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Linking Dangerously
indole writes "Some /.'ers might remember the story of Sherman Austin, a Californina native who created the "anarchy" website raisethefist.com. Besides posting links to bomb-making instructions, the site caught the ire of the FBI for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. Well, approximately 18 months later Sherman Austin, now age 20, has been sentenced to 1 year in federal prison. According to Austin, 'he took a plea bargain because he feared his case was eligible for a terrorism enhancement, which could have added 20 years to his sentence.' Doubleplusungood."
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.Raisethefi st.com
The internet archive has the site archived from many dates over the past several years.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
You know, our founding fathers fought the revolutionary war for less that this, you'd think we ( as a nation ) would stop being sheep and fucking standup for what is right.
But then, the TV doesn't tell us to, so we aren't allowed to think for ourselves.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Yup. The plea agreement is that the defendant will plead guilty to charge X, and (usually) the DA will recommend a particular sentence, or drop other charges. The judge has the final discretion, and he can (albeit rarely) overrule the plea agreement if he feels that it was unreasonable. In an extreme case, if a DA made a deal with a mass murderer where the murderer would serve 5 days for 100 murders, the judge could reject the deal and assign a different penalty. By the same token, the judge could reject a plea deal that carried a 50 year sentence for a jaywalking conviction. In this case, though, there doesn't really seem to be any reason for the judge to reject the deal.
Excuse me, but didn't the Supreme Court say that such penalties were unconstitutional, coincidentally just days after Mitnick's similar restrictions ended?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Actually, it's NOT BS. If you look at all the OTHER issues in his case, convieniently listed here and here. His crime was NOT linking sites, but hacking other sites. The addition of "explosives" issues and call to action to use those links is akin to inciting to riot. The Feds had him cold, and he copped a plea. What's the big deal here ?
WTF are you talking about? Oh yeah, you didn't RTFA. I'll summarize:
Not only did he have an anarchist's web site that linked to bomb making sites, AND he advocated overthrowing the goverment, but, and here's the kicker...
"Austin was arrested with other protesters at the World Economic Forum in New York in February 2002 on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly. "
He wasn't just preaching.. he was practicing what he preached. Therefore, he posed a REAL threat, not a virtual one.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
come on, let's not be so naive. Congress has the ability and has exercised the power to restrain speech that is deemed injurious to the public.
This includes the "fire in a crowded theater" where the consequences of the speech are a stampede. And it also includes restraint based on content -- for example threats directed towards people whether online or in real life (and courts have endoresed these restraints even when the speech was made in a private email, though I think an appellate reversed that decision), or threats directed against the government.
And, all else fails, it'll go to appeal. that ban on political participation has got to be unconstitutional.
Four minutes after posting 10 replies are crying that the government has violated his first amendment rights... let's not forget that the dumbass cracked into several sites (including the army), defaced them, inserted nasty little cgi scripts and happily posted DoS tools. On top of all this he admitted that he did all this. He even said, "If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think..." The moron got what he wanted. They're sending him away on his actions, not what he thinks.
As for the scare bit about "an extra 20 years for the terrorism..." that's a troll for getting the story picked up. Even if he had gone to trial, the extra 20 years isn't a mandatory thing - it's a maximum sentence of up to 20 years. In the end he probably would have ended up in the same spot or gotten an extra year. I can't belive this is even worth digging up again, but hey, it's a slow newsday.
But the word "peaceably" is not attached to the right to free speech or press. It is only attached to the right for the people to peaceably assmble (ie, it's ok to stand outside Congress and protest something, but not ok to start a riot over it).
You could argue that the "you can't shout fire in a crowded theather" refinement the Supreme Court has added would also cover bomb making instructions, but I disagree. You can't shout fire because it would cause direct damage to people (stampeed). But knowing how to make a bomb and posessing instructions on how to make a bomb and even sharing those instructions/knowledge does not cause direct damage to other people. A person would have to choose to make that bomb and then use it to hurt others. Let me highlight that special word: choose. Having knowledge or sharing it is not the same as hurting someone directly.
Space for rent, inquire within
the site caught the ire of the FBI for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Let's see what Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers on this nation, had to say about the subject.
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787.
" . . . forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. . . . The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Letter to William Stephens Smith, Nov. 13, 1787.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
Warning: IANAL.
First take a look at the search warrant issued against the home of Austin.
What we see here is that he's being suspected of breaking two specific laws.
18 USC 1030 - Computer Fraud
Austin is charged under this because he was suspected of being responsible for several defacements which are detailed in the warrant. Looking at what's in the warrant there seems to be more than enough evidence to support this charge.
18 USC 842(p)(2) - Unlawful Distribution of Information Relating to Explosives, etc...
In the search warrant are several quotes from raisethefist.com in which information about explosives is provided along side some comments that encourage this knowledge be used against police officers.
Here's the exact quote from 18 USC 842 (p)(2)(A):
to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence;
Clearly what Austin did, provide information about explosives within the context of causing harm to others with said knowledge, falls under this law.
From the information that I have available it seems very apparent that Austin did commit crimes under current US law.
Now had Austin removed suggestions for use of this bomb making knowledge and just presented it in a separate, straight-forward format, he could not be charged under 18 USC 842.
However, he still defaced some sites and thus is still in violation of 18 USC 1030.
Remember, IANAL, but this seems pretty straightforward to me. No freedom of speech issue here.
Where did you find this information? CNN: "Austin, 20, pleaded guilty in February to distributing information related to explosives."
No place do I see anything about breaking into government computers. But you're probibly a troll anyway.
Naturally, raisethefist.com is pretty much devoid of content now. Fortunately for thos of us who like to know firsthand what the news is about, the Internet Archive has several backups of the site and what it's about.
"Austin was arrested with other protesters at the World Economic Forum in New York in February 2002 on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly. "
WTF are you talking about? Oh yeah, you didn't RTFA. [snip] He wasn't just preaching.. he was practicing what he preached. Therefore, he posed a REAL threat, not a virtual one.
It has become increasingly difficult to practice our freedom of peaceful protest, so don't be so quick to write this guy off as a "real threat".
I was at the WEF protest in NYC, too. Cops were turning some people away from the protest, pinning other people behind barricades and not letting them leave the protest, packing hundreds into some pens while leaving other pens with only a handful of people. Numerous people who disagreed were arrested. One cop nearly pushed me over when he hit me in the back with his club when I stopped to ask another cop for directions (politely) as we were leaving. . .
While I disagree with the outcome of this particular case, I have to make a comment about your over-general statement regarding civil liberties. Civil liberties are a a God-given part of being human, and as citizens in a free society we have the right to demand them. Chief amongst these are free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. However, many of these rights (though they cannot be taken away by the government acting of its own volition) can be taken away by the people as punishment for actions outside legal and societal norms. For example, if I've been convicted of being involved in a corrupt enterprise (the Mafia, for example), a jury of my peers has found (or I've plead guilty) that my association with these people endangers society. Therefore, as a result of my actions, the people (acting through the state) have the right to restrict my freedom to associate (assemble) with my former conspirators.
"A "sneak and peek" warrant authorizes law enforcement officers to enter private premises without the occupant's permission or knowledge and without informing the occupant that such a search was conducted."
Nope. The situation still REQUIRES that the occupant be informed. You got it wrong, no surprise.
" Fourth Amendment? Who needs it, "
We do. And it stays intact, with "reasonable" and "warrants" still required.
Good points. I probably started posting before I'd seen enough of the site that got this guy into trouble. Here is an archive.org cache of the site from last year.
a is ethefist.com/index1.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20020826014358/www.r
Nope, your speach is not harmful. If you said "George Bush gave me a hummer and then cheated on his taxes" that would be harmful speach (assuming it were not true). I suggest doing a search on goole for "slander" and "libel" and you'll learn the difference.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Google on Sherman Austin and Hacking
Pick your own site.
"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."
"Austin has also admitted to hacking into a number of websites to post anti-government messages."
For those claiming this is a free speech issue alone, last I checked freedom of speech didn't include freedom of breaking and entering someone else's computer system in order to speak from their platform.
No Zen is good zen
Here and Here
The kid was hacking websites (and attempted to hack military computers according to logs on his computer) JUST AFTER congress passed the PATRIOT act which equated:
Politically Motivated Hacking = Terrorism
Stupid kid was asking for trouble.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Professor Touretzky of Carnegie Mellon University maintains a web page with much detailed information on this case. Apparently, he doesn't agree with Sherman's acts, but is at odds with the free-speech component of this case.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/
I'm all for free speech...and gladly advocate protecting people's right to make opposing viewpoints. That said, Title 18 has been around for a long time, and if you didn't know that it was illegal to advocate the violent overthrow of the government when you did it, then it sucks to be you.
Just another day in Paradise
Link to warrant/affidavit and other info. Here
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
I'm sorry, just about every time I turned on the TV when the war started (and not just CNN) was:
We are still free. As proof, you can still buy the Anarchists Cookbook from Amazon. The law this guy broke reads as follows (emphasis added):
It shall be unlawful for any person-
(A) to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence; or
(B) to teach or demonstrate to any person the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute to any person, by any means, information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, knowing that such person intends to use the teaching, demonstration, or information for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence.
We can teach how to blow each other up OR violently overthrow the government - just not both at the same time.
The conviction is for not deleting links to information on explosives that were posted to his site by someone else:
All this crap about hacking is obviously fake or they would certainly have convicted him of that too.
France, Germany and the Soviet Union also played nice with Iraq, actually the three of them had closer ties than the US did.
The United States backed Iran through the 1970s, then Saddam took over at about the same time the Iranian Revolution happened so the United States started to back Iraq to keep them from falling to the Iranians. The whole goal of the West and Soviets in the Middle East at this time to keep no one from winning the upper hand.
The vast amounts of Soviet and French equipment being poured into Iraq shifted the balance of power and the Iranians/Americans/Israelis and rouge Saudis cut deals to get new Hawk-I missiles and parts for the Iranian UH-1s and F-4 operating then both the Iranians and Iraqis start attacking tankers.
When the Iraqis gased the Kurds there were two little things going on that limited a Western response to the gassing. The Cold War, Iraq is kind of close geographically to the Soviet Union and I'm sure B-52s and F-15s over Tikrit wouldn't fly in Moscow. And there was the Iran-Iraq war coupled with the fact that the Turks don't like the Kurds and they were an important part of the Southern Front NATO had to the Warsaw Pact. In short in the late 1980s international pressures and the Cold War paradigm kept anyone from acting out.
Now the United States and the West does have some dealings with the Iraqis in dual-use chemicals and technologies, but shit, if you ship someone the instructions on how to make Prussian Blue dye you are giving them the ability to make Zyklon-B poison gas. You sell someone some packing peanuts and gasoline and they can make napalm.
You know that in the 1950s the US and French were shipping nuclear reactors all over along with big tomes of stuff like "Atoms for Peace" is what gave Iraq and Pakistan the seed for thier nuclear programs?
Slashdotters judge for yourself whether the content of his webpage was grounds for imprisonment:
archive.org mirrors back to September, 2000.
GWB has used the phrase "with us or against us" several times.
Q Mr. President, does it appear that Iran is flexing its muscles in Western Afghanistan, and does that threaten the U.S. war on terrorism in that region?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror; that our nation and our fight against terror will uphold the doctrine, either you're with us or against us; and any nation that thwarts our ability to rout terror out where it exists will be held to account, one way or the other.
Source - vote-smart.org presidential speeches pageThat doesn't have to be true. People take a plea bargin because they know that some large percent of the legal system is completely broken and they never know which side of the percentile they are on. Taking a plea bargin has absolutely nothing to do with guilt or innocense. It's called mitigating your risks, plain and simple.
Give a coin to a stranger, ask that person to flip it for you. If it's tails, you go to jail. If it's heads, you go free. Furthermore, if it's tails, flip again. If it's tails again, add on tens years to your stay. Believe it or not, going to court is more or less just like that. Don't believe me, ask any reasonable lawyer.
This is why many people plea bargin and even in some extreme cases, confess to something they didn't do. There are studies that actually support something like a large single digit of confessions are false. In these cases, they still go to jail. This is spite of the fact that evidence actually shows they didn't commit the crime. In fact, some of these cases have enough evidence to convict someone else, however, they are still not freed from jail.
The legal systems are nothing but a crap shoot, with the winner often being the person with the biggest wallet. Remember, courts have ZERO to do with justice!
First, if you're ever arrested and read your rights, the person reading them will conclude with something like "Do you understand these rights as I have read them?" The correct answer to this is always, "No, I don't." This isn't being facetious either -- without a background in law and how the exercise (or not) of those rights will affect your legal position, you are in no way capable of understanding the full ramifications.
Secondly, if you're ever in a position where you're being interrogated, the answer to any question is always, "I want my lawyer." Never, under any circumstances, agree to anything unless you have first spoken to your lawyer. Oh, and here's a freebie... even if you have 25 heavily armed agents in riot gear storming your house, remember this piece of advice: right after you shit your pants, always ask to see their search warrant. No warrant, and they'll need to take that double-barrel shotgun elsewhere, thank you very much.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Sherman originally wanted to. But he's a 21 year old good kid, who's never been charged with any serious crime (although he has been shot once by a plastic bullet for filming a protest, still has a piece of it lodged in his knee, and he's been detained a few times for "Disorderly conduct" and "failure to disperse" at protests.), he's in love, and quite frankly, the thought of spending 20 years in prison scared the fuck out of him. He was originally only going to spend 4 months in prison, so he was like "Allright, big fucking deal."
You're not the first in this thread to bring it up.
If you'll remember your American history, the revolution took place because there were no other options. Does the phrase "taxation without representation" ring a bell? The American people were under British rule, yet had no say in the government. We've figured out how to get that representation in a peaceful manner since then.
It's called an election.
I agree with a previous poster: whoever won would claim legitimacy. However, curiously enough, in the USA there is actually a *legal* way to overthrow the government: seek to convene a Constitutional Convention. A Constitutional Convention can be legally convened if enough states call for it and it's not limited to *anything.* It can rewrite laws, add, delete or change Constitutional Amendments, or rewrite the whole darn Constitution for that matter. It can, by doing so, abolish or alter any of the 3 branches of government, or add more if it wants to. Effectively, it can legally do the same things that a revolution would accomplish.
Some cops do go to a protest looking for trouble. At some protests, the higher ups "pump up" the cops by telling them that we are racists or neo-nazi's and in one case told the cops that we had "bags of urine we were preparing to throw at them or had already thrown at them" (i heard this from a new york cop). In new york city, riot duty is not-required, only cops who want to bust heads sign up. Many nyc cops look down on the nyc riot cops as sicko's. I've seen nyc riot cops break peoples fingers who were handcuffed, and were not resisting. They don't "just have a club" they have a range of weapons, riot cops normally have a club, a gun, pepper spray, and in many cases flame resistant body armor. The frontline riot cops in new york are backed up by snipers teams, armored personal carriers, mounted police and cops with assualt rifles. "at least 20 to 1" in nyc the cops typically outnumber the protesters. At all of the protests I've been to only two where we did outnumber the cops. I rememeber a protest in boston, where the anarchists were surrounded by "special operations cops" (outnumbering us 2 to 1), outside of that they were flanked by a row of horses on the right and a row on the left, with 2 lines of spec ops motorcycle cops in front and 2 lines behind with a few fast responce vans following the march. About 18 anarchists about 80 cops, all of them armed with guns, pepper spray, shackles, and a pissed off expression. They pushed them around and yelled abuse at them from time to time, threated them, told them to shut up. If you would like evidence of any of this, look on the web, or goto a major protest. This is not a secret.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,794163 ,00.html
One more thing as well, do not fear the loud obnoxious drunk guy at the bar. Fear instead the quiet one who sits in the back and keeps his anger in.
There are 82 juvenile offenders on the death row in US cuurently (other countries that execute juvenile offenders are Iran, Pakistan, Congo,Yemen.. nice company).
From 1976 to 2001, total of 749 people have been executed (256 of those in Texas).
So don't tell me nobody is killed in USA.
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"