Anarchist jailed for linking to bomb sites

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced a man to a year in prison Monday for creating an anarchist Web site with links to sites on how to build bombs.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson sentenced Sherman Austin to more than the prosecutor had recommended under a plea bargain.

Austin, 20, pleaded guilty in February to distributing information related to explosives.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/05/anarchist.prison.ap/index.html

I wish this article had more details, is this really illegal? Or did they just convince him to take a plea bargain when in fact he did nothing wrong?

http://www.raisethefist.com/ (his website)
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/75677.php

Slashdot has been covering this:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/31/1820238&mode=thread&tid=99

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/15/2150207&mode=thread&tid=99

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/05/1639226&mode=thread&tid=153&tid=99

At worst, I've heard of people's ISP's yanking the sites due to TOS violations from links, but this is the first time I've heard that linking to an external site was a crime.

In fact, wasn't there precedence about what 'linking' constituted when a M$ 'portal' site was sued (by Ticketmaster?) for 'deep-linking' to internal pages? I think there was also a case where someone wanted to charge a fee to be linked TO, and that was tossed out. These cases seemed to imply that the act of linking to a site was no more significant than talking about it, ie., no copyright issues, and no legal liability.

But Ashcroft just makes up the law as he goes along anyway, so what do I know....

The hacker site 2600 (publishers of the famed Hacker Quarterly) got in some serious trouble for linking to the code for cracking DVD encryption. Hunt around http://www.2600.com/dvd/docs/ for more info.

Oddly, mainstream news sites that also linked to the code had no problems.

if it's used to try and dupe 'consumers' (read suckers) into buying crap or to bribe politicians.

But I really don't consider telling people how to make bombs as being "protected free speech".

That puts the lives of others in danger and infringes on their rights. There are exceptions to free speech--like you "can't say fire in a crowded movie theatre".

Telling people how to make bombs is not something that should be protected. The safety of the public trumps that right.

Knowing how to build a bomb should not be a crime.. Building a bomb should be.

Using your logic, people who know how to use a gun should be locked up as a menace to public safety.

Homeland security needs more people that feel the way you do, the Bush regeme would be able to make all of the remaining non imprisoned folks much safer.

I don't think that putting instructions on how to build a bomb should be protect speech.

But the subject of free speech sorta inspires passion. The question is where we would draw the line?

Everyone in my physics class learned how to make a bomb.

http://catb.org/~esr/css-auth.tar.gz

Its from Eric S Raymond's website, a leading open source advocate.

"As a public service and act of civil disobedience, we are proud to offer the DeCSS code that will allow you to circumvent the encryption on the DVDs you own. Your DVD, your hardware, your choice! (Please do not ask me technical questions about this code; I have never used it.)"

As expected, rights whittled away for the sake of private intellectual property rights end up getting exploited in other ways later.

Didn't someone record the DeCSS algorithm as song lyrics to get around it at one point?

was that it wasn't even him linking. he also ran a message board and someone POSTED bomb making links, and that's what busted him. pretty fucked up you can get tossed in prison for what someone else posts on your site.

Giving people advice on how to build bombs is wrong and is dangerous. I wonder how many people were harmed as a result of him having that link there.

what do you make of this?

http://www.letifer.org/acb/
http://www.totse.com/en/bad_ideas/irresponsible_activities/explosiv.html
http://www.phonon.net/kp/ac5/cb.htm
http://www.inventati.org/apb/cookbook.htm

or did he have one? If linking to something is not illegal
and as far as we know, it is not, he should not have pleaded
guilty. He sealed his fate the minute he did that.

If I'm not mistaken, now that he has pleaded guilty to linking
to violent sites, there is a precedent set...and whoever will
have a site that somebody puts those links on, can now be arrested
and jailed.

Either the ACLU or someone better get an appeal right away.

WHY did the fool plead guilty?

No. There's something else going on here.

Anarchist.

Was he blatantly promoting violent overthrow of the government?

Actually, this country was born in violent overthrow of the English
government...but come to think of it, the reason why Ashcroft and
Bushco may have instituted these rules immediately was not 9-11 but
to prevent overthrow of the coup d'etat by the common people.

Why is nobody yelling impeach and acting on it.

If someone advocates a violent overthrow of the U.S., I'd turn them in as well.

If the government was so goddam popular, you wouldn't have people thinking in that directon.

I'd find it VERY hard to "turn someone in," unless they were affiliated with a real enemy in a real war.

accomplished by Rehnquist, Bush, and the rest of the neo-
cons. If you haven't noticed they have "overthrown" the
US Constitution. Is that all right with you? the sneaky
CIA overthrow?

...strip the libraries of ALL information on explosives? history and development of gunpowder? the making of fireworks? How about the Chemistry and Physics text books?

Making INFORMATION illegal is NEVER a good thing. Restricting ACCESS to INFORMATION is NEVER a good thing.

did they also charge the actual owners of the bomb-making sites?

okay with asscroft

"Did anyone order a bomb-eh?" - Inspector Clousseau

What a bomb-shell!

Osama bin Bamba!

Bomb.

Bomb.

Bomb.

F*ckin' fascists.