U.S. To Drop Charges Against Sklyarov

Schmerd writes: "The New York Times has a story saying that charges will be dropped against Dmitry Sklyarov in exchange for his testimony against his employer ElcomSoft." Si adds: "It looks like Dmitri might be home for Christmas. This is not the end of the trial, but it appears Dmitri has been freed, pending certain stipulations." jij adds this breaking news article on the Associated Press wire as well. (The AP story is also at Wired). Update: 12/13 22:23 GMT by T : sam@caveman.org links to a slightly more in-depth AP report at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Comments

This is good

[billmaly]

Flame me if you must, but following Sept. 11, Dmitry's "crimes" don't seem quite as heinous as previously depicted.

flame? take THIS!

[theblackdeer]

flamity flame-flame! OH, sorry ... you're quite right, i agree ... just got excited about someone asking to be flamed ...

Re:Funny you mention Ashcroft

[ethereal]

I have not met too many conservatives who really follow the "conservative" mindset. Just like so-called liberals, most conservatives are out to push their views on other people, freedom be damned. The only difference is the constituency that they're trying to please.

I would love to see a conservative politician with real strength of their truly conservative convictions run for office - I would vote for that man. But I mean conservative in the truest sense of the word - a politician that believes government should leave the people alone, whether we're talking about guns, taxes, religion, family values, technology, etc. And so far there are very few real conservatives like that, and plenty of Old Testament religious jackasses trying to control my soul instead.

And that's why I usually end up voting for "liberals" - because at least what they say is somewhat closer to what they'll do. But if I could find a conservative candidate who I could be sure wasn't about to flip out and start talking about prayer in schools and flag burning amendments, I would vote for that person.

Political Ideologies

[skwang]

I would mod you up if I could. Not because I agree with you but because you have realized that fundamentally names are, well names. Ironically the politician who most acuratly fits your ideology is a liberal, defined in the classical sense: a so called Classical Liberal. John Lock comes to mind. Even more ironically a "true" conservative is the same sense is someone who wants government to push morality on the populus. (More or less, I am talking about Edmond Burke for instance). In the last 200 years the definitions have changed. Liberal today means a socialist liberaism while conservatism has moves toward the classical liberal view (I'm generalizing but you get my drift).

My real point is that we as a society assign names and labels arbitrary to classify. We group everyone on the left as liberal and everyone to the right as conservative. Libritarians will tell you they don't really fit in either. Even the definitions of left and right are arbitrary.

However, there is a good reason we do this. It is easier for us as humans to assign labels. Imagine if on the election ballot instead of Republican, Democrat, etc. we had a string of descriptive adjectives like (to quote you first):

• believes government should leave the people alone, whether we're talking about guns, taxes, religion, family values, technology, etc.
• believes government should do what it can to aid middle and lower middle income families by providing socal services and welfame programs.
• believes in strong environmental policy to prevent futher damage to fragile ecology of planet.

Unfortunately by assigning names to group we deprive ourselves the valuable tool of critical thinking. Instead of analyzing exactly what a politician wants and will do we instead look towards the label assigned and imprint that label on the politician. Being able to think critically about a deicision is much harder than assigning labels, people do it all the time. I am gald to see that there are still some people who are willing to look past assigned names and, in this case, vote their conscience.

Re:He's on probation... IN RUSSIA??

[screwtheNSA]

You have obviously NOT read the constitution then! It stated that the U.S. has the right to enforce it's will against any person, regardless of where they live, and at any time George Bush/Asscroft may deem fit to enforce. Well, go look at www.free-sklyarov.net for my response to this blatant disregard to national soveriegnty(eaerme@newnorth.net). I HATE what this government has now become, and it gets worse every damn year, thanks in part by Clinton and his hit squads, the D.O.J and the F.B.I are now bedfellows with Microshaft's "Bill" and more, unseen "partners" to governmental crimes against the people of the U.S., TREASON really! I thought the government had "enumerated" authority" and not unlimited as they seem to have now. Where does it read in the Bill of Rights OR the Constitution that the government has the right to ENSLAVE, huh? I for one am getting my guns ready, for what is CERTAINLY going to be an all-out war against tyrany! Sure, many would say I am being paranoid, but have they even bothered to see the winds of change that is NOW taking place in our laws? They have been carefully crafted to deny OUR rights, while giving police and the government UNLIMITED POWER to enslave US! AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, where are you? Talk about "domestic" slavery......DAMN! The right to vote has been repealed! The right to keep and bear arms has been repealed! The right to ******************* has been repealed! All rights are now DENIED! You are hereby ordered by the government to hand in all firearms owned by you to your police, violators of this order shall be imprisoned for not less than 1 year or not more than 50 years. SLAVERY, what a concept, right?