and use my yard to deal drugs' (like when you run a freenet node) then he would be guilty. Ignoring an obvious crime is not a crime, you can watch someone get shot and killed if you wanted. Ignoring your obvious crime however is quite punishable. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 5:30 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [freenet-support] (no subject) Importance: Low On 5 Aug 2004 04:42:44 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]| ("Matthew Findley") writes | Let me see if I can get caught up on whats gone on since I left work. | First I should probably clear this up. I am not a lawyer. I work at the | U.S. Attoreny's Office yes; but, only as a clerk. So nothing I say is | legal advice, the postion of the DOJ, to be considered an offical | interpretation of the laws, ect.... In other words, you were reprimanded at work for stirring up shit from an @usdoj.gov email address and now it's time to interject the disclaimers. If you weren't yet, you will be. I've been in a similar position, though not quite exactly the same, I made the same mistake, using a uniform email address in a civilian conversation, and I've felt the heat for it. On the one hand, I sympathize with you. Why would Anonymous issue an apology? Because even Anonymous can and perhaps will be identified via linguistic analysis, though I've done my best to pervert this message in such a manner that it cannot be connected with its author. On the other hand, I must assert that whomever initiated or will initiate the stink, it didn't start or won't start with me. Although, believe me, I have considered it since your first post to this list from an official address, and long before the current thread was borne. You go on to state | Let me put it this way. When you all fire up your nodes you know there | is a very strong likelyhood that it will end up houseing and transmiting | illegal material, correct? I would ask "Who is 'you all'?" and I would posit that the response is not 'correct.' (I would also insert a 'you people' and 'H Perot' reference, but that would be controversial and too demonstrable of knowledge of U.S. politics, no?) Freenet is comprised of a wide variety of users. Many of those users whom have been and continue to remain early adopters of Freenet are those same people what were and continue to be early adopters of other emerging technologies. They're in it for the tech, they're in it for the ideals, they're in it to support the ability of oppressed citizenries (I must wonder if that now applies to you in the States?) to have the continued freedom to express their ideas. And for fuck's sakes, some of them are just in it for the challenge of programming something new in Java. More to a point, there are Freenet node operators what have no idea that they may end up storing or transmitting illicit material. There are Freenet node operators what have been convinced by acquaintances to try out a new software program, one which is at the bleeding edge of networking, one which hopes to offer anonymity to its users, and what have installed Freenet to this very end. There are Freenet node operators what run a node but don't make any use of its existance. There are Freenet node operators what run a node simply because they have a machine with a nice linkup and a friend what asked a favor of them. You made a statement | The fact is that everyone knows there lots of illegal stuff floating | around freenet, and one can simply not avoid responsibility for a | crime by deliberately ignoring what is obvious. Although I'm not under your jurisdiction, I live in a country what seems to have a keen and cooperative eye on what the States consider to be the latest incarnation of Truth and Justice. As such this statement makes my skin crawl on its end. Even more so that it was made from an official of the Department of U.S. Justice. You are saying that a resident of a disadvantaged community has no defense that a drugs deal was committed in his yard, because he knows what there are drugs dealers floating around his community, and thus he can't avoid responsibility for the crime by ignoring the obvious. You're saying that, by ignoring the obvious, the bystander has committed a crime. Would this not incriminate everyone what lives in a disadvantaged community? Drat, forgot, the States has imprisoned a higher percentage of its population than any other country around. Your messages Mr. Findley make me worried, but not for Freenet. Your messages make me worried for the internet at large and for what the United States intends to bring upon it. _______________________________________________ Support mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support Unsubscribe at http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Support mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support Unsubscribe at http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
