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Raisethefist.com Update
d33l0w3 writes: "It looks like Sherman Austin is off the hook for now. For those of you who missed the previous slashdot posting, Sherman was arrested on Feb. 2 for the contents of his website raisethefist.com. This comes as more of a surprise than the FBI raid on his house." Just a couple of days ago, the government was planning to transfer him to California to face charges there, but now according to Newsbytes, those have been dropped. Read that link I just gave - there's quite a lot of interesting information that came out during the hearing. The attorney's concern about Austin being jacked around in "detention" for an indefinite period of time says a great deal about our judicial system.
I just checked, and of course it is...
Raisethefist was an idiot anarchist website advocating the violent overthrowing of the US Gov't. Therefore, defending this punk is foolish. However, he wasn't raided because of the website. Freedom of expression rights remain intact.
He was raided because he hacked into a number of US government webpages, replacing their front pages with a pointer to his own website. The government agents were heavily armed due to his presented stance on raisethefist. Hell, if it takes assault rifles to retrieve little Elian, it obviously takes a LOT of assault rifles to raid a soi-disant violent anarchist.
Really, now. Are probable 18 year old script kiddies really worth our time?
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
If you go back and read the previous discussion on this, most of the posts were in favor of this guy getting slammed. Why try and bring up support for this guy again? It's obvious it didn't work the first time and that most people here think he should be punished.
Poor Sherman has no reading materials, perhaps they should give him a copy of Atlas Shrugged or Eat the Rich.
Fortunately, they're only dropping the charge of posting explosives information (which is a crock, and definately a violation of his free speech rights), but hopefully they'll still send him up the river for his defacement of corporate websites. If I spray paint "Flander's sucks" on my neighbors house, I'm either going to pay a fine or go to jail. Same goes for someone's website. Of course, I wouldn't expect a "self-described" anarchist to give a damn about individual property rights.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
That instead of reading the articles, you read the court hearing instead. It provides *both* sides of the story, as well as the Judge's comments.
Does anyone else find it just a little ironic that this loser is using the Internet (created by government, propagated by corporations), to spew anti-government and anti-corporate rhetoric?
I hate to make generalizations, but these radical anarchist types are all alike.
On February 3rd of this year, the New York Times had a picture of a teen with grungy clothes and long hair being arrested for inciting an out-of-control protest at the WEF. That teen, Chris Villanella, used to attend my middle school. Back in 8th grade, he was your everyday dirty hippie in the making. Because of his poor grades and general misdemeanor, he was to leave the school in 9th grade. Eventually, he became a habitual drug user, was kicked out of his home, and somehow ended up as the leader of an anarchist 'black block' protesting at the WEF.
Though he says that the protest was completely peaceful and lawful, he marched his 'block' (mob?) with 20 riot shields, obviously disturbing the police forces there. After his block was broken up and he after he was placed under arrest, he was detained with his comrades in a filthy bus. After about 24 hours, they started rocking the bus, breaking windows, and causing general havoc. He was later moved to jail, and was eventually rescued by his parents (after they saw him on the front cover of the newspaper).
Of course, now he thinks that he's some sort of fucking hero who endured the oppression of our totalitarian government. He and his cell-mates are going to write a collective essay on their experiences. Considering that they haven't had one full year of high school combined, I can only imagine what kind of tripe they'll be pushing.
I see the Raisethefist guy in the same light. Fine, he's some guy running a webserver with anarchist material directing against the Feds. Now that he's been detained for 'absolutely no reason', he'll try to put all the blame on the Big Bad Government. Anyone else see why this is *really* lame?
I don't like anarchism, but anarchists are even fucking worse.
I agree. And before everyone posts 'It's not legal to yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre,' I'll justify your statement. The theatre yell directly harms people by the act itself. The speech aspect is secondary. On the other hand, when dealing with instructions for committing illegal activities, the speech is primary. And we assume the harm will be carried out by readers, who will then go on to commit crimes.
But the speech acts as an enabler, so we should outlaw it, right? The problem becomes deciding which instructions for illegal activities should not be allowed. Fine, everyone agrees that bomb-making instructions are bad. But what about civil disobedience instructions? What about instructions for breaking an encryption? What about instructions for hiding money from the government? Which will we allow and which will we not?
The entire concept of the First Ammendment is that the government will never have the chance to make any of those decisions. The protection works by fencing off a whole area of public life from legislation. Sure, everyone could think of one or two laws that would improve society, but it is not worth tearing down the fence to do it.
1. They don't know fertilizer from potting soil.
2. They can't tell wires, a gas can and duct tape from implements of mass destruction.
3. They can't transport a suspect across the country in less than six weeks - not only could he beat that with a car, he could beat it with a bicycle for Pete's sake.
4. They can't arrange a change of clothes or a shower for a prisoner in four days.
5. They can't tell a snotty mouthy kid from a terrorist.
But don't worry - we're safe because these people are protecting us. Hah. And don't worry about them violating your civil liberties - these clowns couldn't organize a drunken party in a beer factory.
Your tax dollars at work. Sheeesh.
True, that is covered by the right to bear arms, also a constitutional right, covered in the second ammendment.
Please note that 'arms' is a generically unlimited term. The current focus on guns is a bit of legal slight of hand. Here in NY state I can walk down Main Street with a rifle and I am in within my legal rights, but the *possesion* of a wrist braced *slingshot* is a felony. This is unconstitutional, but who has the 10 years and $50K to fight it?
One also might wonder just how one goes about 'regeistering' a Molotov cocktail with the
FBI.
Comes to that, my local supermarket is crammed full of petroleum products and explosive devices.
What are they going to do next, ban exothermic chemical reactions?
KFG
for what he *did,* not what he said.
.$100 fine and 40 hrs. community service.
There is a distinct difference.
If everyone who ever said "I'll kill you" was guilty of murder we'd all be on death row.
Possesion of petroleum products would also see most of us behind bars.
Most of us have never defaced a website with malice aforethought.
He ought to get bitchslapped for that. Yes. And hard. Like. .
KFG
But the speech acts as an enabler, so we should outlaw it, right? The problem becomes deciding which instructions for illegal activities should not be allowed. Fine, everyone agrees that bomb-making instructions are bad. But what about civil disobedience instructions? What about instructions for breaking an encryption? What about instructions for hiding money from the government? Which will we allow and which will we not?
The critical point is that somehing that is violent in nature is prohibited. Look at your examples. Civil disobediance instructions are one thing. I'm assuming you're refering to tactics used by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi. Those aren't a problem, per se, and I doubt you would see a government agency trying to curb those type of instructions. Encryption is a diffucult issue, and I'm not going to dwell upon it, because that is a large can of worms in itself. Hiding money must be illegal, or you will have half the jackasses in the country not filing tax returns for "political beliefs", or some such bullshit.
What I really take issue with is when someone implies or says that everything should be protected, due to that fact that the judgement of others may be incorrect or go too far. Well, welcome to a democracy, Bub. It's easy to sit there like an armchair quarterback and cry "foul" whenever the line is crossed. Yes, there will be mistakes and problems. Laws written by people and enforced by people always will be, by definition, imperfect. But to suggest that teaching people to engage in patently illegal, and especially dangerous, activites should be protected is BS. What if the government did nothing to stop it? Morons who want to build bombs or chemical weapons because they don't like the government ought to have easy access to this information? Is that really what you're suggesting? Think about it: That information is provided for a reason. This idiot kid wasn't putting up bomb instructions because he thought it would be a good thing for someone to know if the question ever came up in Trivial Pursuit. He wants to see the violent overthrow of the government. I know, hell, let's let them. Let the overthrow the government, and if we don't like it, then we can overthrow that one. And so on and so forth, until we plunge into total anarchy.
Don't get me wrong, I think free speach is one of the most vital of our rights. But don't sit there and say that hard judgements and tough calls shouldn't be made, simply beacuse you fear the results. If you're really worried about it, join the FBI or the Justice Department and then someday you can be the one making the tough calls. Although, I suspect you'd end up explaining to a roomfull of reporters why a 6th-grader made mustard gas and unleashed it at his school with instrutions he downloaded from a website you didn't want to shut down. Your arguments are good ones, but you're not thinking to the next step: consequences. Thanks.
Which country do you live in?
It's not illegal to call for a revolution. That's what Thomas Jefferson did, remember "We pledge our lives and our sacred honor" "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots"? Doesn't Bush call for the spilling of blood every other day, in some manichean war?
It seems reasonable that if you have a (perfectly legal) website which includes describing molotov cocktails that you actually have made these cocktails and some are in your home. As long as they are not used, you have a right to do this. Do you have a gun in your house? A gun is far more dangerous than some petrol in a bottle. Maybe we should arrest all the groups who argue against excessive govt. powers and who also stockpile arms. They also call for revolution.
And all he did was protest -- the only charges filed against him were jaywalking, not dispersing, conspiracy to not disperse, etc. The FUD about "weapons of mass destruction" and "terrorism" amounted to nothing more than duct tape and potting soil. Unlike the FBI, he never committed any violence, did not lie about his identity, and did not hide from any courts. Moreover he is not a terrorist. Read the trial transcripts before you're so quick to shout "terrorism" in a crazed nation.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Just because they didn't find anything it doesn't mean he wasn't going to do something.
I see. This is sort of like the opposite of innocent until proven guilty. But who knows, if you prefer the pre-emptive strike approach, there are plenty of third world regimes which share your suspicion of protesters.
If I am a cop and I see a kid with a gas mask at a protest I am going to definitely just looking for him to do something wrong.
Sounds reasonable. But the anaogy is if you are a protester and have been gassed before (simply for protesting) then you might decide to bring a mask the next time -- I hope that sounds reasonable to you, too.
Moreover, there is a difference between "watching" a suspicious person before he does something wrong, and arresting him, holding him incommunicado for 4 days, and detaining him for an additional 10 days before you realize that you don't have any real evidence against him, and of course keeping his car and wallet.
Moreover, in their attempt to keep him in jail the FBI lied to at least one judge, spread lots of FUD, and acted in an abusive way, generally. Now you should agree that that's a lot different from "keeping an eye out" when someone wears a gas mask. The problem is that if the target is unpopular or upsets people in this post 9/11 nation, then the govt. can do just about anything they want to him, and they will keep the sympathy of people such as yourself. I hope you rethink your views on this.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
he was detained for 4 days without access to a phone (or lawyer).
he was denied bail because the FBI claimed he was a menca to the community .. and then dropped the charges against him.
during the bail hearing they accused him of possessing "weapons of mass destruction" and of being a terrorist -- they lied to the judge in order to keep him in jail.
Maybe you have no problems with the above points, but I do. This is not a "conspiracy theory" -- read the story.
It would be rather difficult to gain evidence for a criminal case without inconvenience to those poor, mistreated suspects.
If you can explain to me how the above points were needed to gain evidence or investigate, then be my guest.
The FBI investigated him for over a month before this and found, basically, nothing. But even if these steps are necessary, and everyone who is arrested can be treated this way, several laws as well as constitutoinal amendments would need to be repealed to justify this sort of treatment.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Minor mistake in your subject line: "How innocent people are treated." Or doesn't "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" apply any more, and has the USA joined the proud club of banana republics? Hey, guess what, they even dropped charges against the guy....
Just to avoid confusion caused by my sarcasm, I agree completely with your post.
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.