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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.
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).
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.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
"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
--
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.
sulli
RTFJ.
NEWSFLASH raisethefist.com is running out of current allocated bandwidth. In just two days we have used over 130MB of data transfer. The limit is 512MB per month. That means we will run out of bandwidth in less than a week. If we do, the site will be shut down indefinitely. We need to move to another web host in order to keep the site up and updated with official information for its visitors. If you would like to donate space, the e-mail contact information is on the bottom of this page.
I think it's a bad idea to link directly to his site.. We could end up costing him a lot of money in bandwidth terms.
Thanks to Archive.org, we can use the Internet Wayback Machine to view the site: Jan 23 or other days
woof.
Move along now, nothing to moderate here.
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]
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
So this guy is actively cracking and defacing websites, including attempting to break into Army systems, and he's whining about being arrested?
Next person who whines that he's the victim of the fascist Ashcroftian regime gets beat over the head with a clue-by-four. I'd be pretty pissed if he was hacking my site "so he could get his message out." What a loser.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
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.
I am 31337 or something.
Before Slant-Six sank, they had an interesting article on how to confuse the future terrorists. Put up anarchist sites, but provide bogus info. Setup bomb-making instructions that make silly putty or something. The more sites like that that pop-up, the less likely a terrorist will discover the correct bomb-making papers. The point is to fight terrorists by making the internet a place that they can't trust...
I wonder how the FBI would react to those kinds of sites...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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.
---
Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
Carnegie Mellon University
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think,"
Wrong. His actions include defacing websites and distributing information on how to make bombs. Either of those are crimes and punishable by law. He's not some little pacifist sitting in a corner getting picked on by The Man.
If you want to find a poster boy for "Thought Police Victim" find a better specimen.
Computer cracking was illegal well before 9-11.
From the newsbytes article: "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." So he acknowledges he does something illegal, and then complains about being arrested? SWAT team may be overkill for an 18 punk hacker, but then again there were instructions on bomb making materials. In the heightened state of alert for all police forces since Sept 11, they'd be foolish not to be prepared. People may try to simplify this to a "free speech" or "destruction of the free internet" argument, but I think this case is pretty much cut and dried.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Looking at what info I found on a mirror of the old site (already down im afraid). It looks as if they were more than a tad on the extremist side. For one he knowingly admits to circumventing the law in order to "get his message out" that was his first mistake. Second he appears to have information that more or less (at least implies) that the goverment needs to be overthrown (not changed). The diffrence being overthrowing consitutes violence where changing implies through voting and so forth. Sounds to me like this bust was a good thing. Not a bad one
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
Is it really any more complicated than that?
Yeah, they're using more muscle than what they needed. They really didn't need to seize all of his political literature, unless maybe they consider it evidence of his highly anti-establishment attitude.
It all seems a bit extreme. But didn't he break the law? Isn't the law a good one? I mean, how many of us really want our neighbors and other assorted yokels having the knowledge to construct bombs out of legally available materials? I'm not so sure I want that available to everyone.
It's one thing to have and even construct guns. Bombs are a whole new level though. It may infringe on his free speech rights, but his free speech can easily lead to depriving someone else (or many others) of their lives.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
This is verging on redundant, but was any of this monitoring done with a warrant? Is the US Government allowed unfettered ability to monitor (or intercept!) network traffic? This doesn't seem right.
Guvegrra?
Ok,
This brings up a hard pill for me to swallow. On one hand, Freedom of Speech is protected. I agree with this. However, what happens when your freedoms are put in jeopardy because of information out there like this? Some information just shouldn't be out there. There is NO reason someone should be posting how to make a bomb on the web. If you can find a reason they should, please enlighten me. (Freedom of Speech aside, I am referring to real, honest to God reasons for this being out there)
thanks
Sent from your iPad.
I don't understand how people who are so 'smart' try to disseminate a message so stupidly.
Case is point:
'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.'
and
'"If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think," he said. '
If he's smart enough to collect this kind of following, why is it that he ISN'T smart enough to figure out how to peacefully make his desires come about?
And why isn't he smart enough to realise that by calling attention to himself THIS way will just get him squashed.
America is a pretty cool place. Pretty big things have been changed in pretty peaceful ways. It also has the resources and desire to prevent folks like this from causing [much] damage.
It's one thing to get your way by trying to break a toy, it's another thing entirely to redesign the environment so that the toy works for you. (and all that 'reed bending in the breeze' Kung Fu crap.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
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.
If i was to walk around handing people pamphlets on how to create bombs and encourage everyone to kill everyone that disagrees with me, i would be arrested and rightfully so.
If i put up a web site that tells people how to make bombs and encourage everyone to kill everyone that disagrees with me, suddenly i am a poster boy for free speech?
Advocating violence like this has always been illegal. Read a history book before you go off spouting inane "Why are they taking my rights away?" bullshit. It's ok to stand up at a klan rally and say, "These niggers are ruining our lives." It's not ok to continue by saying "So let's string em all up!"
Posted on the raisethefist.com site:
"anyone actively disagreeing with policies of the U.S is now automatically rendered a 'terrorist' in the eyes of national security."
Perhaps that's so, but I'd venture to say that those disagreeing with the policies of the US and publishing information on how to make bombs are more likely to get noticed than those who simply disagree. They claim that "The sysop of this site does not endorse nor use any method of violence" but bomb-making and anti-government rhetoric on the same site are at the very least an implicit threat.
IANAL, so I can't speak to the legalities of it. But I know that if I were a FBI agent, I too would have wanted armor when I went in there.
I might be a little jaded against the world, but sites like this are ludicrous. I'm glad that he got raided and I do hope they arrest him. He's obviously an ignorant child who wants attention, and possibly to hurt people. These are the kinds of people we do not want free in the United States.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is a very obvious line where "free speech" is no longer important. When you are actively inciting people to violence against each other, it becomes criminal.
We also have the right to pursue happiness, but if I'm only happy killing and raping people, I certainly can't do that.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
According to Austin, all of the site's files, which were dedicated to "the anti-corporate globalization movement,"
So while he's against corporate globalization, he has no problem with violating my privacy by display a doubleclick.com advertising banner on his site along with one of the stupid pop-down X10 windows...
I would be the first to run to this guy's defense for posting bomb-making techniques or anything of that nature but since he broke into computer systems I just simply can't condone his actions.
It's funnny though because he justifies breaking into a computer system (and thereby, violating someone's rights) because he's spreading a message against a government who are violating peoples rights.
I think his mommy forgot to tell him that two wrongs don't make a right...
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Play George Bush the fighter pilot trying to shoot Osama bin laden. There so many angles that would have done much better. So instead he thinks to do things like bombs and stuf like that.
Heck even stuff like WhiteHouse.ORG is much more effective, even if in questionable taste. The opportunity is boundless if you have that talent. Which this kid probably did not.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This site and this guy claims to support free speach. But - being somewhat of an anarchist - he forgets that free speach doesn't mean that everything everyone says about anything to anybody should be free and up for grabs. Cracking is never right, nor is breaking the law. But then again, he's an anarchist who will go to jail for his acts, not his thoughts/belives. like he claims he will.
Regarding the FBI raid, they must be high on something themself. 2 officers with handguns and a solid kick on the door would probably have been more appropriate.
Look a monkey!
If the site was about peaceful protest, eg marches and sit-ins then I'd have a problem with it being shut down. But it wasnt about peaceful protest from what I can gather. So I beleive the investigation is fully justified.
The hypocritical sheep mentality on this site is really beginning to piss me off. We're up in arms about a software company abusing it's monopolistic status, we shout from the heavens about our so-called righte being taken away. But who does anything about it? Who says anything? Who does anything but bitch on this website?
This 18-year old kid got into some political literature and posted a website detailing his views on what the US government is doing both domestically and internationally to create to the best of their ability a global imperialism. Maybe you agree with his methods, maybe you don't. But it is his constitutional right to express his views in whatever way he deems appropriate. It is not the Government's right to say "Peaceful, organized protest is OK, but anything else (like posting a call to action website) is illegal and we will kick in your door with machine guns and drag you out of your house." Give me a break. To equate domestic political disagreement with terrorism sounds more like Communist China (Tienamen Square, anyone?) than the United States. I think all of us have forgotten why this country was founded in the first place:
"all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
E-mail me, don't hide behind moderation!
El riesgo vive siempre!
I remember something that David Dellinger (peace activist since WW II) said on the topic of weapons and activism. Essentially the army is way to well armed to confront in an armed fashion. Possesion of weapons will only give one a false sense of power and leave one ripe for arrest or extermination. According to what he said, the FBI would actually try to get activists interested in weapons in order to have something to come down on them on. Kinda like the big guy who can kick your ass as soon as he goads you into taking the first punch.
Its almost as if armed drug dealers run this country and try to control us with the things they do best. Anyone know if this years Afghan smack has made it to the US yet. I'll bet its gonna get real cheap soon.
Vivez sans temps mort
Law enforcement agencies will always bring an incredible excess of force down on a potentially hostile target in order to apprehend him. This is done to ensure the safety of both the target and the officers involved. If the target thinks that he has no chance to defend himself, then he will usually give up without a fight. Personally, I think that this, and anything else that protects our officers, is a damn good idea.
This story was front page on k5 a few days ago; I only post this notice because there was some interesting commentary along the lines of what we're already seeing here now. You might want to surf over there and see what the folks at k5 have been saying.
2
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/1/26/112847/74
Cheers,
-Aaron.
student of animation and the fine arts
When said teenager is publishing bomb-making materials, attacking government websites, and advocating the violent overthrow of the US government, I don't just send two officers to his door.
I really really don't think it's worth the sacrifice of a couple lives to prove that the FBI is kind and gentle. They had no idea what they were getting into; the fact that in retrospect he's just a whiny momma's boy with no conviction to back up his bullshit doesn't mean the FBI should not have taken precatuions.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
As you pointed out later in your post - he also defaced websites and distributed DDoS tools. That's what he's going down for. Americans are quite free to publish the Anarchist's Cookbook, Mein Kampf, or Das Kapital on their own websites.
The right to swing your fist ends at the nose of the guy you're swingin' it at. Similarly, this skript kiddie's right to raise his fist ends at the router separating his network from the rest of the world.
Amen to that. If I was in charge of an operation to go after someone with anti-government messages including those talking about new world orders and overthrowing the government (reference: his defaced websites) it would be done the same way.
Fuck kind and gentle. The kid is a criminal. Gang leaders carry pistols. Militant psychos make bombs.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Actually, I was quoting something I read on the site that may or may not be true. IANAL and all that. Let us know when you find it.
BTW - There are other laws against publishing materials that clearly do not (according to the courts violate) the 1st amendment. How else do corporate trade secrets and national top-secret materials avoid getting published? Yeah, that's an obvious case, but it just points out that the 1st amendment is not an absolute, despite what every ignoramus who doesn't know any better will tell you.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Why not? The government and big business are every bit the manipulation machines that the old church was.
As a whole, the population is every bit as naive and/or fearful of government and big companies as they were of the old church. The penalties for either action are on the same scale, and the motivations are both for the good of the common man.
I won't say he's a saint, but then again -- neither were Luther nor the US' founding fathers saints, and all were very much in his position.
It is not the Government's right to say "Peaceful, organized protest is OK, but anything else (like posting a call to action website) is illegal
You know what - according to the Constitution it is:
First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This is an article where my sig speaks for itself.
Hammer of Truth
Looks like the FBI will be raiding the federal government next, then.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I agree.
My point was this country was founded by the oppressed of another country who tookit upon themselves to take their freedom and a new land because peaceful protest simply wasn't working.
It is hypocritical to not see the parallel in the oppressed of this modern land of the "free".
I'm not seeking justification, only understanding of what was going through this kid's head.
E-mail me, don't hide behind moderation!
El riesgo vive siempre!
There's a difference between publishing chemical formulas that take education to read vs. publishing bomb construction instructions. As a chemist you might know that "if I mix this and this, then light this, and run away, it will go boom". And you would know that because of your hard won knowledge. Telling every joe on the street how to do that though, would be obviously unwise.
So, why don't all the violent types just go get educated and then make things boom? Well, they could. But in the process of becoming educated, your viewpoints tend to get tempered. You're not as likely to abuse your knowledge because you're probably more understanding, and because you've now got more to lose (since education typically = better future).
That then, is the "geek bar". There is a bar of entry; a standard; an initiation; a price of admission. Call it what you want. The fact is that if you are given technology without having the means to understand it well enough to control it, then you probably shouldn't have it in the first place.
So, I'll maintain that chemistry experiments/literature is a good thing as it leads one to the path of the prerequisite knowledge required for responsible action. However, is a bomb cookbook OK? I don't think so.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Do you seriously think that hacking other people's sites and inciting people to violence is covered under the first amendment? The amendment no longer applies once you start affecting the rights of others. Hacking web sites is illegal since it affects the owners rights. Incitement is illegal since it affects the rights of the victims of the resulting violence.
What this guy did was illegal, whatever you feel about the bomb recipe. You cannot do what he did and blame an oppresive government for noticing. What if your child blew himself or another family member up because they saw this cool bomb recipe on the web? Would you be so pro his first amendment rights then? Would you say he was innocent? How about if he was responsible for killing a family member through incitement, would you not want to see him hang?
I don't think that the government is perfect, far from it in fact. I think that the government tries to go too far in controling web content, but when it comes to something like this, I'm all for it. Be realistic.
Why is it that people always hear what I say, and not what I mean?
He's not being punished because of his views or because of the strong ideas on his website (at least he'd better not be... never can tell what the real motive is). He's being punished because he cracked several corporate and government web sites.
Yes, it is "the Right of the People to alter or abolish [the government]", but it is not "the Right of Each Individual Person" to do it. And even if it were, hacking into corporate and government web sites is not an appropriate or effective way of trying to alter the government... it's akin to trying to alter the government by breaking into a senator's house and smashing his fine china.
Had this guy not used such destructive methods, it would have been outrageous for the government to try to arrest him based solely on the views expressed on his web page. However, since he decided to deface web pages, they've got legitimate beef with him.
Yes, i've got his troop.cgi program tucked away on my hard drive. On december 26th of 1999 he hacked our website ( http://www.foreignpolicy.com) and posted this page:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/12HOME.HTML
I imagine that troop.cgi progam is sitting on more than 3 webservers out there.
Ok, he defaced web site, he should certianly get punished fairly.
So, will his punishment be greater because of what he said, then if he just defaced web sites?
If not, we have a problem.
His attitude seems a little whiny, which is never the best way to comunicate your message. Sometime illegal activity is the only way to stop an opressive government. tea party come to mind. If you get caught, be a man about it.
Bomb making direction have been protected before, and they should. I have a copy of the anarchist cookbook. It hsa drug, bomb, and social engineering tips. I recommend reading it for an instite into the 60/70 anti-establishment movement.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From the Newsbytes story: "In the interview, Austin said he did not write the bomb instructions but instead copied the pages from another site."
Never mind incitement to violence - this guy's a copyright violator! Let him fry, I say.
Thoreau, in Civil Disobediance, explained that philosophically it's right to disobey what you honestly feel is an unjust law. In doing so though, one needs to be willing to accept society's punishment for its violation.
In comparison, doesn't this whiny punk who's spent too much time in the 2600/Mother Jones/High Times section of the magazine rack seem a little lacking? No matter though. I'm sure his bunkmates in Leavenworth will show him the meaning of passive resistance.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Lemme get this straight. You throw him into the cell with Bubba he says "Raise the fist, brother! Raise the fist!"
I can think of a lot four-letter verbs that'll describe what happens to his butt that evening. "Kick" isn't one of 'em.
(Ah, if only all skr1pt k1ddi3z could meet the same fate ;-)
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.
I agree with everthing you said, and I applaud you not being inflammatory in trying to say it.
I agree that web site hacking is neither appropriate nor effective. I agree that he should be punished.
Where I disagree is the government swooping in on him like stormtroopers, seizing his goods and ransacking his home with no rigard to his personal rights and safeties. 8 hours of interrogation without a lawyer present? Blatantly illegal Gestapo tactics.
Had the FBI pulled up to his house, read him his rights, and taken him away, you wouldn't be hearing from me on this site.
But because of these tactics, the government is further backing exactly what Raisethefist.com was attempting to illuminate the rest of us about.
E-mail me, don't hide behind moderation!
El riesgo vive siempre!
1 - The right of the people to overthrow their government when it fails to meet their needs is written in the Declaration of Independence:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government
It is expressly Patriotic according to our countries founding document to overthrow the government should it become tyrannical.
2 - we have this little thing called freedom of speech. There is no law prohibiting the dissemination of bomb making information. If that is a crime, I guess Amazon.com is a terrorist organization:
Poor Man's James Bond
Anarchist's Cookbook
Home Workshop Explosives
I suggest we keep these things in mind as we continue to hunt down terrorists. Its important not to forget the freedoms that make this country worth fighting for.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Speaking as a Sysadmin, I would agree to your defacement == stolen/damaged argument. Excellent point.
I also agree about the SWAT team being called for "some guy with detailed bombing instructions that advocates the violent overthrow of the government". I qualify that by saying if this was a person with some kind of criminal past or any reason other than just politcal dissent to raid his house. Government dissent is at the heart of most Universities, and bomb-making instructions are just a Google search away. Will we start seeing black helicopters on campus now? Will we be OK with it then?
Keep in mind that this is an 18-year old kid. 18 is that time when your ideaology has yet to be tempered with the fire os real world experience.
E-mail me! Don't hide behind moderation!
El riesgo vive siempre!
I think it's okay to live at home if you're 18.
...would be to shut up and get a lawyer. I'm not taking his side, but it doesn't even seem like he understands what he's gotten himself into. He's gonna dig himself into a real long prison term by being just a little to immature and impressionable.
Yeah, they caught some kid who doesn't like the government. He defaced websites and installed a (probably unworking) cgi script to log into a government site. Go get'em cowboys! Take all his computers, and make an example of him.
Meanwhile, REAL terrorists plot to REALLY blow shit up. And guess what - they don't fucking RUN anarchist web sites. They're smarter than that, and obviously smarter than US intelligence. OBL is on the loose. Omar is on the loose. Yeah, lock some fucking geek up, and take away his web presence. That makes me feel safer.
-Dean
Where I disagree is the government swooping in on him like stormtroopers, seizing his goods and ransacking his home with no rigard to his personal rights and safeties. 8 hours of interrogation without a lawyer present? Blatantly illegal Gestapo tactics.
Considering they where arresting someone who was advocating overthrowing the government, publishing bomb making instructions, and posting scripts to attack military computers, I would call it justified to be that prepared.
However so much as asking one question without a lawyer is outrages in the extreme.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Somehow I found it funny this article is right under the monkey/mouse/mind control article?
Maybe now George can get on the net now and see what all these 'terrorist' sites are all about.
-
Let's get this straight:
One may or may not agree, but that's a reasonable political statement.A president we did not elect, heading a government bought off by corporations, arrogantly and agressively pushes a pro-corporate domestic agenda and foreign policy. Now over 6,000 people are dead and he say's we're at "war", fighting secret battles against unknown enemies, and he wants everyone to be "patriots" by forsaking our civil liberties and going "shopping".
I don't see anything about bomb-making in the copies of his site at archive.org. The archive isn't complete, because some of his pages are generated by CGI scripts, and the archive system doesn't try to archive dynamic content. But the visible content is straight political material.
You can get bomb-making information from mainstream sources. Order Improvised Munitions from Amazon.com. That book is popular with the Christian right and the right-wing "militia" movement.
Do you seriously think that hacking other people's sites and inciting people to violence is covered under the first amendment?
First, no -- but I never claimed that. Second, it depends. You might want to keep in mind that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect unpopular speech -- a web site devoted to making cookies doesn't really need consitutional protection.
The amendment no longer applies once you start affecting the rights of others
Not true in general. For example the free speech argument routinely trumps privacy rights for newsworthy events and/or people.
What this guy did was illegal, whatever you feel about the bomb recipe
I thought in the US the defendant was presumed innocent until found guilty by a court of law. You might at least have put an "IMHO" in there.
What if your child blew himself or another family member up because they saw this cool bomb recipe on the web? Would you be so pro his first amendment rights then?
Well, yes, actually I would. I may personally go and throttle the bastard, but that wouldn't change my position on the First Amendment one bit.
I don't buy your "surrender your freedom to get some security" argument.
Be realistic
I am quite realistic. But we are not talking about what the government is likely to do or what you can expect to get away with. We are talking, basically about right and wrong. The connection between what's stupid to do and what's morally wrong is not always that simple.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
That being said, I am really bothered by the specifics of this raid. If the Feds had real evidence that Austin was promoting terrorism, they should have arrested him. Instead, they used their "suspicions" to justify shutting down his web site. Which doesn't accomplish much, since there's no information on raisethefist.com that isn't widely available. I don't care for fertilizer bombs or web worms either, but censoring information about them is a lost cause.
The nasty truth is that this action is part of a general strategy to shut down, at least temporarily, coordinating elements in the anti-globalization movement. This is something that becomes a priority every time there's an public event that might be targeted by the movement.
This might not seem like a big deal. So some mentally challenged anarchists lose their web sites for a few days, so what? But that's only the tip of the iceberg. During previous episodes anybody possessing a communication device (including cell phones and PDAs) was subject to arrest.
The whole strategy is based on the idea that law enforcement needs to interfere with civilian lines of communication. Austin and his crowd don't deserve much sympathy -- but the way in which the cops are targeting him is dangerous to all of us.
And, as above, it's NOT ILLEGAL to incite violence or circulate bomb information.
Best examples are obscene speech (different from 'indecent'..very difficult these days to call something obscene, most prosecutors won't bother, though some still attempt it), commercial speech (I cannot claim to create a miracle cure for everything), and speech which generates a clear and present danger to the safety of people. The best example of this is yelling fire in a crowded theatre. Slander and libel is another one (unless its politicians doing the slandering..then it's okay)
I would not be surprised if disseminating detailed, credible instructions on bomb-making to those who have no need of such information became regulated under the clear and present danger standard. I'm not entirely convinced that it shouldn't be regulated either.
-
It seems clear to me that at least part of the motivation in the manner of the raid was to provide a large scare to the fellow. I do not know how comfortable I am with these types of intimidation tactics. I think it is good for the evil-drug lords and gang bangers to be afraid of the police - I am less happy with such fear being used as a tool to limit expressions of political dissent.
Why go to amateurs when the US gov. will seel you top quality biowar instructions for fifteen bucks!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
> I think YOU actually need to read some history, it certainly is okay to advocate violence.
The rules of the Constitution do not apply to the Revolutionary War, since the Constitution did not exist at that time. Also, the Founding Fathers were considered terrorists and criminals by the then-in-power government, namely the English royalty. Lastly, neither the British monarchy nor the U.S. Constitution say it's okay to advocate violence, and both governments have criminalized it. It's just that there are parts of the Constitution that make it difficult for the U.S. government to eliminate the means for violent revolution so that if things got bad enough the people could revolt against the government again.
Still, all of this is tangential to the original charge, which is defacing web sites, which he admitted. And, the punishment he's undergone so far was confiscation of his computers and documents and questioning for six hours. This is not only not extreme, it's not even all that severe. As to the raid, there's nothing that says the FBI can't show up at your house with a dozen tanks to make an arrest. They're just not allowed to use more force than is necessary to make the arrest safely. Since there's no mention that they shot up his house or used explosives to crack the door, I don't see anything out of line legally.
Virg
There's a grey area here. What the revelant parts of the site said was, in essence, "The government of this country needs to be overthrown violently. Here's how to build a bomb." Overly simplistic, I know, but it's not hard to see how a clear and present danger can be inferred from this. Whether that inference is too tenuous to be criminal has yet to be decided.
Virg
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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.
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
I don't advocate criminal activity in the name of protest. Our gorvernment is a carefully built system that DOES allow for public protest and change.
However, I don't entirely disagree with this guy's ideas. I don't like corporate control, don't like invasions of third world countries under certain guises and abhor inhumane treatment of any "citizen of the world". Does anyone here on slashdot know of an organization that tracks this kind of development and news but holds a less violent point of view?
______________
By ignoring the political route and espousing the virtues of a violent overthrow, you have now entered the realm of "terrorist" or "freedom fighter."
Yeah, tell that to George Washington and companies, and those who participated in the Boston Tea Party.
I'm not suggesting violence here, and somehow, people happily forget how this country was created. Maybe GW (the founder, not the current GW!) should have taken the political route, eh? And going to London to argue his point, maybe?
The line between "freedom fighter" and "terrorist" is very fine, dude. History is written by the winner.
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My understanding is that this book was created with US Intelligence to help spread bad information to would be troublemakers. So it's a perfect example of this tactic in the pre-web era.
Put your hand down, Mr. Katz.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
I have to argue your idea of "updating" the Second Amendment. The original intent was to (among other things) prevent the government from getting into a position where no group, no matter how big, was able to overthrow an oppressive regime. This means that it comes down to a metter of scale. The problem with letting everybody own their own bomb is twofold: first, the destructive power of a bomb gives a single person an inordinate amount of power. For example, if I have a normal handgun or rifle, I could (with planning and luck) take out many people. That number, however, is nothing to the scale of how much damage I could do with even a modest truck bomb (witness OK city for evidence of that device's destructive force). Second, such weapons can't really be used defensively, except in a preemptive manner. If someone wants to blow me up, and the only weapon I have is a bomb, then I have to blow them up before they can do the same to me, even if I don't know that I'm in danger.
So, there need to be limits on what "arms" means in the right to keep and bear arms, lest single entities start building private armies.
Virg
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The simple, legal argument is that the first amendment does not stand alone but is part of a larger document which as a whole forms the Constitution, parts of which provide the hook upon which some limitations on free speech are permissable.
The deeply thougth-out legal arguments you provide ("I'm right, they're wrong") are irrelevant.
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The kid should go to jail for hacking, not for bomb-making instructions.
First let me say that yes I know that some types of speech are not protected. Those types where the supreme court has already made a ruling involve cases where the speech itself actually does the harm. Ex. yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre. Obscenity also falls under this category to some extent, but isn't really relevant.
It is a bad thing for people to easily get simple instructions for making bombs. But if you make a law against it, where do you stop? If you can stop that sort of information, you can (and will) pass new laws against publishing other sort of instructions that explain how to conduct illegal activities. And then it becomes illegal to tell someone how to burn a draft card. It becomes illegal to tell someone how to conduct civil disobediance. It becomes illegal to tell someone how to share illegal information, even. The first ammendment isn't just needed as an expression of a right. It provides a buffer zone in law to protect from encroachment of that right. If we allow this one encroachment, unconstitutional laws, like the DMCA which prohibits you from instructing people about how to break encryptions, will become far more widespread. And widespread in far less palatable areas.
And even with these laws, I fear that we will find that we have not impacted a terrorists ability to harm us one iota. They will still do whatever they have to in order to harm us in the simplest most direct methods possible. Instead, as a free society, we should be committed to free flow of information, and punishment to those who misuse it.
Ah, my old friend, you've got to realize the important distinction that is taking place within astrotek's brain... You see, decrying Microsoft or the RIAA... that's all non-threatening. Destroying those entities would have no substantial impact on daily lives. Despite their size and dominance, they aren't a part of the fabric of our daily lives in the same way the government is.
But saying that the government is evil, and that it can only be overthrown through violent revolution -- that's scary. Not only is it scary to believe that the government, the thing that makes us "the land of the free", really is evil, but also the idea of revolution, which raises all kinds of alarm bells. Because revolution, by its very nature, isn't safe, and it's just a simple fact made as evident as it could ever be by 9/11 that the vast majority of people care a lot about safety and very little about freedom.
And then you have to remember that for a lot of people, freedom of speech only applies to things they like. Anything that "doesn't sit well with them" should be against the law.
Remember that we are living in a country that elected as our highest official a man who once said "There should be limits to freedom" in response to a website that did nothing more horrible than make fun of him. The people have spoken, and they're with Dumbass.
P.S. The issues of web-site defacement etc are completely separate, and we both obviously agree on the issue. But astrotek didn't mention the actual -crimes-, just the information he/she/it didn't like as justification for the arrest.
The enemies of Democracy are
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I agree with you on everything except about the last paragraph. Where would we be without a government and laws? No governments = No wars. Sure crime will still exist, just like it exists now. You can't stop crime. Also, I think we would be saving $730 billion/year on military stuff.
:)
Actually I think the world would have been a better place to live in. Of course I can't be 100% sure; if there's too much evil in men then anarchy would be worthless. But I believe that most people are peacefull, especially when they're asleep
"The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free." -- Henry David Thoreau
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The Constitution also gives us the right to own property. This kid violated that right by defacing websites. Is his right to free speech more important than someone else's rights? And what about the free speech he violated by defacing those websites?
And about the right to free speech - it has limitations. You can't teach religeon in public school. You can't organize sedition. You can't threaten someone's life. If you say something about an individual and it's BS, you can be sued.
Look at history following WWII. "Loose lips sink ships" was a mantra and free speech was curbed. But the reality was German U-boats were sinking ships based on information from spies living near New York harbors. Is free speech more important than the lives lost on the Lucitania? Do spies have freedom of speech? Hell no.
So he implies (and I get the sense that you agree) that he has the right to publish files on the web regarding construction of weapons and bombs. The federal government has for years had laws restricting him from doing this. But post 9-11, they are actually cracking down. Bummer for him. Notice my crockadille tears.
There will be limitations on liberty and over time corrections to those limitations. There are liberties that I am concerned about post 9-11, but I don't think our government is "out to get us." Our leaders are faced with the enormous task of balancing our Consitutional liberties with the realities that those liberties are being used as a weapon against us during a time of war.
Shutting down a website like this is within the sphere of what I am willing to tolerate. I don't give a crap about this kid's motives, He needs a good kick in the ass. If he continues to be a professional protester, he could at least learn a sense of responsibility.
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Uh ... how do you know that they didn't read him his rights and that he didn't voluntarily waive his right to have a lawyer present?
After reading the notice left on raisethefist, this kid starts sounding a lot like Hitler. Not "Erase the Jews" type, but the way he talks about forming a big society, kids starting clubs at their schools, violent overthrow of governments... He should've thought a bit more before posting this. If he was to follow his own advice, he'd be charged with premeditated murder. He advocated violence against innocent people. The founding fathers were fighting against a military sent to force them to submit. I don't think that confiscating all the equipment and software of an 18 year old is the right way to take care of the situation, but his site was apparently inredibly violent in nature.
I also don't think people should be prevented from knowing basic chemistry, like what happens when you mix this with that and stick in a fuse.
A solution to the problem with music today
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All interesting and true. We the People of the United States are OK with actions as long they don't directly affect us or our way of lives. Dissent is fine as long as it's on issues that we agree with.
Wow, Chris...where've you been? Drop me an e-mail, same address.
El riesgo vive siempre!
1.) 95 theses, not 99.
2.) The Wittenburg church, not the Vatican, which doesn't have a door per se.
3.) Protestant Reformation, not Revolution (and no, that's not just semantics; the words mean very different things).
Carry on.
Virg
Professor Dave Touretzky at CMU (the guy that runs the well-known DECSS gallery, has a mirror of the previous contents of the raisethefist website here. The content for which the site was raided was apparantly the Reclaim Guide, which contains detailed instructions on defensive and offensive tactics for rioters faced with riot police.
I'd like to see you go walk up to a police officer and spit on him, give him the finger, and say, "arrest me, you ****ing fool!" Because that's basically what you're doing. Most /. readers are NOT the richest 25 percent of the world, at least I'm not... "Fight the system" "Down with the Man" Those political activist books are filled with more propaganda than you can shake a stick at. Sure, go read the book. But then read lots of other books, and have a well-formed opinion. Doing otherwise will get you nowhere but jail. It's guys like Dmitri Sklyarov who make better "poster children" of the "corporate reform movement," because he did literally nothing wrong. He violated no Russian laws, and he's not a US citizen. That's an example of unlawful government/corporate oppression. But as soon as you get violent, or encourage violence, instantly you are perceived as a heretic and a rebel. You want reform? Do it the right way. Do it the smart way.
A solution to the problem with music today
Soneone decides who to send out the cops to, and how many to send. This isn't the case of a 911 rape call or a hot persuit or anything like that.
Well, that's a simple one. Eat all of the Pixie Stix powder, get massive sugar rush, and you'll be unstoppable!
Virg
He's not being punished because of his views or because of the strong ideas on his website (at least he'd better not be... never can tell what the real motive is). He's being punished because he cracked several corporate and government web sites.
Wait, wait... That may be true, though I'm leaving open the idea that he is being punished for his views and the actual crimes are just the 'excuse'.
But the point is astrotek didn't mention his crimes. He said he agreed with the arrest because descriptions of violence "don't sit well" with him. Whatever the FBI's motivation was (and if you think it is just the real crimes, then explain the extent they went to), the original poster was okay with it because he didn't like what the kid said.
That is the mentality that pissed of the Man in Black and myself.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm reasonably leftist/radical myself, certainly at american standards. So, my first impulse is to feel sort of sorry for the kid, and feel anger for the cops.
About his political views:
The kid isn't very smart. He also hasn't much interesting to say.
Lot's of things he is against, and almost nothing that he is for. That is always a sure sign of the wrong kind of punkers/leftist/idealists or whatever americans would call this type of people.
The "right" kind of leftist is harder to find and is usually doing hard work for their ideals.
About his methods:
He shouldn't have kept all those computers at home, he should have hosted his stuff offsite in the first place. Or at freenet or something equally elusive.
So as a revolutionist he isn't very effective. Basic survival of the fittest at work, I would say.
About him as a person:
I view this kid simply as a malcontent adolescent. He is only crying for attention, and now he got it. In fact, the people who raided his home did him a favour, if I think about it:
Look at all the attention he got!
Also, he already had the opinion that all police/secret service etc. are fascist bastards anyway, so now that they come raid him, he accuses them of overreacting and being meanies generally.
Well, duh!
Like I said, he is not very smart, like most of his kind
-------------------------------------------------
UNIX isn't dead, it just sme
And what about those who didn't like the English government's rule of our country and waged all out war to change things?
plus, I never trust a media outlet who can neither spell, nor use spellcheck.
"They sorounded the house with guns before raiding it." - RTF Founder
Tell me about it. If anti-globalization protesters were literate, maybe people would listen to them. Currently, they're far more amusing than credible.
How about the use of the possessive to denote plural? "undercover's"? "government's"?
And the cream of the crop: "with they're eyes focused on the premises." With they are eyes...? "they're excuse" They are excuse?
I guess I understand what his site stands for: I'd be angry if I were illiterate, too.
But I am concerned that he got raided. He should be allowed to speak, even if he does desecrate the English language in the process.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Umm... nothing? Sodium is not pyrophoric, phosporus is. Sodium metal removed from the oil will react slowly with moisture in the air to become sodium hydroxide (evolving small amounts of hydrogen gas). As NaOH is hydroscopic, eventually, you end up with a puddle of concentrated NaOH (caustic).
Now, if you placed the sodium into a bucket of water, the reaction would be a lot faster, and you would get enough heat to ignite the hydrogen gas, and possibly the sodium metal. It looks quite cool. watching a piece of flaming sodium skittering around on the surface of the water inside a bucket, propelled by the hydrogen gas which is bubbling off the sodium. Don't use a plastic bucket, as the sodium tends to stick to the edges, with unfortunate results. It is best to neutralize the waste water with a mild acid such as vinegar, and of course, to not try this at home. Or anywhere near anything flammable. In retrospect, doing this inside a hazardous waster storage facility might not have been the smartest thing I have ever done, even though nothing happened.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
That only applies to the government (federal, state or local). Not many people believe that because OJ Simpson was acquitted he is innocent.
If this guy walked in to a restaurant and the owner said "hey, you're that bomb making anarchist, we don't serve you here", the owner can kick him out whether he is convicted, innocent until proven guilty or whatever.
The FBI alleges that he defaced websites, the person in question admitted doing so. No reasonable person doubts that he committed an illegal act. Short of some new bizarre twist coming up (his girlfriend is the anarchist and defaced the web sites and he is protecting her), I think that the previous poster's statement is reasonable.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Because it isn't relevant. The identity of the victim of a crime isn't relevant as to whether or not a crime was commited. Suggesting that the identity of the victim justifies the crime is the same logic used by whackjobs who bomb abortion clinics and shoot people all the while claiming that they're doing God's work.
If an act is wrong, it's wrong no matter who you do it to. .
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
I can understand that not everyone that strongly disagrees with the system steps in line and taking matters into your own hands can be the right thing to do -- if your cause is right. The problem is that it's undemocratic to take matters into your own hands.
But you can't educate the whole world about your cause, 1/ the rich aren't going to care because they benifit too much from the system, they'll boycot you too (don't count on favorable news stories) 2/ for middle class the system doesn't appear to be broken, 3/ the poor know how powerful the rich and rulers are and won't believe you can change something.
Also you can't just change the ways for a small community. You need an almost global change if you want a non-capitalist system to exist, if you don't have that you just can't get the necessary resources (don't forget you can no longer count on any capitalist resources).
So, what's a fellow to do? Ignore the situation and try to live an apathetic life? Be a good rebel and do a few protests a year, ignore that the media reports only the few windows that were broken, be happy when politicians say you were good boys and girls because you didn't cause damage? Violence does get a message accross, sure most people will be angry at those vandals-protestors but a minority will investigate and join your cause.
(Note that in this post I'm not so much talking about raisethefist.)
Monkey sense
"The first amendment supercedes all previously passed articles."
Just because the First Amendment is the first one in the Constitution doesn't make it the most important one. Hell, IIRC, there were two amendments before the First Amendment that didn't make it, which is why the First Amendment is the first one.
The Supreme Court has ruled, time after time, that speech can be prohibited if there is a substantial state or governmental interest that backs the argument for prohibiting the speech. If you think I'm wrong, go look at cases like Miller v. California, Near v. Minnesota, and United States v. Progressive, among others. Then there are things such as time, place, and manner restrictions which may be used to prohibit speech, as long as the laws are narrowly tailored and don't prohibit more speech than necessary.
But if you want to get technical, as it seems you're doing right now, then I could still say that you're wrong. The First Amendment states that Congress cannot pass any laws barring free speech. It never said anything about the Supreme Court setting precedent.
Go research some Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment before you start with your childish "I'm right you're not!" tirade.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
There is one hell of a difference between posting instructions on how to make a home grown fertilizer bomb on a web site that is attempting to incite people to taking down the government and some 40 year old virgin librarian with a technical manual on how to make a hydrogen bomb in the local library. Last I checked, you can buy fertilizer anywhere. U235 and other fun stuff is much harder to come by. This little dousche bag was a moron. From the moment he started it, all the way through. He is going to get it from big brother, just not the big brother he was thinking of...
The difference is he lives in a house in suburban LA, pays little or nothing in taxes most likely (As he still lives with his mother) and has not even experienced close to what the real world is like. It's one thing to have revolutionaries, it's another thing to have a kid who has probably never seen first hand the things he preaches against make militant threats and attacks against a government.
Anyone going to war following a naive 18 year old kid will most likely reap what they sow, death or imprisonment. When it comes down to it, there is *no* reason to speak of overthrowing the government because it's not necessary. If you have a political opinion, there are many ways to change the political course of a government. Look at Hitler for a fairly good example. America needs reform, not children revolutionaries (Viva la revolucion)
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
is limited to being republican or democrat or any other party that can raise .5 billion in PAC money.
To the Government's credit though, he is still alive. I guess he's too insignificant of a runt to have him off'ed, or maybe government resources are spread a little thin what with the war on vague nouns and all.
[QUOTE]
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.
..snip..
According to Austin, he has been targeted by the government simply because he advocates social justice.
"If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think," he said.
[/QUOTE]
This is bullshit. He's going to jail because he defaced websites. This guy thinks he's above the law, and appears to be amazed that he was arrested. That's like saying that it's ok to vandalize a store because you don't like the people who own it. And then when the cops show up and take you away, saying that they're arresting you because you're being oppressed.
It's also worth noting that the CNN/MSNBC/Time/AOL/WSJ/XXX uber-report on the election results found that Bush won in most every case but for the most convoluted counting methods (something like count dimples but not hanging chads in four or five counties only.) I truly believe that in a hundred years Bush v. Gore will be hailed as a landmark case for the preservation of voting rights. The catcalls to contrary are sour grapes from people who don't see the big picture.
Certainly democracies have problems. It's not the perfect government model. So, when you find the perfect one, let me know. So far, democracy seems pretty good (yes, yes, I know we have republic not a democracy, but since that's what everyone calls it, I'll do the same.)
-sk
It was there at 10.14 PM GMT and its just been pulled at 10.16 PM GMT
with the obligatory
"This site may have been removed due to a violation of Freeserver's
"Acceptable Use Policy".
luckily google is still there
If you call blowing up things with pipe-bombs "social justice" then you have your head screwed on incorrectly.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
My bad. My point was that we can't always just spout off just "cuz the consteetution sez so". That is what a lot of people think the 1st amendment means. The trade secret exception was only a (poor) example. The top-secret exception is a good example though.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I feel this kid crossed the line in taking the role of cracker and I feel he should be punished accordingly.
However, I am opposed to the comments you made, which I've heard so many time since 9/11, about balancing freedoms with security.
There can be no balance. Our freedoms are guaranteed and the government is limited by our constitution in what they can change and what they cannot. The bill of rights limits government, even though it is not adhered to very well.
If our country's foreign policy has caused us to be under threat of attack (I refuse to say we are at war until there is a declaration of war by congress), then we need to change our foreign policy. If it comes down to foreign policy versus freedoms and liberties, foreign policy loses every time.
Government is not our friend. It serves a purpose and when it stops serving the people it is up to the people to reevaluate its structure and existance. Sometimes it comes to war, but only as an absolute last resort.
I've seen other comments mention our founding fathers and the revolution. What I haven't seen mentioned is that for years the colonists tried to reason with the King to no avail. Ben Franklin spent a considerable amount of time in England trying to get George III to accept our grievances. Lastly, it was over a year into armed hostilities before the second continental congress signed the Declaration of Independence.
This kid was an idiot. Yes he has the right to advocate governmental overthrow and by the laws of nature he is given the right to try to execute those views through force. The government, however, is not oblidged to recognize those laws, and therefore he takes his chances. Now he's caught and will spend the rest of his life mourning the arrogance and stupidity of his youth, but that's his choice.
To summarize, do I agree with what he did...No.
Do I agree with the government's handling of the situation...No.
Do I think our government is doing us dry and just warming up for bigger "ashcroft-thrusts"...yes.
At some time in the future, the citizens of the US will realize just how much they sacrificed when they said, "the government knows best" or when they said, "I'd rather be safe that have dangerous information out in the open for the world to see and use against us." I can only hope that I see that day before the Militarized Police force from the ministry of Love come to drag me from my home because I posted this on slashdot back when we thought we were free.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
My god, did you look at his HTML? It's full of unclosed tags, deprecated tags and elements, and some of it was clearly done in a WYSIWYG editor.
C'mon, either we believe in standards or we don't. Raise your fist against bad code....
I never mentioned prison rape. YOU are the one who filled in the blanks there, you filthy little boy.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
The identity of the victim of a crime isn't relevant as to whether or not a crime was commited.
Kind of hard to prove that there ever was a crime without being able to identify the alleged victim.
Suggesting that the identity of the victim justifies the crime is the same logic used by whackjobs who bomb abortion clinics and shoot people all the while claiming that they're doing God's work.
However in order to prosecute such a shooting or bombing you need both evidence there actually was a shooting or bombing and some ability to tie that to the suspect. As for someone identity being used as justification, if you are big enough that will work. If you want to see it in action, watch the news...
If all this little prick was doing was advocating the overthrow of the government and providing recipes for bombs, believe it or not I'd be right there arguing with him for the right to free speech. I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to my death blah blah blah blah.
But no, this guy was actively trashing web sites, admits to doing so, and then whines that he won't go to jail for what he did, but for his opinions.
No, he'll go to jail because he's just another whiny-assed fucking criminal who got caught, and is trying to hide behind other issues that have nothing to do with his crime.
My opinion is his homepage should now be at lockthecelldoorandthrowawaythekey.com...its like 'ol Beretta said, "if ya can't do the time, don't do the crime".
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I think, by context, he meant "I hope they don't pull a Mitnick, and instead give him a fair chance." I'm not sure, but I think that was the intent.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Absolutely correct. I was first tipped off years ago when I read the recipe for LSD. It suggests adding a small quantity of Strychnine (sic) to the batch of LSD. The Strych acts as a mild stimulant with an annoying body load, serving to increase the likelihood of having a bad trip. The result: more bad trips, fulfillment of The Man's prophecy that LSD causes bad trips, and justification for furthering the WO(S)D.
The first time I did pure (liquid) acid I noticed that the physical effect was somewhere between Valium and H2O--a far cry from Strychnine's effects.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
What difference does it make if you aren't if you say things like "infiltrate the american workforce with non-citizens." I don't give a shit what race you are. And you never brought up illegal immigrants, that's a different issue. But what jobs do they take away? Do you really want to be a janitor for $3.75 an hour? Who complains when they don't get minimum wage? Oh right, they're illegal so they can't.
We still need immigrants, just as america has emmigrants as well. It's called cultural diversity and positive population growth which boosts the economy.
If you actually looked at numbers you would note that if there are any workforce delemmas it is caused more from legal immigrants (especially for the over-use of H1B visas for lower tech worker salaries through the dotcom years) - and if Americans weren't so lazy and poorly educated on average there would be no need to import harder working people for cheaper. Americans have no one to blame but Americans, but like most things, they blame everyone else for the situation they put themselves in.
As for your ethnicity, the great thing about america is you can be racist no matter what race you are. I don't think you are white or any other race. In fact, I don't care. What I do care about is your elitist attitude that american citizens deserve things that non-citizens should have, like a job. Go travel around, see the world and open your american eyes. Just please respect the cultures you see, and try not to embarass your country like so many americans do while travelling.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
The Geneva Convention
The Nuremburg Charter.
Before you think anything about Sept. 11th being something entirely new and especially evil, requiring less due process than in the past, read the Nuremburg Charter. If presumption of innocence is ok for Nazis, it's hard to see when it shouldn't apply.
Also, keep in mind that all this "anti-terrorism" talk uses Bin Laden as their reason for enacting the laws, but the laws are not confined to the acts of Sept 11th, or even confined to "violent" terrorism. There has been much effort to make sure that illegal political acts that don't involve violence fall under the category of "terrorism". Even before Sept 11th, anti-terrorism laws were used to infiltrate and disrupt non-violent activist groups and labor unions.
If a farm owner accuses non-citizen farm workers of illegal acts during a union organizing drive or strike, what is to stop these "anti-terrorism" laws and military tribunals from being used? Again, even before Sept 11th, many newspapers have referred to both violent and non-violent protestors in the U.S. as "terrorists", in many cases equating civil-disobedience (illegal acts intended to achieve a political agenda) with assassinations and mass murder.
And this is nothing new. Dissidents are often called terrorists by repressive governments. Never mind the fundamental differences between the people that destroyed the WTC and people like Martin Luther King.
I lived a few years in Lebanon when they were in war against terrorism, muslims, and I don't know who else at the time. The government was too busy with war so we didn't really have any cops, you could kill a man and noone would give a damn.
To my surprise, crime was a very rare thing. Maybe it was because war made people care about each other a little more or maybe it was because of the fact that there wasn't any government and laws to fear or maybe it's a little of both.
Are you aware of the purpose of a sit in?? The idea is that the business of the Company/Government/Whatever cannot continue until such sit-in has ended. This was the purpose of operation rescue, a sit-in in front of the Abortion clinics so noone could kill a baby. (Not anti-abortion, just making a point.)
Now, in the hypothetical sense, if you knew that they could not put a man (someone you'd save) to death until the computer starts the Lethal Injection machine, you could save that man over a wire. By the same token, you could disrupt the activities of the aforementioned Abortion clinic by taking out their computer, or by taking out the electric company.
What is lame and cowardly, is hiding behind a police force to enforce unfair and discriminatory policies paid for by the people you are intimidating. You would not argue with the violent overthrow of a slave master, and the US Govt. is little more than that.
I don't argue that this LA guy was a whacko, or that we should be publishing bomb information on the internet. But If you really believe that publishing how to make a bomb AT ALL is criminal, lets go lock up Tom Robbins, Einstein, most spy book authors, and the writers of McGuyver. Let's go lock up anyone who has ever written a Chemistry book.
"They'd be better off by actually writing letter to the companies they hate, but of course, that takes actual time and effort." You're joking right?? Yes, we all know that writing a letter to a company gets big notice.
I'm sure that with your long and illustrious history of social activism you would be more than capable of giving us a run down of how you have managed to end 1 or 2 social injustices of the world, and perhaps give us some insight on the best method for changing the world.
At least this person stood for something, no matter how misguided the means. Lame is not doing something stupid to try and stop injustice, lame is doing nothing at all to try and stop injustice.
~Hammy
And here's why.
It amazes me that purported highly-educated people, such as Slashdotters, can conceive of the idea that torture by anal rape is a wonderful idea!
A kid wants to speak out against an administration that has little respect for the constitution? Find a "bomb" threat. Arrest him. Shut his site down. That'll show anyone else who has similar ideas how easily they can be removed.
And prison! Hot damn, right-wingers say, as they eagerly imagine the kid being held down and anally ripped for years on end. Serves him right for not thinking the correct thoughts, huh?
Have you wingnuts, at long last, no decency?
Prison rape is only a problem for the poor slobs who offend the government, in this case, or have lousy representation, being poor or unlucky, or have an unreasonable prosecutor who wants that notch on the reelection gun, or for those who indeed did something wrong. Doing something wrong while wearing a suit or uniform and carrying a briefcase doesn't count. Those types get country club jails and when they get out, radio talk shows.
But here's a point: over half the people in prison are there for drug offenses. And are being raped. This kid mayhap linked or showed information on how to make explosives -- just like Amazon.com.
Which leads me to my next point. The executives at Amazon, eve if hauled into court and convicted on exactly the same charge, would never see the inside of our country's beloved, and highly profitable, rape-torture factories.
Think of this: the top Enron officials stole, and that's the word, at least hundreds of millions of dollars in a corporate mugging of the market and their workers.
A thousand street thieves working for a hundred years would not even approach the astronomical amounts that these well-connected established businessmen stole with their eyes open over months under the cover of 9-11. Anderson shredded documents for weeks to cover the crimes.
Will any of these men see prison? Probably a few, and they'll wear orange jumpsuits, play tennis, do laundry, and eventually get out and, if they do not have millions tucked away in the Caymans, will be hired by their old friends, and make millions. Some will work in future Republican administrations, and no one will bring up their past on TV talk shows. They will never see rape in their country club prisons; they will have lawyers and well-paid and efficient guards who won't look the other way while men are ruining their souls on the floor of their cells.
When I hear "that's what they deserve" from the mouths of leering white males, I feel sick for my culture. We're supposed to be the leaders of the world, so our selected President says, yet we gleefully condemn someone to horror for the crime of saying things someone else doesn't want to hear.
I don't see, by the way, any militia people going to prison en masse for their amassing of guns, explosives, and ammo, or for their advocation of the overthrow of the government. Why is that? Let me answer for you: they are part of the same political scene that elected Bush -- the defenders of Koresh, who think the law is Nazi-like for trying to arrest his army, but have applause for an anarchist getting raped in prison.
And here's a kicker: would you boys be so eager to favor rape as a punishment if this kid was a girl? How's your imagination at thinking of a 18 year old college girl raped for ten years? Gets you all happy, like the thought of this guy's torture?
It doesn't? Why not? It's the SAME SICK THING.
I observe here that an immense part of male aggression seems to dwell on sodomizing male opponents. This seems to be a primal urge, and stems from the repressed homosexuality of American males, I'd wager. Why, O why, does it make all these supposedly well-educated and moral men snigger to think of some kid getting his?
Isn't it the very essence of evil, reducing people to things?
Think about it.
From what the FBI knew, the suspect could have been anything from a whiny script kiddie to a mob leader with a dozen heavily armed bodyguards.
You mean they didn't investigate the building they intended raiding. That would be just stupid.
We had a public ftp server for our clients (no web server installed), seperate from our webserver. Apparently this guy couldn't figure that out. So one day this lame HTML shows up in a space directory on our ftp server, talking about how this site was hacked and owned and all kinds of funny stuff.
.cgi, and all kinds of logged attempts to execute the code in our web logs. We looked through the code and saw that it was actually targeted to a DOD router somewhere.
Then there was the
The code actually launched a ping attack, then called itself again. I think this would have bogged down a machine pretty quick.
I think we contacted some agency (either dod or fbi) and mentioned it and sent the stuff over, but never heard much back.
Jason
A water empire is a place where the government controls some of the essentials needed for life. Originally water (in Egypt), and that's still true, but it's been expanded considerably. Most cities contain less food than is needed to survive for a week (i.e., starvation would being in less than a week). They also depend on external sources of water, electricity, gasoline, etc.
Note that much of this can only be used to prevent insurrections, rather than against individuals. For individuals the preferred control mechanism is cash. It's pretty effective, though not perfect for a variety of reasons. But it doesn't need to be. Revolution is essentially impossible without the death of a large fraction of the population. And the govt. is well aware of this. So are most people, though they prefer not to think about it. It usually only comes up in disaster preparedness scenarios. Unless people get so desperate that they are willing to sacrifice the life of over half of the populace, insurrection via explosives, etc. just won't work. Unless they are targeted at controllers (or centers of control). But don't expect support from the populace. It won't happen. Expect there to be 90 to 1000 people hunting you for every one that supports you even passively. (That's why suicide tactics are so effective, but somehow the designers of such an attack rarely take part in it. Surprise! They're generally worse than the people in power.)
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I note a few posts here from people who say that the kid needed to be taken down because he advocated overthrowing the goverment.
I seem to recall a group of screaming white men outside a recount office in Dade county who could reasonably be described as violently intimidating election officials with the purpose of installing their man into power, votes or no votes.
They didn't run websites, or provide information about subjects readily available at Amazon.
They raided a recount office and intimidated them with threat of riot into stopping the recount.
I don't seem to recall FBI agents raiding their homes. No arrests. Why?
If this kid and his fellow ideologues had stormed the Bush campaign, exactly how many bullets would have been pumped into them?
What is going on here? Selective law enforcement based on the DOJ/FBI's in-house ideological bias.
The First Amendment standards for advocating overthrow/violent action are much higher than your statement lets on. Yes, Justice Holmes' "crowded theater" comment is frequently cited, but it has never been used as any sort of standard or test. The test (refined over the course of many years) is whether or not the speech in question created a "clear and present danger" that such violent action would occur. The clear and present danger test, after Brandenburg v. Ohio, is an extremely diffucult test for the government to pass. Basically, you have to have a massive crowd in front of you, have everyone in the crowd armed with weapons, as essentially control the crowd to the point where you could just yell, "Kill!" and they all would attack before you can be prosecuted. This extremely high bar was/is used because when the test was less stringent, the government was basically trampling all over the rights of alleged Communists/Communist sympathizers (see "McCarthyism"), as well as any other group they didn't particularly like at the time.
Oh, and the Constitution does not provide for abolishing or changing the government. Arguably this can be done through amending the constitution, but I don't think that's what you were getting at. The stuff about casting off an existing government when it fails the people comes from the Declaration of Independence (where it was stolen from John Locke), which is not actually a part of the laws of the USA.
Tuck
Tuck's Journal.
I find it interesting that espousing violent resistance to violations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has been redefined as "violent overthrow of the constitution."
Time to put bomb making instructions on my own web site too. I figure a reprint of the GPO's own pamphlet on how to remove stumps by using the 6 to 1 by weight ratio of amonium nitrate and diesel fuel would be sufficient. Or is that ratio by volume? Hmmm, time for a test on a stump or two out on the back 40.
Government is the one monopoly everyone should fear, and fight against every infringement of their rights.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Non-violent protests should not be met with jail time even if they are disruptive or financially costly to the protested party. If your office descided to unionize and needed to strike, they would and should try to make it as obnoxious as possible for "scabs" without actualy hurting people. Simillarly, people should be allowed to protest online via virtual sitins.
The real fine point of law here is what happens when it's a one person protest who magnifies his protests effectivness via technological tricks like a DDOS. This is really an amazingly subtil point. It would clearly be wrong to prevent a non-violent one person protest in front of your local Kmart just because the guy was some how evvective.. say he made farting noises to get people's attention. COnversly, you would definitly stop him if he were breaking windows. The DDOS attack is more like this hypothetical one person protestor was going though your checkout line, but managing to be very slow about it. Anyway, it's really a very subtil issue.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
A particularly relevant paragraph from chapter 3 reads:
In addition to having allegedly broken some pretty straighforward computer misuse laws this guy was advocating violence against the state. I think that going in with guns drawn was a perfectly reasonable approach.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
>If a farm owner accuses non-citizen farm workers
>of illegal acts during a union organizing drive
>or strike, what is to stop these "anti-terrorism"
>laws and military tribunals from being used?
Umm, the law? The United States Constitution? The language ofthe executive order itself? Common sense? The court system?
hawk