Kids...don't try this at home! / Re: Roby latest

Jeff Barber wrote:
> See http://www.sj-r.com/roby.html for the latest.

> My favorite excerpt:
>
> > Illinois State Police feared that any progress in getting Allen - who's
> > suspected to suffer from paranoia, delusions and suicidal thoughts - to
> > exit on her own may have been undone. On Sunday, troopers broke out most
> > of the remaining windows in Allen's house, tossed nine pepper-spray
> > grenades inside and sent a police dog in to subdue Allen.

I know what you're thinking, kid.
You're thinking, "I'm going to try doing this on Halloween, and if I
get caught, I'm going to tell mom and dad I was checking on the old
lady's health."

Forget it. You don't have a badge, and you're going to get your
bottom tanned.

KidMonger

At 2:32 PM -0700 10/28/97, Anonymous wrote:

>I know what you're thinking, kid.
>You're thinking, "I'm going to try doing this on Halloween, and if I
>get caught, I'm going to tell mom and dad I was checking on the old
>lady's health."
>
>Forget it. You don't have a badge, and you're going to get your
>bottom tanned.

You should see some of the various realistic-looking badges one can buy at
the gun shows! From agencies and correctional departments and obscure law
enforcement agencies...but all very realistic-looking. Also availabe from
the back of various gun and survival magazines, but I like to look at
things in person, up close, before committing to a purchase.

This has some very slight ObCrypto connections, in that badges are, as a
class, taken to be "face value claims of authority." Flashing a badge is
often all it takes to gain entrance to a house, or access to controlled
areas.

So, with the proliferation of essentially perfect copies of badges, and
laser-printed credentials to match them, what happens to "real"
badge-carrying officers? (And just what _are_ real officers in an era of
ten thousand police and law enforcement jurisdictions, hundreds of agencies
authorized to have their agents carry guns and make arrests, and no
traceability, no top-down authentication system?)

--Lt. Timothy May, sworn Peace Officer, Lagrange County, CLS

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 5:38 AM -0700 10/29/97, Brad Dolan wrote:
>"Michael Hays" is a new CBS series about a U.S. District Attorney.  Last
>night's episode was about how a radio talk-show host incited a listener
>to kill a BATF agent and was brought to justice.  DA convinced a jury
>that some things were "more important" than the first amendment.
>

I was just about to mention this show, in connection with the Waco incident.

I was truly disgusted by the show. None of the relative balance and realism
that "Law and Order" has, by comparison. For starters, very unrealistic.
Even Freeh and Company understand the role of the First (to give them their
due). Just plain bad writers.

Some of the slimy stuff:  (all quotes are rough paraphrases)

* references to Waco followers as crazies: "they seem to show up everywhere"

* a black assistant to Hayes talks about the chat rooms and online
discussion groups that the "extreme right wing" people are in: "And this
stuff is completely unregulated!"

* the First Amendment is seen as a minor obstacle to prosecution. Hayes
congratulates his assistant at the end for finding a way around the First
as a defense.

* the talk show host has apparently done nothing more than many of us have
done on this list

* he is convicted because he claimed not to have ever met the murderer, but
a tearful witness (girlfriend of the murderer) says they did meet, briefly.

(No evidence is presented that the talk show host participated, supplied
weapons, encouraged the murderer, etc.)

* Oh, and to add to the sliminess, the DA's office promises the tearful
girlfriend that her boyfriend will get a life sentence instead of death if
she testifies, but "whoops."

After the assistant to Hayes talks about the Net being "completely
unregulated!," and after finding the "Pentium II with 48 megs of memory," I
was expecting some mention of encryption. As a way to further show how evil
the online community is. But I saw no mention.

I will admit to a guilty pleasure: the opening scene, where the BATF agent
gets shot in the face, was delicious.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 07:38 AM 10/29/1997 -0500, Brad Dolan wrote:
>"Michael Hays" is a new CBS series about a U.S. District Attorney.  Last
>night's episode was about how a radio talk-show host incited a listener
>to kill a BATF agent and was brought to justice.  DA convinced a jury
>that some things were "more important" than the first amendment.

It's nice not to spend my evenings staring at a tube :-)

The radio talk-show host who talked about killing BATF agents
really _did_ deserve to be brought to justice.
No, not the fictional one, and not for that - the real one,
G.Gordon Liddy himself, Watergate Plumber and Republican Henchperson,
the kind of sleazy statist propagandist who'd love to be
putting on a TV show like that if it wasn't about him.*

(Actually he did do some time, and he deserved it.
His fellow conspirator, Chuck Colson, has at least rehabilitated himself.)

[I've been reading Esther Dyson's new book "Release 2.0";
she's got a nice line in there about the Net being a great place for
conspiracy, while television is better for propaganda.]

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

"Michael Hays" is a new CBS series about a U.S. District Attorney.  Last
night's episode was about how a radio talk-show host incited a listener
to kill a BATF agent and was brought to justice.  DA convinced a jury
that some things were "more important" than the first amendment.

bd

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At 08:06 AM 10/29/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:

>I will admit to a guilty pleasure: the opening scene, where the BATF agent
>gets shot in the face, was delicious.

BATF - still the highest death rate of any federal enforcement agency 
(because bootleggers are in it for real).

DCF
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At 8:06 AM -0700 10/29/1997, Tim May wrote:
>At 5:38 AM -0700 10/29/97, Brad Dolan wrote:
>>"Michael Hays" is a new CBS series about a U.S. District Attorney.  Last
>>night's episode was about how a radio talk-show host incited a listener
>>to kill a BATF agent and was brought to justice.  DA convinced a jury
>>that some things were "more important" than the first amendment.

Wouldn't it be interesting if someone incited a Net listener/reader to kill
the producer of this "Michael Hays" episode in a "life immitates art"
situation?

--Steve