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Unabomber Property Up For Creepy Online Auction
coondoggie writes "Ok this is kind of creepy. The US Marshalls Office today said it will hold an online auction of the personal effects of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. The auction will run until June 2 and will include personal documents, such as driver's licenses, birth certificates, deeds, checks, academic transcripts, photos, and his handwritten codes; typewriters; tools; clothing; watches; several hundred books; and more than 20,000 pages of written documents, including the original handwritten and typewritten versions of the 'Unabom Manifesto.'"
Identifying people who are interested in this stuff is good, getting them to pay money to identify themselves is genius.
"driver's licenses, birth certificates, deeds, checks, academic transcripts"
Can we say fraud and violation of federal law?
"We will use the technology that Kaczynski railed against in his various manifestos to sell artifacts of his life. [...]" said U.S. Marshal Albert Nájera of the Eastern District of California in a statement.
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
So what's the deal? He was hoarding Halloween decorations and stuff too?
Better known as 318230.
I don't care who you are, that's a nice-looking typewriter right thar.
I don't think this should be auctioned, rather I think it should be donated to a historical archive/library/etc.
Making money off a madman/criminal seems wrong.
No bombs? At least plans?
Fandroids hate facts.
History Channel should start running "American Pickers" and "Pawn Stars" episodes on murderer paraphernalia. Maybe do an episode on the auction from Bin Laden's TV, shawl and porn stash. Lee Harvey O's toybox. Eventually, America's supply side could glut the market.
Gently reply
Look at a photo of Weird Al and then look at the sketch of the unabomber. Don't they look completely alike?http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/3/3/128806070439165640.jpg
Too bad the Montana property isn't included. It's in a pretty part of the state.
...too bad CNN has been crying about the Kacynkski auction for 2 WEEKS now.
Not only behind... 2 weeks behind.
Selling off other property to pay restitution to his victims, I don't have a problem with.
Now would it really be that bad if Ted's identity was 'stolen' this way (driver's license, birth cert, etc), as the story mentions?
Don't fear the penguins
What's sad about this is that Kaczynski was the subject of what I'll argue were some pretty wicked and unethical psychological experiments when he was in school - long before he ever became a danger to the world. Some have suggested that these experiments pushed him over the edge.
When did it become legal to auction of the property of convicted criminals? I understand we lost this right in drug cases, but terrorism now too?
I want the hoodie and cop sunglasses from the famous police sketch.
-- QED
All buyers placed on theorist watch list.
Just buy this terrorist's effects...
Most of these things should have been donated to psychology or criminology school, or similar scholastic endeavor.
I wouldn't say creepy, I'd say it glorifies him that people want to collect his items. It's the sort of thing you do for a dead celeb.
People like that need to be forgotten and not given any attention.
Telll me something, exactly how does a government care or not care?
Instead of giving such criminals a name (or worse, a nickname), it's time we start referring to them as "Moron # (sequential number)" and generally not giving them the attention they crave. No more notoriety!
I am disturbed by this as well. Unless Ted Kacynkski signed a waiver to allow the government to auction off what can be considered private records, I don't see how the government should be allowed to do this. Selling off other property to pay restitution to his victims, I don't have a problem with.
As long as you're not a criminal, you don't have to worry about it too much. The government can't take your stuff away and sell it unless you cause them to by, for example, mailing bombs to innocent victims.
None of the items mentioned can be considered private records. Driver's licenses, birth certificates, deeds, and academic transcripts are publicly accessible anyway, even before they become evidence in a criminal trial.
The other items became public information or government property once they were entered into evidence in the court proceedings against him, unless Kaczynski's attorney won a court order to have the evidence sealed or to have the items returned to him - which he didn't.
Putting moderation advice in your
To be honest, some of that stuff is creepy, but his written documents? That's cool, if i could get my hands on them that would be sweet. I love psychology of crazy humans. It's something very intriguing and interesting. Knowing how they function. I'm guessing people like me would buy such documents, and use it to identify other people who might try to do something similar. It is pretty freaky that they are selling his birth certificate
"Telll me something, exactly how does a government care or not care?"
Idiots like you who make useless smartass comments which contribute
nothing to the discussion are always so predictably present in the web-based
forums which are so common these days. In the old days of Usenet, there weren't
nearly so many idiots like you, and damn I miss those days.
Now, on to the simple-minded question you posed :
The government would exhibit caring by not allowing things like the PATRIOT act to
exist.
Of course, the truth is that the government which now exists in the US is edging
ever closer to what rational people would term "fascist", and no such caring
seems to exist in the majority of the US government. And useless fools like
Mr. Smartass are idly standing by while it all happens.
Can't wait until they auction off Bin Laden's stuff.
Your words make sense, but when you criticise His actions you indeed support the system (which is bad) by not committing yourself to a serious position against the bad,horrible system (because you can just brush that aside for the sake of some leftist ideal like how everyone deserves to live (like glen beck)). You can't separate the good from the bad -- unless, of course, you want to get laid and get paid. The system will appreciate such weakness. The system appreciates the same weakness in the women,children of conquered nations (hint: they are less likely to try to stop Your attempts to 'stabilize' their region and bomb it with Your democracy). Not everyone is okay with being a domesticated dog. Soon, when the population of more 'intelligent people' (i.e., those who are not willing to hand the world over to you excessive progeny) increases, it will no longer be possible for the system that you support to effectively handle dissent individually. When that happens, the human race evolutionary experiment will be complete.
Ok, quick question.
Why are the US Martials auctioning off his property? Doesn't it belong to his estate?
Those who haven't read his works should temper their citicism of the man. Murder? That is the motto of our age and will not keep future historians from appreciating his unique genius.
What is a creepy online auction and how does it differ from a non-creepy one?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Everybody who doesn't agree with the dominant power structure in the US, imperialistic capitalism, and the culture around it, is ultimately "insane". Sane is increasing the control of capitalism and its technology even more - leading to ever-increasing global warming, alienation and isolation, video cameras and the like everywhere and an increasing 1984 surveillance state etc.
Kaczynski got a PHd and was considered something of a math genius. He didn't like the rat race so he moved off to live in a rural area. So did J. D. Salinger and so have others. He just wanted to be left alone in the wilderness, not to be a puppet of modern wage slavery and capitalism, but capitalism's need to valorize itself necessitated the forests of Montana to be cut down, for airplane's traffic to increase more and more over his home and the like. So he mailed out bombs to a Commentary and Weekly Standard writer like David Gelernter, United Airlines president Percy Wood, a Burson-Marsteller executive like Thomas Mosser , timber lobbyist Gilbert Murray and so forth. These people are backed by the violent authority of the corporate-runned state so that they can exploit workers, dominate people and the like, Kaczynski simply used violence against the people he felt (rightly) were trying to interfere and dominate him, backed by the violent authority of the state.
The idle class elite is having the US government kill working people in Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan and a host of other countries on a daily basis. This is considered good, sane and normal. Kaczynski knocking back at those he felt were forcibly dominating him is considered criminal and insane. Well, I guess its like that old St. Augustine story, the difference between a pirate and emperor is the size of his fleet. Predator drone attacks killing civilians weekly in Pakistan and Afghanistan is OK, Kaczynski maiming miserable pricks like Gelertner, and sleazy PR and corporate executives is "horrible".
One interesting note is why stopped. What happened is he found out there were others who believed as he did. In fact they were even more radical, although less militant. Kaczynski just wants to roll back the powers of the ruling class that have been gained since the Industrial Revolution, John Zerzan wants to roll back before the Agricultural Revolution of 10,000 years ago. While Kaczynski never went that far in ideology, he was certainly more militant than any of these people. I guess the logging and airline companies picked the wrong guy to log around and fly over.
Personally, I don't think Kaczynski is that great of a writer, you're better off reading some other primitivist literature to get an idea of what they're about. Much of it is by primitivists for primitivists, so even then it can be unintelligible if you're not steeped in it. Zerzan went from the 1960's Marxist left to a rejection of Marxism and into primitivism and anarchism. So you kind of need to be familiar with much of the Marxist canon, as well as the anarchist and primitivist canon, to really understand what he is saying. And how many people have that? Thankfully, *you* are a normal American, paying taxes so Predator drones can go kill people in rural Asia, not a crazy like Kaczynski who just wanted to live in the woods in peace.
you are jealous because he was willing to do something, and you get to watch. Shockingly I find that the In-Personam jurisprudence is reffering to the auction as "personal effects of the Unabomber" rather than that of his legal name in forfeiture.
You see, people like you create all kinds of jurisdictional loop-holes whereas rather than hold a murderer accountable at County Court you get all these jurisdictional nightmare spaghetti code courts that makes it impractical and impossible for a regular murderer to defend theirself as to the causes impelling them, and thus any reason can be assumed as to the motivation by the sitting Trustee and thereby pave the way for more legislation to expand the micro-management state within the federal Statehood.
Rather than hold a murderer accountable for their actions, they parade them up and down the streets as the guiding light for more government jurisprudence to overlay upon everyone: now you get the Unabomber-like suspicions, because that is what the government said is similar in the psychological profile of the Unabomber. Notice how the Unabomber and the 9/11 Demoli^H^H^H^HHijackers all had Birth Certificates and Driver Licenses and Passports that randomly survived the fireball to be recovered on the NY streets at the bases of the implo^H^H^H^H collapsed Twin Towers. Now you are under suspicion of being linked to those TOURI^H^H^H^HTerrorists because you have something in common. Maybe because they have short haircuts and a blank patient stare on your photo while you aren't as patient face-to-face. And what's worse, all those government ID's can be your new gateway for identity fraud: someone can find them, after snooping your security tokens, and automate your person committing virtual unlawful activities, and you can't do anything about abating the presumption from within a jail cell. Now you know how the 9/11 TOUR^H^H^H^HTerrorists felt when many of them were still alive and well in Brittain being ignored by the American MEDIA about how they didn't commit those acts and that their United States identities had been stolen and mis-used in their absence.
you should be donated to a psychology or criminology school. What do you think you are going to prove? I would like to go into a deep enchanted forest to write a book while living among the creatures and creepy-crawlies, and I think I might need: a shed, typewriter, a hammock, potbelly stove, toiletpaper, toofbrush, and some self-defense tools that don't attract regulation to my exact position because I can't have any interruptions where I plan to perspire my inspirations into that book.
Me and the Unabomber are practically the same guy, and the only prosections are from regulations we were not aware of, because as you see nobody was taken to County Court for Murder but by REGULATIONS in some federal State courtroom where your defenses are only as good as your representatives convictions after seeing your confined countenance survive the juggernaut of incarceration and confinement in irregular clothing that makes you look like a mal-content Budhist.
Remember that everyone you see on Television is a celebrity, for government purposes of expanding interventions of micro-management onto the people by parading captured criminals (we know they're only accused but hnnnnn) for causes of new unrelated regulation to replace unused Enactments.
What's next? Auction Bin laden's porn collection?
Not so much for itself, as for a font I would like to offer to the world for filling in any IRS forms.
Hmm. Perhaps someone has already done this, based on published exemplars?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The violence can not be discounted or ignored but this man did have some very valid concerns and had a certain value to society. At the very least we can agree that he consumed very few resources in his personal life and we must admire that part of him.
This is another individual that may need confinement but should be given study tools and allowed to progress as best he can in his mental activities. He might be able to teach us all a bit and at the very least we do need to understand that people with very special abilities sometimes jump the rails and crash hard. We need not show disrespect for the man, only for his crimes.