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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.
It has to be, or it doesn't work at all. It breaks done and ceases to protect anyone but those with 'popular' speech.
In this case, it looks like there's a possiblity that he may have committed crimes... real crimes... such as vandalising websites.
Everything else, posting bomb-making instructions, advocating the overthrow of the government, should be *strictly* protected speech under the 1st Amendment.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Has anyone read through the article? The FBI's confiscated the computers, and they contain letters plotting to take on the Olympics, maybe in a form of domestic terrorism. They also confiscated some items they say were bomb-making materials. Free Speech doesn't cover making your point with explosives!
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# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I agree, this guy is probably a script kiddie, and in this particular instance, he may deserve to be prosecuted. But you paint with a broad brush.
For one thing, not all anarchists are out building bombs and assassinating archdukes. Anarchism is not idiocy. It may not be viable, because it presumes that people will act as mature adults. But it does provide a useful counterpoint to the totalitarian police state that the U.S. is becoming.
Why is it foolish to defend someone's right to advocate violent overthrow of the government? Isn't that exactly what was advocated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence? Is the current government of the U.S., led by a President whose election was of questionable legitimacy, any more overbearing, unresponsive, and corrupt than that of George III?
After reading that court transcript in full, it's scary how much weight his website writings had in regards to the way the judge percieved his character as a "flight risk". I'm certainly not saying he wasn't guilty of other things but it seems that the defending attorney definately had a point when she said that he hadn't acted in violence at all.
Every time one of these web site related cases arises it's as if the ideas of free speech and first amendment rights are evolving into nothing more than an illusion which, when extrapolated further, could also describe American democracy itself.
I'm not anti-american by any means, i'm just saying people need to give these kinds of issues more attention.
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|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
I have a canister of 87 gas in my garage? Can that be considered a unlicensed ultra sized molotov cocktail?
:(
What about Special Edition crown royal that is wrapped in cloth, can that be considered unlicensed molotov cocktail in late stage of development since alcohol is flamable?
Biggest Molotov cocktail to date: Boeing 737 and the people that used it are still at large
Further, it is ironic that the poster of this story, Michael Sims, has been accused by his former partner in running censorware.org, of effectively censoring that website because people questioned his authority and he happened to control the domain (which he still does, censorware have been forced to set up shop at censorware.net because Sims is still squatting on censorware.org).
The Slashdot editors seem to believe that they are justified in censoring comments which users clearly want to see (as shown by positive user moderation), and if anyone doesn't like it, they should go somewhere else.
Of course, they are right, but their attitude suggests that they believe they are what are valuable about this website, not the users who share their knowledge and opinions in these forums.
Is this comment "off topic"? I challenge the editors to let the readers of this website decide.
Here's a quote from this little darling, read by the judge:
"Yeah, motherfucker, I'm a terrorist to the U.S. Government. I'm a terrorist to capitalism, not to innocent people. I'm a terrorist to the evil system that's terrorizing all of us. Fuck the Government.
I hope they burn in fucking hell right back where they came from, motherfuckers. You can't fool all the people. We know your fucking style."
Here is another quote read by the prosecutor:
"We don't gather weapons, plan extreme operation, and risk our lives for nothing. This is real."
So even if the guy isn't a terrorist, he is spectacularly foolish, why would anyone expect to write this and be ignored. It is a testament to his coddled spoiled existence that he thinks that this is acceptable behaviour.
He doesn't need protected from the FBI, we need protected from him. He's a NUT, with aspirations to acts of extreme violence, including grandiose fantasies of using weapons of mass destruction against governments. I don't care if he meant what he said, I don't need to waste time worrying about it, if someone says this kind of crazy thing they should go to one of two places, jail or the nut house. I don't care which, but this isn't about speach, it's about unbridled threats of violence.
This basically says that the purpose of the United States government is to protect it's citizens.
When this twit decided to make bomb-making instructions available to anyone, regardless of how irresponsible they are, he was just trying to find someone else to blow up public buildings because he was too afraid to. Allowing people to do this in no way "promotes the general welfare." It only increases the likelihood of innocents being killed.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
I work for an organization that attempts to solve the problem of world hunger. I work my but off every day to try to contribute to the understanding of food rights and food security through research and media outreach. There are 850 million people in the world who do not get enough calories to sustain their daily activities.
Prior to my employment at my current job, I worked as a technician at the USDA, in a food safety lab, attempting to curb the rampant spread of E. Coli, Campylbacter, and Salmonella, which is propagated in no small part by huge, unregulated meat industry companies.
What do you do?
The video camera I used was indeed made by a corporation, but I have to decide between using it and having no witness to possible police violence. I always take a camera with me because the police often violate demonstrators' civil rights, and I need to have a record of their actions (they are our police, after all).
Having a camera doesn't always help. At the most recent demonstrations outside the Democratic Convention last year, the LAPD would round up people's backpacks and cameras, throw them into garbage trucks, and crush the protestors property into dust. The police, however, will always stand guard outside NikeTown and Starbucks, companies who both contribute to terrible labor rights violations (Nike: buys shoes from manufacturers who pay crap wages, Starbucks: buys coffee beans from producers who pay workers crap wages).
I wasn't born with a silver-spoon in my mouth, I share a studio in the bay area cause it is so expensive to rent. By the way, the camera is owned by a non-profit org that allows mant people to use it. It is not centrally owned. It was also used to make a documentary about the Cesar Chavez Holiday in CA.
What did you say you do again?
If he's a real anarchist, then shooting him should be perfectly legal. After all, he believes in the rule of the jungle.
1) That's not what many (most?) anarchists believe. Most don't view anarchism as a philosophy of government but as a meta-analysis -- i.e. How should we evaluate power? -- with the idea that as soon as some power structure is no longer absolutely necessary, then it should be dismantled. Anarchim is a process of constantly questioning and reevaluating how much power people cede to institutions.
1a) Even if that is what they believed, it would not make shooting them "legal" or justifiable.
2) Many believe in the "rule of the jungle" -- in some aspects. For instance, Reagan rejected the decisions of the World Court when the US was convicted of terrorism in Nicaragua (killing civilians, mining the harbors, etc.). Bush (jr.) violated international law by attacking afghanistan without a resolution in the UN Security Council, or even in the general assembly. That is also a form of anarchism, and by your logic, this means that it would be "legal" to shoot the entire Defense department and heads of government of almost all nations.
3) But I suspect the real reason why you think shooting anarchists is ok has nothing to do with their perceived lack of respect for law and order. Several presidents and law enforcement organizations have routinely flouted and continue to ignore/subvert their own regulations and outside checks on their powers. So perhaps the deciding factor here is not anarchism but the fact that you find this person's views distateful, and so it's ok to shoot him, in which case you've more in common with him than you realize.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Said anarchist is unfazed and travels to NYC anyway and gets nabbed.
Summit is now over with no real "incidents". Suddenly, the FBI is all sorry for the inconvenience. (but good luck getting your computers, papers, car, and other misc. property back).
So what we have here are possibly pre-emptive raids by the Feds. Possibly to shut him up and intimidate him. I would not be suprised if this happens again to someone else when some more corporate/government bigwigs try to pow-wow in another American city.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit