Now: my own analysis. (For credibilty: I am a lawyer. I am also a political activist. I was AT the WEF protests in New York.)
Yes, his website did contain information about making molotov cocktails, and a suggestion that they might be used for illegal purpose. However, it didn't even BEGIN to reach the constitutional standard for incitement (which, as another poster accurately pointed out, requires the danger be imminent), and should never have been censored. Especially by the forcible taking down of a website, which, in my mind, is equivalent to prior restraint in that it prevents future listeners from hearing the speech. (about as close to prior restraint as taking up published copies of a book and burning them. Not totally prior, but pretty prior.)
I might add that the Black Bloc is indeed a tactic, not an organization, and one based in safety from random police snatch-squads and fearmongering singling out, not in violence. 99.99 percent of the people who use that tactic are completely nonviolent, even if, on average, more militant than the rest of the movement.
Noone has accused anyone of bombing anything in NY.
In fact, the arrests at the protests in NY were total and complete jokes. On Saturday, there was a permit for the major march (there were others) and there was not a single crime committed, with the possible exception of littering. Yet the cops made some 25-40 arrests by on-the-spot counts. On Sunday, the cops made the other couple of hundred, and all of peaceful, nonviolent protestors, almost all for nonsense crimes like blocking the sidewalks or disorderly conduct. Or my personal favorite, the totally oxymoronic (given the First Amendment) crime of "unlawful assembly."
I know, I was there, marching with them on Saturday, and also at the spokescouncil meetings of the group on Saturday and Sunday, and also getting news from the participants on Monday's events. ("No, Senator, I am not a communist.")
Only 1 window was allegedly broken. (I say allegedly because there were also reports of provocateurs.) No other serious crimes have even been alleged, except those committed by the cops. My guess, based on the estimates of various sources, was that there were 15,000 activists in New York at the time. Look at that ratio for a minute. How many other groups of 15,000 people can you find who don't committ crimes? (Ignoring such idiotic crimes as violation of NY's unconstitutional mask law [in NYS, part of the loitering statute prohibits gatherings wearing masks except in masquerades licensed by cities that have licensing for them], and blocking the sidewalk/street)
Disorderly conduct = contempt of cop, and/or dissent.
Yet what does the corporate media focus on? Well, duh.
"When investigators raided his apartment Jan 24, they said they discovered a treasure-trove of mischief-making tools. In addition to computers, they found literature advocating revolution, gas canisters, iced-tea bottles filled with flammable material, gas masks and an anarchist flag. Austin's car contained fertilizer, cans of brake fluid and two gas canisters."
Since when are
literature advocating revolution
gas masks (often brought by protestors because the cops indiscriminately gas people)
and anarchist flag[s]
"mischief-making tools?" Haven't those morons in the corporate press ever heard of the First Amendment?
A friend of mine (support her: http://www.thewalkfordemocracy.org) brecame an activist because she was at Seattle. A normal citizen, she was taking her groceries home, and was gassed by random cops. A door opened in her mind. Gas masks, especially, are perfectly reasonable equipment at a protest.
Item "c" of the warrant is particularly scary. Authority to search for any document about the WEF or IMF? What??? Of course, that's not as scary as g(iii), giving the cops carte blanche to destroy encrypted information merely because it is encrypted. (Helloooooo, first amendment?)
Items 27, 29, 39[should be 38](a), 39(g)(ii), 41(h), 44(f), 45, 49(d), 50(e) and 50(f) of the affidavit are equally terrifying: now it's a crime to espouse "anti-government... messages," to attend protests in masks, and other protected political activity??? (See ESPECIALLY 41(h), 44(f), 45(e), 49(d), and 50(e) and (f), for the most obvious direct punishment by political opinion.)
In short: His arrest was 100% political. He's a political prisoner, of the kind Amnesty International is interested in. If they really wanted him for the hacking, they wouldn't have arrested him right before the protests, and all the political stuff wouldn't have been in the affidavit.
RISE UP AGAINST CAPITALISM! There. Now you have literature advocating revolution on your computer. Expect a visit from the FBI shortly.
-Paul Gowder (email changed to paul@paultopia.org)
This development concerns me greatly. Why? Well, I'm a Palm OS fanatic. And in marketing, like in politics, it is a bad idea to split your constituency. Right now, I think it's safe to say that Palm OS's dominance is uncontestable in the "techno-geek" category who fear, loathe, and despite Microsoft. Now, with things like linux and java pda's threatening that...
Don't you experience this as guilt by association?
Indeed, might I say, even double guilt by association. First the ISP is punished for associating (doing a simple business transaction with, which won't be eliminated if you hurt the ISP, just moved) with the spammer. Then the innocent customers are punished for associating with the ISP. In the AGIS incident, we can call it quadruple guilt by association. They punished AGIS for dealing with cyberpromo, then punished AGIS's clients for dealing with AGIS, the punished those client's users for dealing with their ISP's.
Now HOW can those users make the connection between "hey, my mail doesn't get through" and "I better agitate to get cyberpromo censored."
It's simple bullying. Now, you may have a "right" to do so, legally or whatever. But that doesn't make it justified.
Think of it this way. AGIS is on the backbone, right? Carries huge chunks of traffic on the net, right? What if AGIS decided to stop dealing with the ISP's who subscribed to MAPS, to stop carrying their traffic? And what if they got all the other big deal folks to do so as well? UU.net, etc. etc. etc. Would you feel that was, how shall we say, bullying?
And why can't the ISP's block spammers their own damn selves?
That would make it easier for the ISP's to determine who should get through.
That would provide an entity for the customers of the ISP's to complain directly to, when they can't get their mail.
That would result in less total censorship, because some ISP's on MAPS right now might not bother to read the list, so may block something they might leave open, where if something they want to block is left open, they can do so.
That would make for less concentrations of power.
Is that not a good thing?
MAPS is a last resort tool. And NSI isn't letting up. Throw 'em in.
I totally agree. The surest way to check a bully is for the bully to try and push around someone even bigger.
Don't you understand the implications of this message? MAPS has the power to block whole backbones? And anyone who gets shafted is "collateral damage?" I mean, really. Everyone here is acting as if MAPS is the underdog. These people have the power to bring down the whole net. And they act as an extremely blunt censor. NSI is one of the few gorrillia's bigger than MAPS -- so let them do the fighting for the rest of the net.
What right to they have to decide that AGIS should get blocked, just because they choose to provide services which someone else misuses. This would be the rough equivalent to ordering all Ford drivers off the roads because a couple of people did hit-and-runs with them. The difference is, IRL, nobody has the POWER to exclude Ford cars. MAPS does. Overkill by an organization that has this much power needs to be stopped by a "600 pound gorillia." Good job NSI.
I don't see why the whole internet community doesn't get behind this lil ole intimidation attempt.
After all, it's basically Beezelbub versus Lucifer (NSI is Lucifer). They're both equally evil, but one is a lot more powerful. If Lucifer kills Beezelbub, you cheer, even though Lucifer wins a battle, because one demon is eliminated.
Same here. NSI is rich, powerful, and going to give MAPS a good solid humbugging. Does anyone remember their history? Stealing the "A" server from Postel, actually standing up to ICANN, smiting anyone that crosses them? Do you think they're going to let a bunch of moralistic hackers get in their way?
In fact, I could imagine a world where the first domain that gets pulled is mail-abuse.org. And that would be good.
Didn't Churchill say something like "if Hitler invaded Hell, I'd invite the devil to tea?"
Slashdot Mirror
the warrant and affidavit supporting it are here:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/
Now: my own analysis. (For credibilty: I am a lawyer. I am also a political activist. I was AT the WEF protests in New York.)
Yes, his website did contain information about making molotov cocktails, and a suggestion that they might be used for illegal purpose. However, it didn't even BEGIN to reach the constitutional standard for incitement (which, as another poster accurately pointed out, requires the danger be imminent), and should never have been censored. Especially by the forcible taking down of a website, which, in my mind, is equivalent to prior restraint in that it prevents future listeners from hearing the speech. (about as close to prior restraint as taking up published copies of a book and burning them. Not totally prior, but pretty prior.)
I might add that the Black Bloc is indeed a tactic, not an organization, and one based in safety from random police snatch-squads and fearmongering singling out, not in violence. 99.99 percent of the people who use that tactic are completely nonviolent, even if, on average, more militant than the rest of the movement.
Noone has accused anyone of bombing anything in NY.
In fact, the arrests at the protests in NY were total and complete jokes. On Saturday, there was a permit for the major march (there were others) and there was not a single crime committed, with the possible exception of littering. Yet the cops made some 25-40 arrests by on-the-spot counts. On Sunday, the cops made the other couple of hundred, and all of peaceful, nonviolent protestors, almost all for nonsense crimes like blocking the sidewalks or disorderly conduct. Or my personal favorite, the totally oxymoronic (given the First Amendment) crime of "unlawful assembly."
I know, I was there, marching with them on Saturday, and also at the spokescouncil meetings of the group on Saturday and Sunday, and also getting news from the participants on Monday's events. ("No, Senator, I am not a communist.")
Only 1 window was allegedly broken. (I say allegedly because there were also reports of provocateurs.) No other serious crimes have even been alleged, except those committed by the cops. My guess, based on the estimates of various sources, was that there were 15,000 activists in New York at the time. Look at that ratio for a minute. How many other groups of 15,000 people can you find who don't committ crimes? (Ignoring such idiotic crimes as violation of NY's unconstitutional mask law [in NYS, part of the loitering statute prohibits gatherings wearing masks except in masquerades licensed by cities that have licensing for them], and blocking the sidewalk/street)
Disorderly conduct = contempt of cop, and/or dissent.
Yet what does the corporate media focus on? Well, duh.
"When investigators raided his apartment Jan 24, they said they discovered a treasure-trove of mischief-making tools. In addition to computers, they found literature advocating revolution, gas canisters, iced-tea bottles filled with flammable material, gas masks and an anarchist flag. Austin's car contained fertilizer, cans of brake fluid and two gas canisters."
Since when are
literature advocating revolution
gas masks (often brought by protestors because the cops indiscriminately gas people)
and anarchist flag[s]
"mischief-making tools?" Haven't those morons in the corporate press ever heard of the First Amendment?
A friend of mine (support her: http://www.thewalkfordemocracy.org) brecame an activist because she was at Seattle. A normal citizen, she was taking her groceries home, and was gassed by random cops. A door opened in her mind. Gas masks, especially, are perfectly reasonable equipment at a protest.
Item "c" of the warrant is particularly scary. Authority to search for any document about the WEF or IMF? What??? Of course, that's not as scary as g(iii), giving the cops carte blanche to destroy encrypted information merely because it is encrypted. (Helloooooo, first amendment?)
Items 27, 29, 39[should be 38](a), 39(g)(ii), 41(h), 44(f), 45, 49(d), 50(e) and 50(f) of the affidavit are equally terrifying: now it's a crime to espouse "anti-government... messages," to attend protests in masks, and other protected political activity??? (See ESPECIALLY 41(h), 44(f), 45(e), 49(d), and 50(e) and (f), for the most obvious direct punishment by political opinion.)
In short: His arrest was 100% political. He's a political prisoner, of the kind Amnesty International is interested in. If they really wanted him for the hacking, they wouldn't have arrested him right before the protests, and all the political stuff wouldn't have been in the affidavit.
RISE UP AGAINST CAPITALISM! There. Now you have literature advocating revolution on your computer. Expect a visit from the FBI shortly.
-Paul Gowder (email changed to paul@paultopia.org)
This development concerns me greatly. Why? Well, I'm a Palm OS fanatic. And in marketing, like in politics, it is a bad idea to split your constituency. Right now, I think it's safe to say that Palm OS's dominance is uncontestable in the "techno-geek" category who fear, loathe, and despite Microsoft. Now, with things like linux and java pda's threatening that...
Indeed, might I say, even double guilt by association. First the ISP is punished for associating (doing a simple business transaction with, which won't be eliminated if you hurt the ISP, just moved) with the spammer. Then the innocent customers are punished for associating with the ISP. In the AGIS incident, we can call it quadruple guilt by association. They punished AGIS for dealing with cyberpromo, then punished AGIS's clients for dealing with AGIS, the punished those client's users for dealing with their ISP's.
Now HOW can those users make the connection between "hey, my mail doesn't get through" and "I better agitate to get cyberpromo censored."
It's simple bullying. Now, you may have a "right" to do so, legally or whatever. But that doesn't make it justified.
Think of it this way. AGIS is on the backbone, right? Carries huge chunks of traffic on the net, right? What if AGIS decided to stop dealing with the ISP's who subscribed to MAPS, to stop carrying their traffic? And what if they got all the other big deal folks to do so as well? UU.net, etc. etc. etc. Would you feel that was, how shall we say, bullying?
And why can't the ISP's block spammers their own damn selves?
Is that not a good thing?
MAPS is a last resort tool. And NSI isn't letting up. Throw 'em in.
I totally agree. The surest way to check a bully is for the bully to try and push around someone even bigger.
What right to they have to decide that AGIS should get blocked, just because they choose to provide services which someone else misuses. This would be the rough equivalent to ordering all Ford drivers off the roads because a couple of people did hit-and-runs with them. The difference is, IRL, nobody has the POWER to exclude Ford cars. MAPS does. Overkill by an organization that has this much power needs to be stopped by a "600 pound gorillia." Good job NSI.
After all, it's basically Beezelbub versus Lucifer (NSI is Lucifer). They're both equally evil, but one is a lot more powerful. If Lucifer kills Beezelbub, you cheer, even though Lucifer wins a battle, because one demon is eliminated.
Same here. NSI is rich, powerful, and going to give MAPS a good solid humbugging. Does anyone remember their history? Stealing the "A" server from Postel, actually standing up to ICANN, smiting anyone that crosses them? Do you think they're going to let a bunch of moralistic hackers get in their way?
In fact, I could imagine a world where the first domain that gets pulled is mail-abuse.org. And that would be good.
Didn't Churchill say something like "if Hitler invaded Hell, I'd invite the devil to tea?"