Slashdot Mirror
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."
I thought it was common knowledge that you don't disagree with the government.
I'm worried for a friend of mine who runs an informative site on Arab nations. It seems that excersise of First Amendment rights puts a big bullseye for Patriot Act and all sorts of unnecessary national defense matters.
(maybe i should have posted as anon. coward...!)
You should probably go and shoot him in the head. Quickly!
Wilson said he also may not associate with anyone from a group that "espouses physical force as a means of change."
does that include the US government?
Sure, there must be a freedom of speech, but with freedom comes also responsibility. That's what you people over there seem to have forgotten. Inciting people into a violent revolt that thretens the stability of the entire society is not responsible. Talk like this should be dealt harshly with.
I once updated my web page while driving drunk and blindfolded accross landmines, all the while eating food from arby's.
I didn't know they can just ignore the plea agreement. Won't that come in handy with terrorists? "I agreed to 1 year, your honor!" "But I don't feel like it. You get the chair!"
Excuse me while I move to Canada....
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Glad to see the REAL criminals being put where they belong, hey aren't ALL the Enron executives still free?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
This to me is just scary. Yes he was giving instructions on how to make chemical reactions work. Whoopdeedo! We live in America, and in the america i grew up in we don't censor information from the public. And he wasn't realyl even giving instructions - he never (AFAIK) disseminated the information, he just linked to it. It's like being arressted for telling people that you KNOW how to make bombs....
But the most scary thing of all is this qoute from this website: "(5) he cannot associate with any person or group that seeks to change the government in any way (be that environmental, social justice, political, economic, etc.), "
How can the courts do that? This guy has rights that cannot under any circumstances be taken away. Part of those rights are freedom of speech - expecially political freedom of speech - and policital freedom of speech again AFAIK is only when you want to try to change the government somehow.
This guy got shafted by a horrible judge who shouldn't be allowed to work. If i were president, or governer i would pardon this man becuase he doesn't deserve to have his life ruined for such a simple thing as disseminating information.
As a highschooler what am I to think growing up? Do we really have our Bill of Rights anymore? Every day i see more news about parts of it being chipped away - of course all in the name of protecting the country from terrorism. (since free speech, habius corpus, etc are an evil evil thing... ) BULLSHIT!
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...
key word being "peaceably";
"links to bomb-making instructions, the site
caught the ire of the FBI for advocating the
overthrow of the U.S. government"
Last I checked...bombs weren't peaceful.
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
As I recall, this individual wasn't prosecuted for what he said. It was because he was trying to break into military computers. What did he expect to happen?
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Sherman said it in his narrative on the site:
"Remember, fascism and a police state doesn't come all at once, it comes piece by piece. How far will we allow it go until we are all locked up in concentration camps."
The government has basically forbid this guy from criticizing the system. I hope that this sends a message to everyone in the same situation to not plead down, and to raise as much hell as possible.
Why is it, that when someone describes in layman terms some basic exothermic chemistry, they are public enemy number 1? Should we hang the acedemics for teaching this chemistry? I am concerned about the wider scale of such generalized concepts in which people are categorized as criminals for learning and retaining knowledge that makes other's feel threatened. From cell phone cloning, to virus generation, to installing NOS on a car, and flying a non FAA Wright Flyer replica. People are increasingly punished for creativity, when they should be punished only for the dangerous and harmful actions they commit. I do not care that I was hit with a rock tied to a stick (tomohawk)only that I was attacked and hit in the first place.
The guy pleaded out for fear of an additional 19 years in the Pen. So the FBI gets their conviction, because of terrorism leverage.
Meanwhile, here in San Diego, enviro freaks burned down a $20 million condo project, and the owner is not going to get insurance because the policy didn't cover "terrorism." Probably 400 people out of work.
When gov't or anyone for that matter plays the terrorism card to its advantage, we ALL lose.
Is anyone going to protest this or try to lobby to get this guy's sentence overturned? Or well, *something*? I had no idea this was going on, but I'm pretty pissed now that I know. This seems totally out of question as a ruling and a punishment, how can they even argue he committed a *crime*?
If anyone knows of something others can do, please post here. I'm too unorganized in my personal life at the moment to spearhead anything, but I'd like to participate if anyone else has gotten the ball rolling. This whole thing makes me feel unsafe in my own country.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
PC niceties are fucking killing this country. Racial profiling is evil, so let's submit 90-year old caucasian women to strip searches, just like that nice Saudi gentleman over there. All in the name of social equality.
9/11 changed the rules. The sooner everyone realizes that, the better we'll all be off. Perhaps this kid would have been just another weirdo with a badly designed website in a past life. But this is another world. Our insistence of making believe that everything is OK and should remain exactly the same is pointless and stupid. Let's get with the program. No, it's not nice to send nice youngsters to jail because of what they said in their website. OTOH, if he wants to overthrow the fucking government perhaps he'd like to move to Liberia or Burma. Those governments provide great infrastructure, defense and civil liberties.
As long as you speak the new speak and waive your flag.
Any other opinions that you think should be illegal? Perhaps anyone who advocates breaking Microsoft up? Or SCO's assertion that Linux includes their IP?
Or is it just people who verbally advocate murder that you'd jail? Like, say, anyone who says we should kill Saddam Houssein if we find him?
Please post a complete list of the opinions that you believe it should be illegal to express.
Cheers
-b
... like the guys who put up the websites with a hit list for abortion doctors and celebrating everytime someone nuked one of them?
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
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)
He claimed to be an anarchist, but advocated replacing the United States government with one that would be much more oppressive and totalitarian.
Advocating political change is what freedom of speech is all about. If you haven't got that, then your current government is not worth preserving.
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.
Another mature thing to do would be to ban knives, utensils, cars, cleaning chemicals, scissors, staplers, power tools, airplanes, etc. to preemptively avoid spreding those kind of things so that they don't fall into the hands of idiots.
Guess what? No matter how much you ban or censor, idiots are still going to find a way to kill themselves or others.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
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
I would find it disturbing if this guy was arrested for posting the information himself. Regardless of the information posted, he hasn't actually committed a crime, nor from what I understand was he in a position encouraging others to perform violent acts. I'll draw a parallel to the likes of the Ku Klux Klan - what they believe and stand for is reprehensible, and they most likely discuss desires to physically harm others of racial minority status. However, talking and doing are two different things. There's a distinction between having a violent impulse and acting on it. If the government launches pre-emptive strikes on our freedom of speech in order to prevent future crimes, they have effectively set a precendent for the erosion of personal freedoms and liberties; once the rust has an 'in', it's only a matter of time before it consumes the body of its host in its entirety. Now, without a doubt, such pre-emptive strikes do indeed prevent crimes and save lives. It comes down to a choice of the society we wish to live in. Would one rather exist in a country where the government keeps a tight fist on all of our actions and communications, secure in the knowledge that violence has been reduced to near-non-existant levels? Or does one value freedom over life and live in a country where occasional acts of violence occur, but the dissemination of information and unhindered distribution of ideas reign free? In this age of the Ashcrofts and Patriot Acts, our historic battle cry of 'Give me Liberty or give me Death' seems to have already rusted away.
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
The government has basically forbid this guy from criticizing the system.
See, I think there's a difference between "criticizing the system" and advocating the violent overthrow of the government and providing instructions on how to create weapons that will help you accomplish that goal. Do you honestly think this guy was locked up for merely saying "I disagree with this administration?"
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.
I invite you to read that page.
Here's a quote that defines just how many of your rights have been looted from under your ignorant feet
Fourth Amendment? Who needs it, certainly not the helpful Government. They'll never abuse this power, only use it to fight Terrorists! Oh, and Drugs! Oh, and they'll use it to Save The Children!
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.
So you think that a Disorderly Conduct and Unlawful assembly charge warrants a ONE YEAR sentence?
Do you believe that the US WEF protesters were trying to commit sedition?
There is a huge difference between opposing certain policies of a government and attempting to overthrow it. ( A ridiculous possibility in the case of the US ).
That's a very valid point, but I think everyone has to admit that there is a slippery slope for freedom of speech. Our country has a tradition of civil disobdience, and it wasn't all peaceful. I'm wary of any government which is so worried about being overthrown. Earning the respect of the majority of citizens is the way to stay in power, not locking people up for distributing already widely available information.
Ahh, a fine tradition. Our Founding Fathers, the guys we're supposed to be so in love with and who supposedly knew so much about liberty, passed the Sedition act in 1798.
I can't remember the name, but I think there was another act prohibiting advocating the violent overthrow of the government passed during the Red Scare, around 1917.
The Patriot Act is only the latest iteration of this.
"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. . .
ah yes. violent revolution has no place in america.
2 1337 4 u!
Why is it that CNN wouldn't ever show pictures of the injured of 9/11, yet as soon as theres a blown-apart Iraqi kid, it's all over the place?
Maybe I am missing something, but what does that have to do with the left wing?
Oh, I forgot, CNN has a terrible left leaning bias, is that it? It was really easy for me to forget that they were on the left while they were cheerleading for the war in Iraq. If CNN was really left leaning, they would have spent the entire time talking about why what we were doing was wrong.
CNN did show pictures of the injured after 9/11, and they were no where near anti-war.
Cry about the media bias all you want, It will not convince me that it exists until I find the things that they are saying to be to liberal more often than once a month.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I used to manage a movie theatre and on occasion when I was locking up and no one was there I'd shout "fire" a couple of times.
I'm such the rebel.
Please don't tell on me.
--------- Steve Martin once said, "Sex is the most natural, most beautiful, most wonderful thing that money can buy."
Well, oddly enough, he WAS arrested for being involved in a violent protest. On top of that:
He specifically admitted that his purpose for posting the links was a VIOLENT one. Inciting others to riot is an offense any way you look at it...
All that being said, the whole debate about legality, free speech, civil rights, etc. is a moot point - the 'gentleman' in question VOLUNTARILY gave up his right to a trial and plead guilty, so none of those questions could ever be addressed in a court of law. The punishment is based on what he plead guilty to, not the legitimacy of the charges. What did you expect the judge to do, force him in to a trial?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
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
So did your founding fathers. Fucking Americans.
That's actually not true at all. The Founding Fathers were all for violent overthrow of governments, so long as the government in question wasn't a good one. Remember, they actually went and did that. In the Declaration of Independece, they wrote: This is why they included the second amendment in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution; in the minds of the Founding Fathers, the people should be able to take up arms against an oppressive government if necessary.
Well, the door was open...
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
EVERY anarchist supports overthrowing the (and every) government. This establishes precedent for supressing all of them (more; did you know it's illegal for a foreign anarchist to enter the country?).
And as for protesting, well, one, it says he was arrested, not convicted, and two, there's a bit of a difference between civil disobedience and throwing bombs.
18 USC 842 (p)(2)(A) IS a violation of the first amendment. The fig-leaf of "with the intent that..." is a bunch of hooey.
It's all about context. He didn't say "here's how to make bombs, if you're interested", he said "let's overthrow the government, and a good way to do that is if you make your own bombs! Click here!"
I don't see how that isn't protected speech. Lets be clear here. He wasn't plotting with particular individuals to carry out an act of terror or violence. He was saying that this goverment sucks and should be overthrown -- by violent needs if necessary. And should anyone think that's a good idea, then here's some information on how you can forward those aims.
Now I don't think what he's proposing is a good idea by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a liberal democrat by persuasion, not a revolutionary anarchist. But the one thing I'd always admired about the USA was the way that political free speech is protected by the constitution and if anything counts as political speech, this guy's website does.
The effect is that he's not providing the information out of general interest but he's intending that the information be used to create tools overthrow the government. Big difference there.
Perhaps that's true, but it isn't a difference that I thought was prohibited by law. Americans in this forum often go on about how you need the right to bear arms in case of a tyrannical government. This case makes it pretty clear that even if you actually *had* a tyrannical government, the right to bear arms would be somewhat pointless because the ability to discuss with others the need to use them would render you liable to arrest and imprisonment.
His speech was deemed harmful, something we haven't had the right to (and shouldn't!) before. To say something just to hurt someone is the same as hurting them.
... it may well turn out that supporting Bush's foreign policies will have been to support policies that result in far more American deaths than Al Q'aeda could ever achieve in its most ambitious dreams. Just think of the potential consiquences of his failures in North Korea and Iran, or the possible consiquences of a regime change in Pakistan.
Nonsense. Until fairly recently Americans did have the right to speech, harmful or otherwise. The 'fire in the theater' decision did not preclude, nor was it intended to preclude, discussions on setting fire to a crowded theater, or even discussions on how to orchastrate the event for maximum entertainment to bystanders (perhaps by playing a flute?), but to address a particular, very narrowly defined, immediate cause of immediate harm.
Attempting to extend that narrow (and at the time very contraversial) exception to include any speech that might, possibly, incite harm at some point in the future (as has been done here) is not just exceptionally harmful to freedom of speech in general and political discussion and dissent in particular, but absolutely lethal.
Are you engaging in harmful speech when you come out in support of Al Q'aeda?
Are you engaging in harmful speech when you support president Bush's foreign policies?
Don't be too sure about the answer to either of those
Ban 'harmful speech' and you will have essentially banned any and all speech, at the whim of whoever happens to be wielding authority at that point in time. Regardless of who that is (Bush, Chaney, or Howard Dean) you will have completely gutted the freedom the first amendment was intended to protect, in a way that will probably require 'harmful' actions in order to restore (if restoration is ever even a possibility).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
...But, tellingly, he was only indicted on the count of sharing information on the construction of incendiaries.
Do you really think that, had they had *real* evidence to link Sherman to some of the other crimes he's been accused of here (vandalising websites, trying to incite racial violence, hacking military computers, etc etc), that the FBI and prosecutors would have only been recommending 4 months in prison, especially in the current political atmosphere? Doubtful, highly doubtful. I've read the complete sentencing recommendation information - if half of what they *thought* he *might* have done had been remotely provable, they would not have accepted a plea bargain.
Its also extremely easy to be charged with "disorderly conduct and failure to disperse" when you're at a political protest, whether you are committing a violent act or merely exercising your *right* to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. It happens all the time, and not just to "unwashed anarchists".
I have to admit, I'm biased - I'm a friend of Sherman's and know him to be not a frothing violent-tendencied lunatic, but one of the most gentle people I've ever known, who advocates self-defense against an increasingly-oppressive government. Considering his beginnings as a political activist (getting shot with rubber-coated steel shot while filming a MayDay parade turned police vs. civilian riot), I can't blame him.
No, I do not advocate violent overthrow of the state. My anarchism is simple idealism, a hope for utopia tempered with the knowledge that utopia means "no place" in Greek. But still - a girl can dream, right?
First of all, speech advocating "regime change" is obviously political speech, whatever else you may say about it. Second, the courts have been clear that "incitement to violence" is a pretty high standard; they have made the distinction between advocating violence and instigating it, or between abstract doctrine vs. action. The Supreme Court has said pretty clearly that the danger that is created by the speech has to be likely to cause an immediate breach of the peace. It is hard to see how a website could do that, no matter what it advocates. This case is a clear violation of the first amendment protection of political speech through intimidation of the defendant.
I submit this story hours ago, and it's rejected.
/.
/. needs a change of editors. The /. community is ok, and the OSS/Linux-centric stories are often valuable, at least for OSS/Linux advocacy. It's a good digest.
/. is promoting its supremely lame subscription service. Brilliant.
Meanwhile there's very little news appearing on
Now hours later that same story is approved, and appears.
But over the last year I've noticed the rate of new stories has gone down, while at the same time
Now, mod me down. Some of the moderators are as useful as the editors.
Enjoy.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Disorderly conduct or unlawful assembly are not felonies.
.sig in here now, I could be arrested and convicted to 20 years in prison]
He was convicted for a felony.
Nothing I read in the CNN article said he was convicted for anything else but providing links to sites that, among other things, had bomb making instructions.
The CNN article did NOT say he was advocating the use of bombs against the federal government.
Now, in typical hack-journo way, the CNN article might have failed to mention all the facts about this case, but if I have to go with the information provided by the CNN article, he was convicted of expressing unpopular thought.
There's probably more to the story, but if you RTFA, as you instruct, one can only assume John Asscroft is yet again managed to stiffle the freedom of speech in the name of national security.
[I will resist the temptation of putting my usual
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
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.
Whoever wins the war would decide. If things got bad enough (as they did in the late 18th century and again in the middle of the 19th century) that a large-enough group of people start acting together to overthrow the government, they're hardly going to lock themselves up for advocating a violent overthrow of the government. OTOH, the odd crank or two (like the subject of this article) isn't likely to draw anywhere near the numbers of people needed for anything approximating a successful "revolution." He would've been better advised to work within the system. (He probably wouldn't have found adequate support for his radical views even that way, but at least he wouldn't be moldering away at Club Fed for the next year.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
All that being said, the whole debate [...] is a moot point - the 'gentleman' in question VOLUNTARILY gave up his right to a trial and plead guilty...
Well, voluntary is a funny word. If I hold a gun to your head and ask for your wallet, and you give it to me, I haven't actually hurt you. You voluntarily gave your wallet to me. Of course, that 'voluntary' action was made under serious duress, hence it's not actually voluntary.
Now, if the FBI decided to charge me with a completely bogus crime, then said, "Plea now, or we'll make sure you get ass-raped by a rotating array of big, angry men every day for the next twenty years" -- well, suffice to say, I'd plea bargain.
When the government's got your nuts in a vice, you don't have very far to run.
In case you don't realise, this is where the police make up some plausible sounding stuff, go to a friendly judge and get him to rubber stamp it. Then they execute the warrant in an attempt to find some real evidense that will stand up in an actual court. In this case despite removing all the computers, books, and documents in his house they found nothing. Which is why he wasn't immediately charged with anything. In the end they were forced to fall back on the linking to information on explosives (18 USC 842) and scare him with threats of 20 years in jail into pleading so they never had to present any evidense at all. He has only been convicted under 18 USC 842 and therefore I think we can safely assume that the computer fraud stuff was just something they used to pad out their search warrant with. This is purely an issue of free speach (linking to information the US government doesn't like) since that is the only thing he has been convicted of.
You're right that not all civil disobedience was peaceful. Its also true that there was a great deal of civil disobedience that was very noble in aim. There was also a great deal more that was, in the parlance of our Pres, evil.
In most parts of the country it is now illegal to burn a cross. This is because in most cases the burning cross was effectively a death threat. It was speech, and might even be considered protected political speech under some circumstances, but it is also intended to dissuade people from excercising their rights through acts or threats of physical harm.
I have not read his website, but most descriptions in the articles listed here seem to indicate he was advocating the overthrow of the US government, and linking to bomb-making instructions. This could easily be interpreted as exhorting people to plant bombs to disrupt, what? Elections? Courts? I vote in a predominantly Republican area. If his friends, or some ELF or ALF types want to discourage people from voting GOP, would they set off a bomb in my precinct? (probably not, becuase mine is not nearly high-enough income to attract their attention, but its a useful thought experiment)
His motives are 'populist' and 'left-wing' and may be aligned with the motives of many here, but his actions are very similar to those of the folks out in western North Carolina who have just recently had to take down their 'Run Eric Run' signs from their front yards. He's not Eric Rudolph, but his actions are only different from some of Eric's supporters if you think along the lines of 'its OK for US, but not for THEM.'
This guy is in one of those nasty little gray areas that make public policy a difficult thing, but I do think its a bit easier to make these distinctions when you realize that 'those harmless kids who want to make the world a better place' are not so different from 'those neanderthal right-wing reactionary muther-f*$kers'. They use a lot of the same rhetoric that this guy uses. Just the book their quoting to justify their actions has a black cover, not a red one.
Remember, I'm not calling this guy Eric Rudolph. And certainly he shouldn't be given a 20 year terrorist sentence - indeed I think the judge was wrong for superceding the prosecutor's recomendation of 4 months. However, this guy was real close to the boundary between harmless and horrific.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
I am always suspicious of "slippery slope" arguments, because they are almost always used to defend radical positions. The "slippery slope" argument usually says "we can not allow these modest, sensible, and moderate restrictions to $FREEDOM, because they will surely lead to fascist, insane, extreme limitations of $FREEDOM," and is applied to gun control ("take away our rocket launchers, and our hunting rifles will be next!"), abortion ("require that abortions be performed by medical doctors, and soon nobody will be allowed to perform them!"), religion ("look, any government with the power to say that I can't perform ritual sex acts on children can turn arround and say you can't drink sacramental wine!"), and speech ("once they are done rounding up all the people trying to incite violent revolt against the government, the publishers of Reason magazine had better watch their ass!")
It is also frequently used by the big-government extremists to hold on to powers they should not have; such as with drug laws, "If we legalize marajuana, then it's just a matter of time before they will have crack cocaine in convenience stores!" environmental protection, "If the people who want to log these 200 acres are allowed to win, soon they will be strip-mining Yellowstone Park!" and again, with abortion, "if you allow abortions in cases of rape and incest, then every woman who wants an abortion will just claim she was raped, so it will be the same as allowing all abortions!" You get the idea.
My point is, you almost never hear the "slippery slope" argument applied to defend a position which can stand on it's own merits, removed from the political ideology for which it was chosen as a battleground.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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 pageIt is not against the law in the U.S. to advocate the overthrow of the government. REPEAT: It is not against the law in the U.S. to advocate the overthrow of the government.
And what exactly is wrong with violent overthrow of the government? Thomas Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be regularly watered by the blood of patriots." (to paraphrase) It is the tendency of government to become entrenched and intractable to the point where only violent revolution can make a difference. The USA was a "great experiment" to construct a series of rules (a constitution) that would hopefully prevent the need for violent revolution. Whether you count this experiment as a success or failure, I don't see how in good conscience you can forbid someone to advocate a solution to a problem they percieve.
Why for instance is it ok for GWB to advocate, and actually accomplish the overthrow of an atrocious government that he is not even a citizen of, whereas this fellow cannot even speak what is in his mind the only solution to repair the very government he lives it? The gov't must not have a monopoly on violence. Of all the groups, politicians are the least worthy to handle it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
(5) he cannot associate with any person or group that seeks to change the government in any way (be that environmental, social justice, political, economic, etc.)
That to me sounds like they're encroaching on rights to freedom of political expression, without fear of reprisal by those in power (going back to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison).
It's in the same ballpark as some corrupt african states where people either support the government, live as a political exile or face the prospect of being torured and/or killed.
Ok, so nobody is being tortured or killed in the USA (that's what happens in Cuba at Guantanamo, and a whole other kettle of fish), but this man's right to change the government should still be respected. We all have that right, whether we know it or not, we get to vote in another government if the current one makes a right pig's ear of the job.
The right to political activism and peaceful protest should be a given in any country that truly deems itself "free".
I am NaN
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.
According to the following, I guess he can't associate with the President or any of the other members of his big Republican machine.
"as Wilson said he also may not associate with anyone from a group that 'espouses physical force as a means of change.'"
I guess poor Sherman will just have to leave the country and go somewhere where he has freedom of speech.
As I recall, this guy was arrested for hacking (or at least attempting it) federal sites, not for saying he wanted to over throw the US Government. While I agree that it speaks ill of our legal system that such a crime may count as terrorism, a year in federal prison is a comparitively light sentence when you consider what some other people have done for similar crimes.
And by the way, overthrowing the US Government is one of those ideas that started with the brilliant Ben Franklin, who thought we shuold have a revolution once every 17 years or so.
Past radical ideas like the end of slavery, female sufferage, social equality for non-whites, unionized labour, paid vacation and abortion rights? Good thing we're so much smarter today that ideas we consider radical couldn't possibly become basic rights tomorrow.
Lets say, a few months ago, you were on one of those trams at an international airport, and you see some guy standing close to you who happened to look Oriental (or is the PC term Asian?), with luggage tags from Beijing on his luggage. This guy is coughing up a storm and not caring about who's around him. Would you suspect him of having SARS or would that be "racist"?
No, I wouldn't, because I would think logically and realize that SARS, even at its peak, was several hundred or thousand times less common than the common cold in Asia. It's called the "common cold" for a reason. The same reason why SARS was not called "common SARS".
You see two Middle-eastern fellows with a rented U-haul truck pulling up to a farming store and buying dozens of bags of fertilizer. Would you call the FBI, or would that be "racist"?
Why would I call the FBI? Two brown guys buying fertilizer, as well as having easy access to fertilizer, is a daily occurrence. The vast majority of the lawn care guys in my entire state are either dark Hispanics (usually Mexicans), Arabs (which, from my perspective, look a lot like dark Hispanics), or some other form of immigrant trying to find cheap work to support their families. Do you call the FBI every time you see a Middle Eastern man at a gas station, because he has access to large amounts of flammable materials that could be used to set fires all over town? I hope not.
SARS and terrorism are both very rare things that don't happen nearly as often as an Asian man having a cold or a Arab buying some fertilizer. Only through the eyes of media hype, racism, or stupidity does a man buying some fertilizer become an act of terrorism. I also find it somewhat suspect that you assume that two Middle-Eastern men buying dozens of bags of fertilizer is suspect, since the last man to commit a terrorist act in the United States using fertilizer was Timothy McVeigh, a white man who was assisted by other whites. Should we worry whenever ANYONE buys fertilizer, or just calm down and understand that ordinary occurrences like people buying fertilizer don't suddenly become abnormal or terroristic acts just because of September 11th?
Nowadays, everyone is so worried about political correctness and not hurting anyones feelings that they are putting themselves and their country in danger. Teachers are being told what words they can and cannot say because they might "offend" someone.
Instead of being told not to say it, did you ever consider that maybe they just think differently from you? I know that some people would like to think that they're in some sort of oppressed, secret majority that thinks that racism is alright and that the racist answer is always a more logical one than an Asian man just having a cold, but a lot of us really don't think that way. We don't jump to race as the first answer, and instead of not wanting to offend anybody by saying it, we just don't even think about it in the first place.
Haymaker is unfamiliar to me right off the bat, so I can't respond on that one, and won't discuss it.
Shays' Rebellion was not peaceful protest, but armed protest. They didn't need to make bombs because they had muskets and/or rifles.
At Kent State, if you wanted to change the number of casualties from a handful to a statistic, the fastest way to do that would be to start lobbing bombs at the National Guard types. The ones who really were shooting over the heads of protesters would have started to take aimed shots, and if they didn't have someone holding a bomb in their sights, then they would have aimed at anyone not running away. And seeing a couple of guys down the line take shrapnel from a pipe-bomb, they probably wouldn't be to careful to check if they were running away.
In the modern government age, a better self defense against government brutality is well-drilled non-violence. You want sympathy on your side, and adolescent displays of bravado don't go over well with the American public (unless you're president). Ultimately if you really feel you're in need of armed resistance, you'd need to do that with a large contingent armed with rifles, not a few guys hurling pipe-bombs or molatovs.
Ultimately pipe-bombs, due to their indiscriminant area-of-effect nature, are most effective in instilling fear in the untrained, rather than breaking the ranks of well-trained police/military anti-riot groups. He's more likely to kill his friends than his enemies. Of course, his motives might be to demonize the cops by upping the death-toll at his rallies. If so, then
You have the right to kill a police officer if they are killing your people, shooting at your protest groups
I assume that you mean that the police officer in question is not being threatened with physical harm himself. There haven't been any fatalities in globalization protests since Italy, and in that case the officer in question was being threatened by a guy swinging a fire-extinguisher. When have live rounds been fired at protesters since Kent State?
Ultimately, his desired methods are too reminiscent of Greensboro (you know, when the Klan managed to 'respond to fire' from some black trade unionists) to gain much sympathy from me.
The 2nd Amendment is essentially the codification of the right to armed insurection, but bombs are bad tactics, and too likely to end up in innocent lives lost.
By the way. If there had been casualties among the National Guard types at Kent State, do you think it weigh on the national conscience like it does? Most people would assume that the bombs were thrown first. The Kent State protesters would have lost the moral high ground, and their deaths would have had half the impact. And there'd be a lot more deaths.
Never cede the high ground. You're out for popular opinion, and there's nothing like a ten-to-nothing casualty ratio to prove the cops shot first. If anyone had taken this guy's advice and started tossing bombs, he'd have gotten a bunch of protesters killed, and be seen to have justified the police brutality in the process.
Still not 100% sure he should have gone to jail, but his words are close enough to an exhortation to violence - a punishible act commonly used by the reactionary right (Klan and Operation Rescue et al) - that good people could disagree on his sentence.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}