Slashdot Mirror
The Dangers Of Protecting Free Speech
endisnigh writes: "Stephen K. Gielda of www.cotse.com has posted a very interesting article about the trials and tribulations (and attacks, sometimes physical) of running his website, which is mostly dedicated to computer reference and security, but which also gives users the ability to post anonymously to usenet." Considering that litigants can have content pulled (and cause accounts to be yanked) under the DMCA, that organizations can harrass individuals for public opposition, and that anonymity is increasingly hard to find in general, it's sobering to see how much trouble is involved in attempting to provide what Gielda calls "anonymity with accountability."
In case nobody has said it lately, thanks!
I see it everyday, people go about their business, pissing and moaning about their taxes, government, company, HMO, MS, or whatever; but they don't do anything about it. At least Steve has the gonads to do something about it. And what's even better is that YOU could benefit from it! What would you do if one day Slashdot disappeared? Where would you get your news? (AOL-Time-Warner-CNN-Warner Bros.Time-Life Books or ABC-Disney-Buena Vista Dist. or NBC-General Electric-MS-MSNBC) Where would you be able to voice your opinions?
Steve, fight the good fight!
Never Retreat,
Never surrender!
I'm posting AC, because I'm too damned lazy to fill out another form. I'm AC, but I'm not that AC!
On the other hand, all posts may not be available all of the time if a poster is off-line. And people are responsible for their backups.
It is still BETA and experimental, but usable nontheless. Check it out at here and help in its development.
Usually the problem with anonymity is spamming. postnet seems to solve that.
Thanks
Usenet can easily be made useful until you get people like cotse.
I now just filter out everything that is posted from a cotse address because they simply won't stop their users from posting hipcrime floods, binary floods, massive crossposting etc. Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".
I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.
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They have no anti-abuse policies. They simply ignore your complaints and pass your real email address on to the abuser for amusement.
We're talking about hipcrime floods, "snuh" cascades and massive crossposting to *completely* unrelated groups. And then they talk bollocks about freedom of speech. Once their abusers are done with a newsgroup you use, there *is no speech*. Everybody leaves.
Deleted
BTW, fuck privacy - you don't need it if you ain't guilty.
And what happens when someone in power decides you are guilty -- except that you are innocent? Are you going to say that people in government won't abuse their power? How many Russians died under the rule of Stalin? (Answer: 100 million)
Privacy is protection from tyranny. Your attitude is indicative of the belief that powerful governments are the source of compassion and never do wrong. Unfortunately, history is not on your side.
Reason and Evidence.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
When I first read this story (and the related article) I was absolutely on the side of cotse.com, and truly believed that there should be Internet Awards of Merit (or something like that...what happen to awards? I used to anticipate the issue of PC Mag with technical awards, shareware awards, etc. Now it seems there's nothing of that sort around) handed to them for fighting the good fight. However then I read several posts on here about cascades, copy paste drowning, etc., all originating from cotse.com with no responsible administration (I'm not concurring with this: Simply saying I've read that), and having come to ignore Usenet for exactly that reason, I can see why a lot of people would be pissed: It's one thing for someone in a political newsgroup to discuss their beliefs about the Taliban or whatever, but when they post their spam to every god damn newsgroup (common. Everyone thinks their issues should be the top issues for everyone) it ruins the entire medium for everyone. If cotse.com doesn't actively seek out and eliminate dirtballs like that then I do have a problem with them.
So my question is this: Is cotse.com an overwhelming source for assholes on Usenet? [I don't know myself: For all I know the claims as such could be from people who hate that they can't harrass someone whose opinion they disagree with, so they attack the deliveryman] I don't want to defend the organization if they are irresponsibly responsible for the decline of Usenet.
Back in the late 90's I abandoned Usenet and IRC because they were flooded with idiots and morons. I had used these communication tools for years and years and now they became the CB radio of today, useless. I have been waiting for the mess to die down, I figure that the people that are wasting the bandwidth and time would fade away or go back to their web_IRC or other places and the technical+scientific would gain our tools back..
This is not the case, I now don't think it will ever come back. Usenet used to be a great place, now the only way it can be fixed is to apply some type of global moderation system, and have positive identification systems (PGP signatures anyone?.. If you dont use them now, I reccomend that you start.. It's damned hard to fake a PGP signature, and you at least can show the fake email wasn't you.)
I guess sticking to private usenet/email lists is the only choice now. and IRC has been replaced with I.M.'s .
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are varying degrees of anonymity and accountability. For example, if I were to check off "Post Anonymously" on this post, I would be increase my anonymity and decrease my accountability, but I have no illusions that this would be to the absolute extremes. Slashdot may very well store my UID with the post, for all I know.
Ideally, you want to be anonymous to people who you can't trust to behave responsibly (e.g. the seething mob horde), and be accountable to those who you do trust to be responsible (e.g. a server admin with a reputation for ethical behavior and trustworthiness).
Thus, you can have some amount of both, without there being contradiction.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
FWIW, this was an economic hack job based on social engineering. Not a technical problem in need of a tech fix.
... oligarchs is the only term I can think of ... made enormous profits during that period of time.
The power shortage was caused when a small number of companies which owned the entire thing took down power plants "for maintenance" at the same time all over the place. And then neglected to bring them back on-line for a long time. (I didn't follow that part, so I don't know if they brought them back up before or after the lawsuits started.) And these
My guess is that the point of this is to prove the folly of governments saving money. I can't think why else the government has been letting them get away with it. The entire sorry mess has caused be to consider the Republicans totally corrupt, and the Democrats nearly the same.
I wish there were some decent reporters around, but since the corporations bought out the news that species seems to have disappeared (well, they were always rare).
OTOH, it probably isn't a matter of no decent reporters. If one paid careful attention to the news stories then what was going on was actually spelled out quite clearly. Usually just one or two paragraphs toward the end of the story, but it was there. It just wasn't the new that they wanted to emphasize. Or, perhaps, corrupt economic practices are just seen as so expected, that it wasn't even seen as news.
But don't take the headlines for the story.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The webmaster in question states "ordinary people" are the problem, not governments or coprorations. This may seem a surprise to some.
However, it shouldn't be - because be they ordinary people, government people, or corporate people, the operative word is *people*. The greedy, the oppressive, the self-rigtheous are people too, and they can be found anywhere and their behavior is always the same. Some just have the tools or position to make their pathology into policy.
The oppressor can exist at any level of society. It's up to those of us who don't like the oppressor to not let him gain power - and even more important, to not become like him in the process.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
The signal/noise ratio is worse than it is here, The raving loonies are out in force, and I don't have the time to sort through all of the above to find the useful stuff. Yes, the moderated groups are a little better, but even there... Usenet was cool in the late 80's and early 90's, but today it's just overloaded with sludge. Ah well, such is life.
Best Slashdot Co
Well, anonymity here means "anonymous, unless there's sufficient evidence to suspect that you're breaking US laws". Meaning that users of cotse.com are subject to US laws. Similarly, if it were hosted in China, it would be anonymous except when in conflict with China's laws.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Certainly it is very sad to see some assholes abusing the site, maybe for his own sanity, and protection, he should make everyone register with an ISP email address before allowing them to post anonymously. That would probably cut down some attacks. He could clarify that no information will be posted, sold, etc., and this is solely for theirs, and his protection
Want Root?
check out scripting news today and yesterday ...hmm.
<---[singularity sig]
It's nice to see that someone is sticking up for people's freedom of speech (a thank you goes out to Slashdot as well). Sometimes it's nice to be anonymous, especially when in political situations where your family and friends can be raped, tortured, and murdered :O
I for one applaud his work. I actually wouldn't mind working for him. I can only begin to fathom the amount of security experience one would gain.
I'm wondering how anonymous posting on Usenet would be handled if it was done from a country which did not have freedom of speech. Given the recent Slashdot story on global conferences for Internet content, it'll be interesting to see how this works out over time.
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
People love freedom but they sure as hell get upset when anybody else actually tries to use it.
I for one wouldn't know jack about the way my own government works if I hadn't have been the sort of iconoclast troublemaker that school admins are scared of these days. My government class in HS was spectacularly bad and was taught by a rabid Jon Bircher. However, I actually sent away for a copy of the consitution and read just so I could piss my teacher off. I learned a fair amount that way too. One of the problems with America's speech laws is that its citizens have not been educated in the way their own government works, and they have even less of an interest in finding it out for themselves. All we as Americans tend to do is panic every time there's a bit of shocking news. The politicans gives us quick fixes to placate us, and the rest of the time they feel confident ripping the constitution to shreds because the citizens just don't care and are too ignorant to care. Like I said, a big part of it is the educational system we're stuck with. Growing up we're taught largely by people who are frankly too incompetent to do anything else, working for salaries that don't even amount to the cost of living in a lot of places. And, the textbooks. Yeesh! The number of factual errors I found even as a high schooler were astounding. Recently I looked at a science text book for the Detroit school and was appalled. The authors got every single concept they were trying to teach wrong. And, given that classes like government are considered "extra" they get shorted even worse than the rest.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Isn't the whole point of being anonymous to decrease you accountability?
Erm, no. He clearly states that his purpose is to promote open discussion, and that if you try to exploit his services by making death threats and such, then you will be held accountable. How else can you protect yourself against the idiots on Usenet?
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#nohup cat
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Its much as saying.. This person killed someone.. lets kill him. In computer terms this is called a recursion ;)
-- Dont let the evil win, but defeat the evil with the good --
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
Saying something unpopular is protected by the Constitution, death threats are not. It really isn't all that complicated from the outside.
Personally, I'd be thrilled if I got enough traffic to warrant the occasional death threat.
Geez, whose country wants to ban software made by Scientologists?
Maybe if you explained exactly what you think is a violation of the Constitution I could respond in more detail. But I don't see anything in this article that has anything to do with what you're saying. Under US law, Usenet loons are free to flame each other to cinders, but they're not allowed to make death threats or bomb threats. Except for Slashbots, most Americans are perfectly aware that that's how the system works and consider it a perfectly appropriate implementation of "free speech."
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
It's interesting to not that Mr. Gielda doesn't cite corporations or the US Government as the biggest problem, but instead cites ordinary people who for one reason or another can't accept the fact the people should be free to say and think what they want.
I'd hate to think that a service like this which helps give a voice to people in countries where freedom of speech doesn't exist could be destroyed by people with thin skins.
Hopefully one day we'll actually show enough responsibility to deserve the rights we have, but I'm not holding my breath.
Beware typoes.
My thoughts exactly. As an American, I find it disgusting that our reputation as the "land of the free" has basically been whittled down to allowing businesses almost any freedom they desire. Hell, with DMCA, etc, businesses have more rights than I do. I just got back from a month long visit to Europe. I never spent more than 30 seconds in a customs line. When I came back to the US through Philidelphia, I had to wait two hours in line to declare my copy of "Alf: Der Film" - had I been even luckier I may have had a friendly customs agent search my inner cavaties for cocain. Land of the free indeed.
Actually, I just didn't feel like wasting Slashdot's space by explaining the whole situation. I waited in line for imigration (over an hour) and then moved on to customs. Rather than wait an hour in line for the "no items to declare" officer, I took my form over to the "items to declare" desk because there was no line. Much quicker that way. But yes, you do have to declare if you have under $400 so long as some items are intended to be sold or as gifts. You just don't have to pay a tariff unless it's above $400.
And Alf: Der Film may have cost just 49 shillings (3 bucks), but its priceless in my book.
Admitedly the backup in customs is also a by-product of the problamatic airline situation - my problem was precipitated by a mass arrival of planes into USAir's Philly terminal. It's pretty small as far as internation terminals go. Still, though I don't fly internationally often, I had another long wait coming into Atlanta from Jamaica, and Atlanta has a huge international terminal.
Regarding lacking an American passport, the countries I visited (with the exception of France) all had open borders. Somewhat different from America eh? It was a little dissapointing that I couldn't fill up my passport with stamps though. Just one coming into Amsterdam and another from a confused passport checker in Munich who really wasn't supposed to stamp it anyway. But yeah, your right that being American carries influence internationally. I'd argue, however, that it shouldn't.
Try browsing through the posts associated with this (or any other) article at -1, check out all the stuff from "Anonymous Coward", then consider again the anonymity/accountabiliy argument.
I sure as hell would not want to be held responsible for some of the stuff that appears at -1 in the discussions on slashdot, and they are nothing compared to some of the advocacy flamewars available now from an NNTP server near you.
Regards,
cmclean
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
The previous poster sounds as though he'd like nothing more than moving back to the gold standard for currency. Almost no established country depends on the gold standard. It makes management of funds, particularly difficult, and eliminates a whole class of wealth buildin business enterprises. Perhaps that is good, but it'd certainly negitively impact a significant portion of the population at this point in the history of the financial markets.
The gold standard does buy you some financial security, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. It you want to deal exclusively in a gold standard currency, you can use any one of a number of proposed internet currencies but good luck finding merchants that will accept it.
--CTH
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
If you're looking to avoid accountability for your actions and statements, yes.
Of course, Mr. Gielda's unenviable position is to protect and maintain the right to anonymity in the face of individuals who use anonymity to threaten to murder the children and spouses of their enemies; who use anonymity to try and crack and DoS the servers of their enemies; who use anonymity to intimidate, slur, slander, spoof, and defame their enemies; who use anonymity as a weapon of intolerance and cowardice instead of as a voice for the oppressed, small, and afraid.
If it weren't for the tireless efforts of individuals like Mr. Gielda, I assure you that our valuable right to anonymous speech would be heavily curtailed today. Without dedicated individuals fighting an endless battle against those who wish only to take anonymity and turn it into immunity from reproach, governments would quickly step in and put an end to the "menace of anonymous attacks," as well as all anonymity online.
Anonymity is the shield that protects those who would be unjustly harmed or persecuted for their actions. There are few greater signs of cowardice and selfishness than one who uses anonymity to evade accountability for their own unjust actions.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Anonymity is a tool to help permit the freedom of unpopular speech, a person has no obligation to be accountable to the "mob rule" of the general population, only to a fair government, and honest legal systems. In fact it is questionable if there is a moral or ethical obligation to abide by the laws of undemocratic countries.
Limited anonymity is a better balance between unrevokable anonymity and no freedom of speech.
The US Supreme Court has upheld that anonymous speech is important to free speech.
Unfortantly many people want to shoot the messager (Mr. Gielda) when his users send annoying or unpopular messages.
While I have no doubt Steve gets a lot of flak, I for one have complained to cotse about some of the posts coming from there. As I recall it was when some 3 or 4 posters were posting 10 cut-and-paste messages a day to a certain newsgroup.
(cut-and-paste meaning that the posts were just cut-and-pasted off of a website).
Was I an evil anti-free speach person? Perhaps. But I felt a complaint was appropriate. Especially if those 3 or 4 posters were really just one person (which appeared to be the case) simply trying to drown out other discussion.
That said, this service is darn useful.
As Nietsche famously said, "If you stare too long into the Abyss, 1d4 Tanar'ri of random type will attack you."
Death threats never really are and I didn't see anyone else (so far) call your posting funny.
I thought that it was hi-freaking-larious. I actually laughed out loud. Of course, my entire family has a hard time keeping a straight face at funerals too...
But regardless of whether or not it was funny, it was certainly protected speech and perfectly legal. Isn't that ironic (for anyone who read the article)? It's not like he was making death threats, he was simply making a joke (or comment for the morbid-humor impaired) about how he thought that it was appropriate for the goatse.cx man to get death threats.
Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.
BTW, fuck privacy - you don't need it if you ain't guilty.
True, but sometimes the only crime these users are guilty of is voicing an opinion.
(First off, I know that only the seoncd line is your comment, but they both seemed enough out of whack to quote them together.)
Are you crazy!?!??! We are all entitled to privacy. Do you really want people prying into every minute detail of your life? Trying to find out who you associate with? Trying to videotape you having sexual relations with your spouse/significant other? Trying to find out your credit history and the names of the banks and other businesses that you deal with? Privacy is an important way of protecting yourself. Just because someone isn't a criminal doesn't mean that they want to expose themselves to people who are.
Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.
I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.
Isn't this exactly what the author said people try to do? Post trash under a cotse name to try to get the site in trouble? Did you consider that you are being used?
Nope, no sig
I was reading this story on how americans feels that the 1st amendment goes too far, and it made me sad. It seems that the influence from the facist liberals like Joe Lieberman and Hilory Clinton are having their effect. Now that the public knows that censorship has "bipartisan" support, they've begun to tolerate it more, so know you have the liberal people saying censorship is ok, not just the religious right. It's scary to think that when americans are willing to give up their most basic freedom, what freedom will they be willing to give up next?
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Unfortunately, the idiots have already begun attacking. The psychotologists forced the removal of one of their "sacred documents" from this site. Of course, it didn't do much good, if you read a ways down in the comments. People seem to hate free speech if they're the one being attacked.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
When nuance becomes the only objective we lose the ability to function
Most people simply don't know how to access USENET in the most productive way, which is why they dismiss it like you do. Why would you need to sort through the spam and BS? Let your software do it for you.
v iders.html for a list of providers and features, and http://www.newsreaders.com/ for lists of readers, servers, and all sorts of stuff.
/. any day. Other communities have wonderful traditions and initiations that are older than most MOOs or MUDs still in operation.
The best newsreader by far is a Windoze program called Gravity by a company named Microplanet. I'm sure there's probably something for Linux which does a comparable job, but at any rate it automatically sorts all similar messages together in a much more effective way than the most popular newsreader, Forte Agent, does. Therefore, with a few clicks, all the spam is gone. If you don't even want to spare a few clicks, then you can easily set up personal spam filters to automatically get rid of almost all spam messages. After all, most spam is crossposted to several groups or displays other signs which can set it apart for filtering.
And if you're too fucking lazy to set up spam filters and then just read the groups, you can always get a feed from a provider who filters the spam for you. There are several, some of which have great spam-filtering capabilities. The interested can try http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/providers/pro
Personally, I much prefer USENET to the Web any day. It's far more free and far easier to maintain privacy. A group for every subject and every subject for a group. Some communities are filled with old hands who can tell you more than the mostly-youngsters here on
And don't even get me started with the art of forging headers on any server willing to let you supply your own values (like Altopia). It's fun and provides a level of privacy that's hard to get on the Web.
But, I digress. My point is, the sludge and loonies are easily taken care of with filters and killfiles, and USENET is as vibrant as ever. The only thing about USENET that's bad is the high traffic in binaries which are easily obtainable on the Web or via protocols more suited to binary transfer. The MP3 groups especially piss me off since 99% of what gets posted was easy to find on Napster and is still easy to find on the Web or via Gnutella, Audiogalaxy, and other sources better suited for binary transfers. But, ah well...
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Mr. Gielda and his Cotse service are really the black sheep of the remailer community. All you have to do to see this is spend some time in the venerable group alt.privacy.anon-server , where remailer operators (remops) and others interested in security and privacy congregate. Gielda has his supporters, but nearly everyone in the community views him with suspicion. After all, he admits to keeping tracking data on his users, which is the opposite of what remailers are for. They were designed to prevent tracking. If I chain a message through good remailers, I know that that message is untraceable, and that my speech, however unpopular, is protected. If I send a message through Gielda's shitty Cotse thing, then the minute my unpopular speech results in the government asking him who I am, with a warrant (all too easy to get today--just recall the Independant Media Center case recently), he'll fold like a cheap suit. That in no way equates to protecting free speech, which is what a real remailer does.
v acy.anon-server&as_uauthors=carbonymous&num=100 I'm the one named "Carbonymous Howard" and unfortunately Google truncates each article in the thread so that you'll have to click on some links to get the rest of the articles.
For a good discussion on the opinions of both sides, I recommend a thread I posted in under another nic some time ago. http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=alt.pri
At any rate, Gielda isn't exactly a beloved guy in the privacy field, and it's sad to see him get the spotlight when there are plenty of *real* privacy and free speech advocates who deserve it more. To meet them, just hang out in alt.privacy.anon-server for a while.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
it's sobering to see how much trouble is involved in attempting to provide what Gielda calls "anonymity with accountability"
Isn't the whole point of being anonymous to decrease you accountability? Using software to mask your IP, or even simply posting anonymously on here are both methods of decreasing accountability.
It's no small wonder why Mr. Gielda's job is so difficult.
The system described by here sounds very similar to the slashdot system. And /. too, has been vistited by copyright lawyers in attempting censorship.
Is it just a matter of time before slashdot, being the public forum that it is, becoms the target of the psychotic individuals currently targeting cotse?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
As a German, I just can't help but wonder about Americans. It seems that the land of the free doesn't know its own rights and continually tolerates breaches of constitutional law.
Not only that, they allow laws to be enforced which are krassly against the constitution. Of course, there will always be a small minority which will profit from these laws.
But remember: Freedom goes as far as the freedom of others is not endangered.
-- sigs are like parking spaces - all the good ones are occupied
Here are some important US Court Cases involving Speech, incase you want to read up on this stuff more than just slashdot editorials and newspaper articles.
Schenk v United States (249 U.S. 47, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed 470) - Debut of Clear and Present Danger Test
Gitlow v New York (268 U.S. 652, 45 S.Ct. 625, 69 L.Ed. 1138) - Overthrow of Government Speech protected
Rice v. Paladin Enterprises, Inc. (940 F.Supp. 836 (D.Md. 1996) - A district court case, that allows for people who publish material advocating criminal activity to be sued for aiding and abetting, never made it to the US Supreme Court.
Forsyth County, Georgia v. Nationalist Movement (Lost my notes on this) - Discusses the Heckler's Veto.
Edwards v. South carolina (327 U.S. 229, 83 S.Ct 680) - Time, Place and Manner restrictions. Discussion of what constitutes a Public Forum.
Adderly v. Florida (385 U.S. 39, 87 S.Ct. 242, 17 L.Ed. 2d 149) - More Time, Place, and Manner. In this case, Prisons aren't a traditional Public Forum.
International Society for Krishna Conciousness, Inc. v Lee (505 U.S. 672, 112 S.Ct. 2701) - Has to do with leafletting at airports. More forum stuff.
Madsen v. Women's Health Center Inc. (512 U.S. 753, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593) - Limiting of speech around abortion clinics.
Cohen v. California (403 U.S. 15, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Ed.2d 284) - "Fuck the Draft" case.
That's all I feel like posting right now...maybe later I'll go into the Symbolic speech stuff, and publisher rights, etc. Use this for a good starting point if you really like this stuff.
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is anyone in a position of authority going to save us?? are you waiting around?
People mimic what they see and what they see is an oppressive government that takes away freedom at every turn. Instead of hating group A,B or C or bitching about how unfair X,Y and Z is, why not ask why the system is this way and who benefits from it.
You are a slave Neal..... A private corporation owns you and your country Lock, Stock and Barrel. You know there is something not right with the world but can't seem to put your finger on it. All you life you have been told you are a free man made so by the US Constitution but you and your country where lost in a bankrupts settlement back in 1913. You government continues to collect tributes to pay off there debts but an impossible system has been put in place that only creates more debt when you try and pay it back so you can never be free.
The US government prints money that then the Federal Reserve buy for pennies on the sheet for paper of 1000, 100, 20 etc. The government then borrows these notes from the Federal Reserve with the promise that they will pay them back with interest. So that twenty you have in your pocket is actually a promissory note it doesn't actually represent anything other than a debt to the Federal Reserve, that's why it states on it. "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private" What the hell is a NOTE and why is only good for debts. Even if we gave back all these NOTES to the Federal Reserve we would still owe them interest on these NOTES. Real money can be traded for gold or silver they are "Gold or Silver Certificates" not promissory NOTES.
You have no constitutional rights because you are a citizen of United States of America not a united states of America citizen. Same geographic region different government and laws You are under the law of admiralty, NOT common law(constitution is a common law documents), placed there because the government now considers you property of the State with privileges granted by them. In legal terms your corporate alter ego has accepted a service from the government and placed you under their jurisdiction.
Freedom breeds security, only seeking security breeds tyranny. We are not free, that is the true source of the cancer eating at society. A fight more dear to the overall preservation of freedom is at.
www.givemeliberty.org