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Crypto Advocate Under Investigation by FBI
Seth Scali writes "Cryptography advocate and former member of the IETF staff William Simpson is under investigation by the FBI for treason. Apparently, he is accused of 'challenging authorities and laws that may impinge upon his activities'. " As you would imagine, the case involves cryptography and the DOJ/FBI has some other strong feelings about crypto folks.
I have to agree that this article is useless. It also is dubious in other ways, such as misspelling simple words (like "sensored" [sic]).
I would not put much stock in this posting.
The premise of civil disobedience is not that you can violate laws, moon the judge, and then declare yourself inncocent and scott-free.
You must accept that there will be reprocussions often quite painful, if not deadly for your actions, fair or unfair, legal or illegal. You expect, though, that your plight will draw the attention of others who agree that the laws are unjust and will put forth the effort to change them.
Of course, once you commit to violating laws, it becomes your obligation to fight for whatever rights that you believe are held in question. But don't expect the establishment to make it easy for you. That's not their job. Their job is to stay in power.
_______________________________
The annoying thing about cluelessness in government and government agencies is that, theoretically, these people are working for us, as our servents (civil), and we're paying their wages for doing the tedious admin that we want done but that would bore us silly if we had to do it ourselves.
Alas, in reality they do whatever they want, without any democratic direction whatsoever, as Slashdot and a myriad of other news outlets are highlighting almost daily. One has to ask, metaphorically, is their Berlin Wall going to come crashing down around them now that the citizenry has instant global communications and hence the means to show their actions for what they really are?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
FBI should spend its time investigating RICHARD STALLMAN. That guy is a dangerous COMMUNIST. And the GPL his tool for world domination.
I didn't know that advocating that laws be changed could possibly fall under the charge of Treason. The United States is founded on the principle that if laws suck, you change them through the democratic process. If the FBI can investigate people for holding different beliefs than those in office, that circumvents the whole idea of freedom of thought and speech. This proves that the FBI is indeed too powerful and needs to be checked. I'll now go retire to my room where I'll await Hoover's G-men who are no doubt on their way to interrogate and shoot me.
You're both slightly wrong. When you go to get a government job, who do you think investigates your background? The FBI, of course! And when the FBI looks for 'Neko, Osu' in that big ol' Oracle database of theirs, what do you think comes up? 'Subject under investigation for subversion and/or collabaration in an act of treason'. Then FBI Field Agent John Smith slaps the application with his big red 'REJECTED' stamp, and you don't get to swab the floors in the Library of Congress for minimum wage. You see, the background check criteria include probability of a future criminal offense too.
Ask yourself this: If you were Field Agent Smith, would you pass someone with such a background, when many other qualified applicants exist with squeaky records? Would you want to take shit if said individual screwed up? I wouldn't, and neither would you. Hence we come to the conclusion that 'Investigation == No Government job', even if it isn't exactly legally mandated so.
On a side note, the FBI do take your driving record into consideration, perhaps too weightedly so. An associate of mine almost failed the background check over his bad record (ran two stop signs in one year) when his company bid on a crap programming job for one of the cabinet-level agencies. (Dept of Energy, I think..)
.sig: Now legally binding!
He means the various Christian groups with strong political views. Specifically, certain groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Heritage Foundation which both promote their view of Christianity... and have criticized the administration in the past.
Congressmen are permitted to *refer* a non-profit group to the IRS which is to put them near the head of a queue for examining whether they should lose their tax-exempt status for political activity, which tends to be a no-no... This referral does *not* guarantee an audit... just a check.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It's not really a case of leverage in the Council.
It's that some adamantly anti-choice politicos over here oppose the pro-death folks in the UN funding family planning programs that even mention abortion... and hence try to blackmail the President and friends into adding stipulations to their UN funding bills.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
That's an interesting point. It makes me wonder though whether there isn't already a group making that territory its own, ie. effectively presenting the view of the Founding Fathers on relevant issues in the US today. Advocacy rules OK of course, but is there a group with enough pedigree to make government take notice? It seems not, given what we see reported so frequently.
Leaving aside reincarnation for the moment (it's probably been patented anyway), serious representation of FF views could probably be achieved by proxy if a sufficient number of learned scholars put their minds, time and money to it. However, in practice this would mean pitting oneself against the establishment, and what learned scholar is going to do that?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
In other words, you're arguing that A is bad, and that A+B is bad, therefore B is bad.
What happens when 'The Big Bad Evil Government(tm)' or 'The Big Bad Evil Corporation(tm)' comes knocking on my door to search it warrentless, or decides my property shoudn't be mine at all, but theirs? If its just me getting walked on, not much. They wrong me, I sue, I might even win. They decide to do this to a whole lot of people, what then?
We shoot them.
Dead, preferably.
The government has the responsibility to use its granted powers to serve the will of the people. We, the people, have the responsibility to make sure the government serves us. Owning a firearm and learning to use it properly is the only real way we can have this right.
'The Big Bad Evil Government' is a registered trademark of the People's Republic of China. 'The Big Bad Evil Corporation is a trademark of Microsoft.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I'm voting Libertarian from now on.
:)
I'm with you. I used to be a staunch Republician, but they don't seem to care about our rights any more than the Dems do. I look at it this way:
A vote for a Republician is a vote for the second amendment.
A vote for a Democrat is a vote for the first amendment.
A vote for a Libertarian is a vote for all the amendments
Finkployd
Actually, the only reason for the armed revolution is because there were no means of generating change under the current form of government. The form of government put in place after the revolution was concieved with the means in place to allow change without the need to resort to armed revolution.
You are confusing the wiping of the slate with the writing after it was cleaned.
Now, if you want to debate the idea that we need aanother armed revolution, that's a different topic! ;) (Good luck with the hamstringing the 2nd amendment has received lately) -Joe
Reality check: Getting a traffic ticket is a part of your criminal record. Getting investigated for anything (even murder or treason) is not a part of your criminal record. He is not barred from getting a job in a government office as janitor or anything else for having been under investigation. If the job involves anything serious, he'd be investigated anyways, since everyone who's seriously considered for such a position gets investigated! We never hire anyone for those kinds of positions unless they've been investigated! Now, it may be he would be denied even if not prosecuted based on what the investigation was for and what it turned up, but in that case we wouldn't have gotten the job to begin with.
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Um, I was about to suggest you do the same thing when I read this. I find it hard to believe you've ever read them and can actually claim what you do about the 2nd ammendment. First of all, "State" does not refer to any of the individual states that make up the union. "State" in its most proper sense refers to a nation as a whole. In this light, to say that the State is responsible for regulating the militia makes no sense. The "security of the free State" is, in fact, the security of the freedoms of the nation as a whole. If you read the Federalist Papers, and other writings by the Founders, you quickly realize that the greatest threat they envisioned to the security of this free State was not any outside power, but the government itself. If it was their intent to have the militia regulated by the State, then they would be granting it control over the body that was intended to keep it in check. This would require a monumental feat of stupidity. The 2nd ammendment does, indeed, grant the citizens of the US the right to bear arms. You mentioned in another post that the Supreme Court is responsible for interpreting the Constitution. This is correct, but misleading. For all legal purposes, the Supreme Court is responsible for deciding the stance of the Constitution, but that does not mean that their interpretation is the correct one. If the Supreme Court decided tomorrow that "Hey, we were wrong all along... there really isn't anything about the freedom of speech in the Constitution, then we would be legally bound by that interpretation. But they'd still be wrong. Even if the Supreme Court decided that the 2nd ammendment didn't protect the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms(which, last I checked, they hadn't), they wouldn't be right. We'd be legally bound by their decision, but to say they were right in their interpretation would be to ignore two centuries of contrary interpretations. Those who founded this country clearly believed this right was protected by the 2nd ammendment, and, since they did sort of write the thing, I'm inclined to believe them, regardless of what the Supreme Court says tomorrow.
Roses are red, violets are blue. I'm a schitzophrenic, and so am I.
Gee. Last time I checked, the U.S. Constitution was very specific about what constitutes treason:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
This is just another attempt by the FBI to terrorize an innocent citizen. They have no legal standing to accuse him of treason, and they know it.
But then, terrorizing citizens is what the FBI is there for, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
I mean, symbolically, let all the american members (probably most of it!) resign and name foreigners instead who will hold meeting somewhere else. Just so that 'they' get the message.
--
IIRC, Phil Zimmermann was "under investigation" for some time, after the release of PGP; after they finally decided he wasn't going to be intimidated, and the bad publicity, like any publicity, was just spreading PGP faster, they dropped the whole thing.....
--
-=DaveHowe=-
However, I think that this has the potential to incite online "rioting". It seems alittle premature to say this, but the government hasn't convicted anyone of treason in a long time... if they did it now it'll surely make headlines and piss off a helluva lot of influential people in the technology sector. This really is 1984 - they're telling us how we will, or will not, do our own math? I'd take issue with this on constitutional grounds - math might qualify as a belief. Number *theory*.. which essentially boils down to belief. However, IANAL, and I don't want to explore that issue just yet.
Keep your eyes on this one folks... it could be almost as big as the MS v. DOJ trial if the cards fall right.
They are heavily censored, but reading between the lines and into the black bits it sounds like the story goes something like this.
At an IETF meeting in Mexico in 1992 the PPP sig discussed encryption. Simpson was present and said something which made someone else at the meeting suspect he was selling encryption products to a foreign power, in violation of ITAR. They informed the FBI, who investigated and found no evidence to support such an allegation. The investigation was then dropped.
Bear in mind this was back in 92-93. The Internet was an obscure academic toy in those days, and cyber-liberties mostly centered around hacker issues (check out The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling). I don't think this is a big thing.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Wow. First post. Not that it matters to me. Maybe I'll be moderated period for once. ;P
Seriously, this doesn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if I was under investigation for being a privacy advocate, critical of government policies against citizens, and a PGP user. I am for IPSec, I *use* a form of IPSec. I don't believe in the right of the gov't to blatantly ignore the constitution in the 'interests of national security.'
National security. You sure hear that term a lot, don't you? Now, I have to think. What do they really mean by national? Obviously not national, as national would mean not only the gov't, but every citizen and legal resident of the United States of America. Nothing is done in the interest of National security; it's done in the interests of government security. The government maintains it's power by asserting it's power over it's people. Sometimes fairly and justly - hate crimes, Roe vs. Wade, hate crime legislation. Other times, unjustly and basically illegally - anti-crypto, censorship, harassment. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the FBI has repeatedly abused it's power. The same for the NSA. They both have multi-billion dollar 'black' budgets - budgets that do not have to be accounted for. They can spend the money from that budgeanything without having to account for a single penny , or state what it is spent on.
Don't think the government will stop there, though. It wouldn't surpriese me if this advocate became the next Kevin Mitnick. The next step, logically, is for the FBI to file secret evidence and lock him up in a federal prison, and deny him access to computers for the rest of his life. And don't doubt that the FBI will at the least try to. Why wouldn't they? It's his strongest voice. That's what he's scaring them with now.
Fight oppression. Fight back. Promote your own privacy. National security should mean NATIONAL security - not government security. Use PGP. Don't keep passwords written down. Refuse illegal search and seizure. Complain to the appropriate authorities about harassment. You have rights in this country, unless you're too damn scared to fight for them. I don't know about any of you, but I plan to fight for my rights if I have to, and I'll let no person, company, or government take away the rights that the Gods gave me at birth and that the United States Constitution garauntees me in writing and law.
--RISCy Business
your company here.
shelby != ford
Well, it seems to me that /. has been 'having a good time' by yanking my chain too many times over the past few days. Much like the boy who cried wolf, when the facts don't back up the assertions, people discredit those making the assertions. I personally am at the point where I don't take any of these stories at face value any more. /. has recently not been much better than the Weekly World News in terms of its veracity.
In this case we have a story claiming Mr. Simpson is under investigation by the FBI for treason. On some checking of additional sources (something any journalist is trained to do) we find that in fact he is not under investigation (the matter was closed with no action some 6 years ago) and in fact there was no allegation of treason at any time (only suspicion of illegal crypto export).
Now we have a bunch of voices screaming about abusive FBI behavior when it is hardly clear that such behavior existed at any time in this case.
To me this is a pretty sad state of affairs, and one not at all conducive towards actually identifying where real problems exist.
Unless he has actually levyed war agains the government, or conspired to, or given aid or comfort to a country with which we are at war, he's not being investigated for treason. In any case, it would have to be proven that integrating encryption in a software standard constitued an overt act of treason (as so defined). I think it's rather an uphill battle to show that conspiring to arrange it so that others might have to violate an export restriction to voluntarily participate in a standard rises to that level...
Espionage and antisocial acts are other issues.
Boy, with such... shall we say, strange... laws regarding cryptography in the US, I'm sure glad I don't live there. I certainly don't want to be investigated for "treason" when all I'm doing is trying to defend the right to privacy.
But getting back to the point... I think it's about time those high officials get some sense into their heads... Technology has left them way, way, behind in their traditional model of industry. We're entering into a "New Age", so to speak, and what with the Internet growing uncontrollably, with its own culture, etc., it's about time these people re-think how laws should apply to such things as cryptography. They're clearly so caught in their antiquated ideas they just can't handle the fact that strong cryptography is going to be a fact-of-life not far in the future of the Internet. Fighting against it simply shoots the US in its own foot.
I'm neither a politician nor an economist, but it seems to be that the US is declining... it used to be one of the pioneers in technology, but with the kind of attitude high officials have towards new developments in technology, like trying to shoe-horn the Internet into a traditional physical-goods based model of business, and strongly regulating access to strong cryptography, they may just shoot themselves in the foot so much they will simply fall behind (at least in the computer-related area) and not be able to catch up.
(Disclaimer: This is not meant to be flamebait or FBI-bait. I am not a politician, and I generally avoid politics.)
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
>Don't be so critical. NTSecurity is a reputable site
I know, I read it often, even though I don't even use NT myself. However, good content is no excuse for this kind of misspelling. If you can't trust your word processors speling (:-)) check, proofread.
It seems that the FBI has realized that performing an investigation against someone can be used as a punitive measure. We are, of course, all aware of their recent "investigation" of the Y2K movie spoof.
:)
The problem is that in many cases, these kind of actions can work. It certainly has done a lot of damage to the ISP who was hosting the Y2K movie. Having been investigated for treason can certainly adversely affect your career and personal life. I imagine it would also completely eliminate any chance that you could get a job with a security clearance.
Normally, only the courts can declare punishment for an offense, but in these cases, going to the courts may be completely unnecessary for the FBI's purposes, even if it stood a snowball's chance in hell of actually making it into a court proceeding.
Of course if they do it too much, it could backfire, since not having been investigated means you haven't done anything interesting
Site is /.'ed. Here's the first two paragraphs. Read the rest when you can get through. Spelling errors are in the original.
Tuesday, November 30, 1999 - We recently published a story regarding cryptography and IPv6, where someone at the Department of Justice accused Scott Bradner, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) area coordinator, of an anti-social act by trying to get encryption inserted into the new protocol. Later, at an IETF meeting where votes were taken for IPv6 encryption inclusion, Fore System's Brian Rosen brazenly claimed that regardless of any encryption inclusion, Fore systems would proceed by including back doors into any included encryption technology. But the harrassment of the IETF doesn't stop there.
We learned that William Allen Simpson, a Detroit-based computer consultant who was on the IETF staff, has been investigated by the federal government for treason charges. Simpson was the person that argued loudly for encryption to be included in the PPP protocol when it was still in design phases. That push landed Simpson in hot whatever with federal officials. Simpson learned through friends that he was under investigation for treason -- the FBI had been interviewing his friends and associates.
Simpson obtained 54 pages of documents from the government under the Freedom of Information act, however the documents were heavily sensored, including the bureau's basis for the investigation.
From the Constitution of the United States, Article III, Section 3:
....
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overy Act, or on Confession in open Court."
In other words, "challenging authority and laws" is in no sense treason according to the Constitution. It's possible that the FBI wish to refer not to treason but to "sedition", which is (roughly) the "crime" of speaking against the government. Obviously, the First Amendment has a lot to say about the legal status of that "crime"!
The status of sedition under U.S. law has in fact varied quite a lot. There have been several anti-sedition laws, from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the Smith Act of 1940, and so on. However, the prevailing sense of the Supreme Court has been that unless a speech act creates "clear and present danger" of lawless behavior, it is protected by the First Amendment from being held as seditious.
In short, the FBI seem to be on extremely shaky ground here. However, I am not a lawyer, and the article is rather vague on what the charges being investigated actually are. So let's wait and see what comes of this one
Hmm... land of the free indeed
I feel like I'm living in China and the tanks are rolling and about to crush my mind of free speech. The FBI seems like it is trying to form its own government and commit treason against its own citizens. Should we file suit?
[begin transmission] ...OK, so if after all that, they still don't wanna build in support for CALEA into the network policies, I know! We'll just have anyone who disagrees executed for treason until the only people left alive are our supporters, and then support for CALEA will be unanimous!
Phase 1: Send up a trial balloon...
Phase 2: Bully the vendors...
Phase [CENSORED]:
[end transmission]
It's a joke, a joke you bastards! A jo
NO CARRIER
I would tend to classify freedom of mathematics under freedom of expression, especially given my previous comment about math being a language. In any case the FBI should butt out and stick to real criminals who actually hurt people.
-- $SIGNATURE
The USSR worked on policies very similar to this in the Red days, with the KGB and internal police seemingly doing very similar things, although only now do we get to hear about them. I guess that's the difference.
You can do anything in secret in the USA, but the principles are still the same.
Worrying worrying worrying, words I seem to be using a lot in slashdot comments at the moment.
What exactly is any of this achieving??
Back in 1991, the FBI was still probably not clear on the concept that they would be laughed out of court if they tried to interfere with international standards bodies such as the IETF --- the U.S. Government has recognized the IETF as an international standards body. Some of the quotes from the FOIA'ed file make it clear that this was the focus of their investigation:
"(blacked out)stated that he believes the PPP is legal technology. However, if the government is attempting to restrict the dissemination of authentication protocols, he believes it is too late. It is like locking the barn after the horse has escaped (per (balcked out)).... (more blacked out stuff) .... In summary, (blacked out) does not believe Simpson has engaged in breaking United States export laws regarding the export of cryptographic devices or is interested in violating such laws at the behest of a foreign power."
I very much doubt that the FBI would be wasting time with such investigations today, and certainly I would doubt that any such case would be allowed come to court --- if they tried, you can be sure that there would be plenty of support from the net, and there's a very good chance they would lose the case. Much of the current force of the export control regulations come from Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. If they let a case come to trial, there's a very good chance they could lose on first amendment grounds, and that's the last thing they would want.
Were any of the Founding Fathers alive today, they would be told - in sneering, patronizing tones - that they don't understand the issues, and that freedom isn't as simple as things like "inalienable human rights" and other things. The FBI is nothing more than a 'Secret Police' with a day-job of tracking down bank robbers. Our rights as Americans, the ones that people died to preserve, mean nothing to the average citizen. They scream for more security, whether they realize that it gives up rights - and don't understand the other issues (encryption, for instance) enough to care. You're safe in a police state, so long as you don't think.
Moderate this down if you must, but I am pissed. I'm voting Libertarian from now on.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
"Sorry, connection to host www.ntsecurity.net on port 80 refused."
Must be so slashdotted that Netcraft can't get through.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Damn. "Un-American Activities"? I feel I'm back in the 1950s. If advocating strong crypto is going to get you added to blacklist, I have just one thing to say:
Where do I sign?
Now while I am as staunch a defender of free speech as anyone, William Simpson was under investigation for about nine months because he was in a position to potentially break U.S. export laws against exportation of strong encryption. While I may not like the fact that we have such laws, Simpson could have helped to include "unexportably" strong encryption in an internet standard that would surely be exported.
Note: I do not support restrictions on encryption, nor to I support mandated back doors. I do not support unwarrented investigations of U.S. citizens (or any other people for that matter.) However, I also do not support getting hysterical over a six-year old dead issue just because the subject has had his Freedom of Information Act request fufilled.
That's it, i'm starting my own country. Everyone who wants to move there e-mail me.
yebyen@adelphia.net
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
the supplied article on NTSecurity seems to be complete heresay. Like NTsecurity heard from ZDTV which heard from IETF. If it were straighter from the horses mouth it could be the basis for an intellegent conversation. But too many details are excluded to be able to formulate an opinion on what's occuring.
For instance, is he being investigated because of his suggestion for the inclusion of encryption in PPP, or have other things occured? That detail seems to be skimmed over and then forgotten. Like: "he advocated encryption and then he got investigated for treason..."
Did he, through his advocay, publish PGP or other software on his website for download to non-US citizens? If yes, then, well, as stupid as everyone thinks it is, he would have broken the law. Note, that that's pure speculation. But I honestly don't our government would waste the resources to investigate someone for treason because of a suggestion! Let's be a little more realistic, please. There have to be other factors at work...
And if there are, we need to know what they are before we go "oh, evil FBI cracks down on innocent ciziten joe...". It's too easy to jump to a conclusion - one way or the other - without presentation of all the facts.
If my very slight hypothesis is correct, and there were other factors at work aside from his suggestion, then i'll go on to say that if you don't like a law, you can't just go break it and say it's okay because it's a dumb law. You need to get it changed. Vote. Voice yourself. But don't try to be a martyr unless you're sure it will work right.
Since PPP has been around for quite a while, this means this particular investigation is quite old. People are talking like it's directly related to the Y2K movie thing that recently happened and was reported on here.
I think we should all take a step back from this and relax.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
He may be thinking of the IRS denying the Christian Coalition's application for tax-exempt status, but, frankly, I see no evidence that the CC necessarily speaks for all Christians (unless you limit "Christians" to those who believe as the CC does, but, as far as I can tell, that'd leave out rather a lot of people who think Jesus was the son of God, and, frankly, that's the criterion I use for determining whether somebody's a Christian). Perhaps they were unfairly denied tax-exempt status, but I hardly consider that sufficient grounds to argue that Christians are, in general, being persecuted....
Now, I suspect there are some other Christians who've been investigated, harassed, etc. as a result of actions they've taken as a result of being inspired by their faith; I'm curious whether the CC, or other "religious right" organizations, would stand up for the rights of Christians who've protested against US involvement in, say, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, various civil wars throughout the globe, or against US nuclear weapons, or against the School of the Americas, or....
(I'm also curious how eager they - or the original poster - would be to defend the rights of, say, non-believers such as me. I seem to remember a claim that the father of the leading Republican presidential candidate wasn't certain whether non-believers could be considered citizens of the US - blah blah blah "nation under God" blah blah blah. Then again, alluding back to earlier US actions, he was the same man who, when VP, praised Fernando Marcos' "adherence to democratic principles"....)
The documents were heavily sensored??????
What, they had little microphones, ntc's and lightsensitive diodes on the bloody thing? Come on people, I don't expect perfect english from anyone, especially those who do not have english as their first language, but I draw the line when it starts to take other meanings...
(Before anyone feels the need to state this: I realise sreeram is innocent he just cut and pasted it, this criticism is meant for whoever wrote the article)
[Your] boss says your a screw up you can:
Well, I might looking for a new job if my boss says I'm a screw up. Where I work, the managers and supervisors back us up all the way until the problem is solved.
I have always enjoyed free speech. Others may have not. My mom marched in the civil rights parades in Los Angleles before I was born and that got her investigated, kicked out of church, etc. Makes me proud.
I saw a movie over the weekend called "The Informant" that showed how easily the FBI can become corrupted. If the FBI ever investigates me, I would be honored. It is my belief that I am insignificant and an average boring person. Don't do drugs, commit acts of terrorism (unlike the FBI,) or upset my neighbors or employer. I'm not worth enough to my employer to be investigated anyway (it would be a total waste of taxpayer money!)
Take a drive along hwy 375 on the north side of the Nevada Test Site (I live in Vegas and have driven by the site on my way to Tonopah). Any vehicles not rolling down the highway attract the black helicopters (choppers with no lights, no identifying marks, no transponder beacon, and several missiles and a 20mm cannon). I pulled over to take a leak and within a few minutes here comes this black helicopter up over the ridge that stops and hovers over me. I zip up and walk back toward the car and the chopper moves on. Fucking scary shit. There's probably a photograph of me holding my dick behind a yellow stream on file at some three latter agancy now. You may not believe in the black helicopters, but I'll never forget 'em.
Once again, slashdot has embellished the headlines to make them more contraversial. The FBI did not accuse anyone of treason, only of performing an "anti-social act". Who the hell knows what an "anti-social act" is, but I'd say it probably involves geeks, goths, and other victims of Mosaic 2000.
Now, this is still a bad thing. But it's not nearly as bad as it sounds.
* Vectro steps down from his soapbox.
And it's not in any way inconsistent to be an advocate of reducing the size of the federal government and at the same time an advocate of protecting the civil liberties of individuals. In fact, this position is very defensible, as those very civil liberties tend to be more commonly disregarded by the US government than by any other organization. Of course, when the US government does trample our rights, it's generally claimed to be necessary in order to protect us from terrorists and child pornographers.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
I think you're confusing authority (which is granted essentially arbitrarily) with smarts.Even assuming that they are smart, I never gave my consent to be governed by a secret organization of smart people without due process of law or judicial oversight, which is what you seem to be advocating.
In case you've forgotten, the government similarly abused their authority and power to harrass the hell out of Phil Zimmerman (author of PGP), but ultimately didn't press any charges. Despite not pressing charges, they succeeded in making his life a living hell for several years and making him spend a huge amount of money on legal fees. This is likely what they intend to do to Bill Simpson if they choose to pursue it.
That the FBI considers the mere advocacy of the deployment of strong cryptography to be treasonous scares the shit out of me. We seem to be well on our way to Perry Metzger's Ruritania.
The FBI may or may not do all kinds of rotten and devious things. But they're *very good* at what they do, and they're professionals. There is *no* possibility that they are or were investigating these acts as treason, as treason is quite explicitly defined in the Constitution. Maybe they investigated him, but this wasnt' why.
Somebody needs to tell those folks that if you're going to invent stories to make yourself look like a victim, invent plausible ones. This one's a couple of steps behind black helicopters . . .
Korea was a "police action". Vietnam wasn't even that - just a response to an "incident". Desert Storm and the like were UN actions for which we provided aid.
We aren't at war unless war has been declared - which takes a 2/3 vote of the Senate. We don't have "enemies" within the meaning of the Treason definition unless we are at war.
That's why Jane Fonda is still at large, despite her visit to, and propaganda for, North Vietnam during the Vietnam Hootenany.
Now it only takes one side to "levy war", so don't try nuking DC. But until a war is declared you can give aid and comfort to anyone you want. You might be breaking laws. But you aren't committing Treason.
But if you do something the current operators of the government dislike, don't be surprised if members of the Executive Branch harass you. Governments generally have a dismal record when it comes to getting their employees to actually obey or correctly interpret their own laws.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Study up on the difference between can and may.
The military most certainly maynot kill civilians in times if peace, unless certain conditions are met, however that in no way makes the military incapable (as in cannot) if killing. After all, accidents happen.
No, paranoia is NOT a mental condition, it's a lifestyle.