Raisethefist.com Raided

mfb and others wrote in about a raid on the operator of raisethefist.com last week. It was first reported on Indymedia.org here and here, followed by an LA Weekly article. By far the best news piece so far is this one from Newsbytes.

Comments

Because of his *opinions*?

[kingdon]

OK, this guy says that he was busted because the government didn't like his opinions, but in fact he had been cracking web sites and putting in that troop.cgi thing. Somehow that doesn't sound like an opinion to me. There's also the question of bomb-making information which is potentially thornier, but also isn't really opinion (at least, not opinion about globalization - opinion about bomb policy I suppose might be a bit more debateable).

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[betis70]

Yeah doesn't like an opinion to me either. Sounds like criminal activity, which appears to be dealt with properly.

Dunno how this gets put on slashdot as "news for nerds, stuff that MATTERS".

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[Derkec]

I could see his arguement. He's going to jail because of his opinion that it was ok to crack into other people's pages, deface them and try to attack army computers. Since he acted on his opinion and violated various laws, he's pretty much screwed. The guy clearly is out of touch with reality if he expects the police to knock on the door of an anti-government type and nicely ask, "I'm sorry, but could we have your computer?"

Regarding what I assume will be a 1st amendment type of defense. You can speak freely so long as you don't trample of the rights of others. When you facilitate and encourage the use of weapons to hurt people or property you are outside of 1st amend. protection. Likewise when you deface a website to get your message across, your efforts to communicate have come at the expense of someone else's right to do the same and so aren't protected.

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[xonker]

They're blowing things way out of proportion.

How, by going in with a lot of heavily armed agents? I grant you they probably didn't need all of the agents or half of the firepower they had -- but a show of force is almost guaranteed to prevent any resistance. From what we've been told via the news agencies and so forth, they didn't violate any of his rights or use excessive force -- they simply had a lot of heavily armed people there to arrest him or whatever.

One, it's probably SOP in a city like L.A. to go in with way more force than you need.

Two, they probably know that in the end that he'll probably end up with little more than a wrist-slap and they're trying to scare the crap out of him by peforming the raid.

From the response he gave, I think that's just what he needs -- to have the crap scared out of him and make him think.

I don't necessarily disagree with all of his opinions, but obviously he's overstepped his rights of free speech and so forth by committing criminal acts. And, if he wants to stand a chance of persuading anyone with an education beyond the third grade, he needs to learn to write and use a spell-checker. Jeez... He makes most of the Slashdot crowd look like literary giants...

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[MrResistor]

Well put.

Your right to swing your fist ends at my face.

How can someone advocate violent overthrow of the government and expect the government to look the other way? There are better ways to affect change if you don't like the way things are going, and they're built into the Constitution! Being a punk myself, I used to hang out with a lot of anti-corporate anarchists and this has always been my main disagreement with them (second is the irony that the vast majority are smokers and thus enslaved to the tobacco industry, but that's a whole other issue).

Reading the Newsbytes article, I can't help but come to the conclusion that this kid is just another one of those moronic LA "Bring It All Down"(TM) punks, totally oblivious to the fact that The Man is the only thing keeping the skinheads from beating the crap out of him and stealing the oxblood 20-eye Doc Martins his mom bought him for his birthday.

Sorry, that turned into more of a rant than I thought it would.

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[alhaz]

The guy was begging for it, frankly.

Personally, from what i read in google's cache right after it went down, I think the guy's crazy.

On one page, he's got a headline that actually says the feds kill babies.

On another, he's got a page full of bomb making instructions.

Face it, you're either for killing people or against killing people. Throwing in political reasoning only makes you more similar to your adversary.

Legally, that just makes him a whacko. It's when you combine "whacko" with "attacks government websites" that you get "terrorist".

The guy's an idiot, frankly. He doesn't know what he's fighting for, and was stupid enough to get caught doing something illegal.

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[MrResistor]

The goverment may want to watch over him to see if he actually attempts violence, which is not protected, but it dosen't give them the right to arrest him.

That is exactly my point. The kid advocates violence against the government, spreads his message through vandalism, and then whines about federal agents busting into his house with guns and confiscating the tools he used to commit said acts of vandalism. The fact that those tools were also used to host protected speach is totally irrelevant, and this whole thing about being silenced for his opinions is a strawman. He hacked and he got caught. It's that simple. He admits that he did it and that he knew it was illegal when he did it.

IMHO, his opinions only had 2 effects on the situation:

1. His web site drew attention to him, and probably helped link him to hacks he is being arrested for.

2. It raised the potential threat level in the eyes of those conducting the raid, thus the guns and armor. They had no way of knowing for certain that he wasn't better armed than they and ready to go out in a blaze of glory.

He got arrested for breaking the law. The fact that he broke the law in a misguided attempt to disseminate otherwise protected speech does not make this a Free Speech issue.

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[Liberal Mafia]

>>How can someone advocate violent overthrow of the government and expect the government to look the other way?

Well, regardless of what Sherman expects, for the past half century the Supreme Court has routinely expected the government to do just that. The phrase that applies here is "clear and present danger".

The phrase first came about in 1919 from the Schenck v. United States case. But it didn't really have any teeth until 1957 and Yates v. United States, when the Court ruled that, to quote my old book on the law of public communications, "a conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the government was too far removed from immediate danger to be punished."

The real precedent used nowadays is Brandenburg v. Ohio, (1969) in which the Court overturned the conviction of some KKK members for advocating "unlawful methods of industrial or political reform", then a crime under Ohio state law. To be constitutional, the Court said, a statute can only ban speech that "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such actions."

The Court backed this precedent up in 1973 with Hess v. Indiana, in which an antiwar demonstrator had been convicted for shouting "We'll take the fucking street later." The Court ruled that this "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time".

So, unless what Sherman put up on the Web was really both meant and likely to produce immediate illegal action, or the current Supreme Court is ready to overturn this precedent (very possible, given its obvious partisanship and corruption), he hasn't broken the law by advocating overthrowing the federal government.

I'm sure these rulings are on the Web somewhere but I'm too tired to karma whore any further just now.

Re:Because of his *opinions*?

[Sycraft-fu]

"but a show of force is almost guaranteed to prevent any resistance"

Precisely correct. Groups like SWAT teams don't want anyone, themselves or the suspects, to get shot. Now suppose they said "hmmm, there's just one guy, and he probably has a pistol, so we'll just send in one guy with a pistol". Ok, now perhaps the guy decides to surrender, but perhaps not. I mean it's just him against one cop. However when 20 guys in body armour with assult weapons come charging in any thoughts of being a hero tend to evaporate. In the end, noone gets hurt.

This guy's a bit of a hypocrite

[parliboy]

From the newsbytes article: On three of the sites, Austin left behind a hacking program named troop.cgi that was designed to attempt to log in to a computer operated by the U.S. Army, the FBI affidavit stated.

In the interview, Austin acknowledged that he vandalized the Web sites and that he knew it was illegal to do so. But he defended the act by saying it was necessary to get his message out.

...

"If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think," he said.

No, you incredibly idiotic dipshit. You are going to be Bubba's bitch because you hacked government websites, and in fact admitted it. Please, don't try to defend him -- it's guys like this that give us a bad name and deserved to be ostracized from the community at large.

Overkill?

[The Gardener]

"People can rant and rave on the Internet all they want, but when they cross the line of calling people to action to violently overthrow the Constitution of the United States, they have a problem," said McLaughlin.

So when just another lone hacker kid defaces five Web sites, it justifies "surrounding and raiding [the] house with machine guns, shotguns, bullet-proof vests." Being labeled a hacker (correctly, this time) is really getting to be as dangerous as being called a child molester.

The Gardener

Re:Overkill?

[Stonehand]

Given that he also disseminated information about the design of explosives and advocated the violent overthrow of the government, it makes one heck of a lot of sense. He might have been a nutcase who actually was ready to practice what he preached, rather than the digital equivalent of a delusional graffiti artist.

Re:Overkill?

[clarkgoble]

He was a hacker who promoted explosives and violence. Further he was a hacker who was promoting the violent overthrow of the government. No offense, but the police would have been idiots to go in unarmed. It's not like they used the weapons. The arrest went well. But they didn't know that.

What if it turned out the kind had schitzophrenic and was armed with those bombs that he was publishing? Yeah he probably wasn't, but how did the police know that? Its not like they violated any rights. They served a warrant and tried to do so in as safe a manner as possible.

Geeze.

Dumbass.

[sulli]

According to Newsbytes:

According to the FBI, Austin allegedly defaced at least five commercial Web sites since 1999 using the nickname "Ucaun." On three of the sites, Austin left behind a hacking program named troop.cgi that was designed to attempt to log in to a computer operated by the U.S. Army, the FBI affidavit stated. In the interview, Austin acknowledged that he vandalized the Web sites and that he knew it was illegal to do so. But he defended the act by saying it was necessary to get his message out.

Okay, so this guy was an admitted website defacer who posted denial of service tools on victim websites and knew it was illegal but did it anyway.. That he was doing it for some "anticorporate revolution" doesn't matter one iota.

But what I really loved was his comment, later in the article:

"But how many of us are really willing to engage in such an intense form of warfare through bauds and wires? Who's got the balls? Who's willing to sacrifice everything?" said the page.

Who indeed? Let's start with this numbskull. I say throw the book at him.

Re:Dumbass.

[haizi_23]

agreed. i am very much concerned with the impact of increasing corporate control over our public life, but this idiot is not my spokesperson.

when you want to mount successful political opposition, you start by keeping your nose squeaky clean so that no one can defame your character when the real work of change begins. this kid obviously didn't get that.

-w

Re:Seems ok

[Kaa]

The site seemed to be advocating the use of violence to solve means. Information on how to cause havok and insitute anarchy doesnt sit well with me and I dont seem why this is an issue.

Well, it so happens that the founders of the US forgot to include "but not if it talks about violence" part when they were writing the First Amendment -- you know, the "free speech" one. Actually, it seems to me the were pretty violent guys themselves -- starting a war and all that.

And if that guy's site was the first one where the feds found the bomb-making informations on the 'net... [rolls his eyes]

Deserved to be busted,

[Mr Krinkle]

This guy is not a martyr. He was stupid and chose to piss in the US gov's wheaties. If you disagree with policies in the US we can still voice or beliefs freely. What noone is allowed to do and should not do is encite a riot. He was trying to do just this. He has messages claiming for everyone to unite and overthrow the US gov. Does that make him a threat? YES. Should the gov have reacted to him as a threat, YES. Did they need to go in their fully armed to and ready for battle? Yes. Police have information that they are to bust someone who has attacked multiple sites and attempted to attack military targets, plus he has been trying to get other people to use violence and weapons to overthrow the gov. He also instructs how to create bombs and other weapons on his site. They had to assume he would be armed. The only way to deal with that is with overwhelming force.
As long as the go ahead and press charges in a timely manner the gov has done the right thing in this case.

violently overthrow the Constitution?

[Tyrannosaurus]

"People can rant and rave on the Internet all they want, but when they cross the line of calling people to action to violently overthrow the Constitution of the United States, they have a problem," said McLaughlin.

That would be correct. The United States of America is all for free speech. It's also a democracy, where you can elect a new government to install new laws if you disagree with the current state of affairs. Elected officials (who presumably represent a majority of the populace) will eventually populate the group responsible for interpreting the Constitution, the Supreme Court. Therefore, in a theoretical sense (before you start screaming about corporate america owning the politicians), the people do control the government.

By ignoring the political route and espousing the virtues of a violent overthrow, you have now entered the realm of "terrorist" or "freedom fighter." In a country where the freedom of speech is guaranteed in the very Constitution you want to do away with, you are more than likely to be considered a terrorist. And frankly, I would agree with that assessment.

Here's a suggestion: if you don't like the system and don't feel like changing the system, take your bombs and move to Columbia or the middle east.

Re:violently overthrow the Constitution?

[Pinball Wizard]

You're so right. When our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence there's no doubt they wanted a peaceful political solution!

It's those damn British who forced us to violently overthrow them. Had they not been so insistent on keeping us as a colony, the whole matter could have been settled peacefully.

Re:violently overthrow the Constitution?

[Wesley Everest]

Oh come on. The U.S. was founded by such "terrorists" (if older and wiser ones).

The president just recently created a system of military tribunals where you can be arrested, tried, convicted, and executed without even being told the crime you were charged with, without the prosecution having shown probable cause before arrest, without hearing any evidence presented against you, without the ability to cross-examine witnesses, without your choice of counsel, without the crime specifically calling for a death sentence, without a presumption of innocence, without "beyond a shadow of a doubt" or even "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof, without public scrutiny, and without a right of appeal.

This system makes a military court-martial look like a hippy love-in.

Now please re-read the Declaration of Independence and tell me whether the guys that wrote it sound more like Bush or this punk "terrorist" kid.

The kid may have talked about overthrowing the constitution, but Bush has done it.

And if your response is that if you don't like it, you should change it by working your way up the corporate ladder until you are CEO of a large enough corporation so that you can buy yourself or a friend into office, spare me. Yeah, and if you don't like the U.S. government, why don't you go to some country the U.S. government is bombing or propping up some hellish dictator -- now that's a great idea!

Bush has made it perfectly clear -- you are either with him or against him. If you are against him, you are a terrorist and they intend to find you no matter what country you reside in. Clearly Bush is not quite that powerful, yet -- and one hopes that countries that care about human rights will be able to reign in some of his powers, but the point is that if you don't like the U.S. government you're only real options are to try to change it or keep your head down to avoid it's wrath.

And you won't change it by saving your pennies to work within the system -- with lobbyists, bribes, and the corporate media. The current system has evolved to make sure that we can't change it from within. At the same time, violence is only a successful tactic if you are already powerful -- if you are weak, it will only hasten your destruction (look at what happened to the U.S. militia movement after Oklahoma City). And advocating violence without the intention or the ability to carry it out is the height of stupidity.

The alternative is to organize where we have the most power (whether we realize it or not) -- with our coworkers or neighbors, in schools, professional associations, clubs, consumer groups, etc. And rather than organize for lofty meaningless phrases, organize for real gains that benefit us and those around us. Much of Bush's attack on Americans has taken the shape of less job security, longer hours, etc. at work. It is possible to resist these attacks, and it is much more effective if the resistance is organized and collective rather than disorganized and individual.

As passive voters and pleaders, we are powerless, but organized and actively fighting back where we have power can work -- that's how it has worked with every social improvement in the last 1000 years or so, at least.

Re:violently overthrow the Constitution?

[hawk]

>The president just recently created a system of
>military tribunals where you

"you", in this sense, means "people captured while using weapons to actively oppose U.S. military forces"

>can be arrested, tried, convicted, and executed
>without even being told the crime you were
>charged with,

Where did you pull this out of? That's utter nonsense.

>without the prosecution having shown probable
>cause before arrest,

Uhh, most of us will accept that being captured while resisting the military goes well past probable cause . . .

>without hearing any evidence presented against
>you,

??? I think you're confusing these tribunals, which don't yet exist, with something else.

>without the ability to cross-examine witnesses,

I'd *really* need to see a source before believing this.

>without your choice of counsel,

Yes, there are likely to be limits on counsel, both due to the need for security clearances and local availability. However, the right to counsel *cannot* be completely eliminated, as this would contravene the Rights of Englishmen as recognized at Common Law and protected by the U.S. Constitution. At this level, it is not a question of the U.S. rule, but that to completely refuse access to counsel would violate natural law.

> without the crime
>specifically calling for a death sentence,

only by a very twisted interpretation. In the U.S. and other Common Law nations, statutes with prescribed penalties were not commonplace until *very* recently (20th century for the most part).

>without a presumption of innocence,

It's likely that the presumption will be reduced or gone, yes.

>without "beyond a shadow of a doubt"

Which, as far as I know, is not the law anywhere for anything.

o
>r even "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof,

Yes, the burden of proof is likely to be much lower, and a unanimous vote will probably not be required.

> without public scrutiny,
likely, yes. But there are practical matters getting that much public out there . . .

>and without a right of appeal.

Technically, yes. In reality, it is not politically possible that there will be no review.

These tribunals, if created and used, will be limited to those found in arms and captured while violating the Law of War. You are proposing to extend to them protections that exist in very few places outside the English speaking world.

Do I think that actually using these tribunals is a good idea? No, at least not at present, while our resources permit other responses.

Nonetheless, the picture being painted of them is grossly inaccurate. Look to how they were used in the past, and then pull *way* back to meet modern political reality.

hawk

Perhaps I'm the only one...

[eclectric]

but who can take seriously any person who still lives at home with mommy? He has no conception of what it means to be an adult, so I can't imagine how I'm supposed to take him seriously as a source of political information. I'm not saying people who live with their parents shouldn't have political leanings and causes, but I have trouble taking him seriously if doesn't even have to earn a living. (Which i guess gives him time to run this website, so maybe this is the way to go).

Then again, I'm pretty much in agreement with his comments about the current climate for those of thus dislike the actions of the United States. I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of this as days pass.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Publish bomb instructions, go to jail

[ethereal]

I think you'd better be careful on that there slippery slope, because the next step is "how many of us really want 'that hacker kid' down the street having the knowledge of how to reset my router or how to access my bank's poorly-secured web site?" A lot of the things that people on this site know and converse about freely could be just as dangerous to the public as bomb-making instructions.

I'm not defending hacking or blowing up people with bombs, and I'm not entirely defending this kid either. I'm just saying that we need to differentiate between the knowledge of how to do something, the tools for doing something, and the actual doing of the thing. Responsibility should be laid against those who actually commit crimes, not all of those who know how to. Providing bomb-making information (which is available on any number of other sites) does not seem to be such a major crime.

Although hacking a DoD site definitely was a big mistake. On those grounds alone he should go down.

it does matter

[Pope]

Well, OK, I think it matters.
There are lots of articles on Slash about different countries taking away their citizens' rights, based on the assumption that if some information's on the net it's far more dangerous than if it's simply in print.

This is a tech-savvy activist, using the internet as his tool to get his message out to the world. Bravo.

However he crossed the line a number of times by hacking other machines, using a pretty lame-ass excuse: "I had to get my message out!" Sure, Charlie, I have a feeling you're preaching to the converted.

I had an argument with a coworker last summer during the WTO conference (or was it G8? I can't remember). An anti-corporate web site was giving out information and software to stage a "virtual sit-in" to protest against companies involved. Basically, they were advocating a gigantic DDOS against a certain few companies, including Cisco, one of our clients.

He thought it was cool, I thought the entire thing was 100% lame: WTF do they hope to accomplish my not letting me do my work? Are they somehow more important than me? Does their "message" get out by DDOSing a few companies? No. They'd be better off by actually writing letter to the companies they hate, but of course, that takes actual time and effort. It takes little to download someone else's work (the DDOS programs) and run it, then go back to whatever you were doing, thinking you've accomplished some great blow for democracy.

I don't buy it one bit: it's lame, far too easy and cowardly.

So I propsed that on the date and time they went to put up their links page to all the DDOS software, we hit THEM first, in a pre-emptive strike, just to give 'em a taste of their own medicine and see how much they like. But we didn't. I would have had a good laugh though, I just didn't want to sink to their chickenshit level.

Ah well. I'm glad this guy got arrested for his hacking crimes, I just hope they don't pull a Mitnick and give him his fair chance. Doubt it.

Why are we even discussing this?

[bobdehnhardt]

From reading the articles, this guy was engaged in illegal activities (by his own admission), was caught, arrested, and is awaiting trial. So why are we even discussing it?

This guy is no Sklyarov, arrested in the US for actions he performed legally elsewhere (sort of like legally visiting a prostitute in Nevada, and getting arrested for it in New York). What he did was illegal, he knew it, he admitted it.

End of story, to my mind.

Re:Jesus Christ

[geekoid]

Yes he should have been arrested. I agree with the way it was handle(based on the story I read).
The real question is Will he be treated different then any other web site vandle because of his views?
if not, then fine. but if he gets a stricter sentance because of his anti-government views, then we have a problem.

No defense, and that guy's wacked.

[ctimes2]

Seriously, c'mon.
First, activists are not terrorists, and that kid's no activist. My brother-in-law is an activist {PETA} and his arguments are intelligent, well researched, more than reasonable, and effective. I haven't given up meat yet, but I've cut down on milk. Thus, someone is listening to him and he's effecting change. That is what activists do.

RTF is nothing more than a dumb ass kid preaching to the disenfranchised (yeah, like that's tough). He has no real concept of anarchy, no understanding of WHY the world works the way it works (no matter how screwed up it gets), and no reasonable solution. So in effect, he's running his position on poor instinct and bad judgement. He effects no change because all he's trying to do is scare people into either buying his position or dying in the chaos of upheaval. I guess it never occured to him that most of the rest of us couldn't give a rats ass about what he thinks ("getting the message out"... what a load. Your message is out, and it sounds like a big steaming pile of crap. Now you're going to try and play the victim card & blame it on the government? Where do you come from?).

Then, he's got the balls, audacidity or insanity to claim the agencies involved used a lot of hardware - no shit sherlock. You ran a website that advocated voilence, vandalism, and had BOMB making instructions on your site. Gangs are dangerous and have guns. You have politicol motivation, half a brain (1/2 more than most local gangs), and a dangerous message with instructions on how others can perform those acts too. Plus, you broke the LAW... you... IDIOT! You bet they're coming heavily armed.

And by the way, the definition of terrorism is, and I quote "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons". How 'bout that. You're a fledgling terrorist according to the very definition of the word. Good luck to him and for the FBI, keep up the good work.

If any of you feel any sympathy for this guy, you need to evaluate whether or not that's because you agree with him or just hate the feds, because that's one *'d up kid. And I'll bet the thousands of other sites that host the same kind of information (anarchists cookbook, etc.) don't advocate or act upon an idiological soapbox, which is why this kid was nabbed.

/rant. sorry.

Re:Lets not forget

[Rhone]

The right of the people to overthrow their government when it fails to meet their needs is written in the Declaration of Independence

and..

Its important not to forget the freedoms that make this country worth fighting for.

One of those important freedoms is the right to vote for who will represent us in the government. One of the most important causes of the American Revolution is that the American colonies had no representation in Parliament. We can't make that claim about the current American government.

As bad as our government might be, it is still composed of people who are chosen by a majority of Americans. Sure, we might be given some shitty options to choose from, and those of us who are intellectual might be outnumbered by the ignorant masses who fall in love with guys like George W. Bush, but the fact remains: The members of our government are there because a majority of the country chose them to be.

But who voted for all these militia groups and anarchist groups who want to violently overthrow the government? How many people want them to succeed? Which one should succeed, if any? How free would the country be if they succeeded? Would the leaders of these groups let the country vote on a new leader every few years? And what happens after the revolution, anyway? It's not like all the wannabe-revolutionary groups agree with each other, so there would just be more revolutions--and they'd all be justified, by your argument--as each group takes it's turn trying to establish its own ideology.

How free are people under that situation?

Anyway, I'm not even going to touch on the craziness of expecting a government to say "Yeah, people have the right to overthrow us. Go ahead." ;)