Re: Bombs on the internet

[Robert Hoffmann <escape@alt-escape.com>]

At 02:56 PM 4/23/99 EDT, you wrote:
>Can anyone tell me what the purpose is of explaining how to make bombs on
the 
>Internet?  Maybe we should hold the author of those sites responsible.  Or 
>pass a law to put them away in prison.
>
>Shelley

Shelley,

I'm sure you would be able to do this in Chile, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc,
but not here.  You are presuming that there must be a valid "purpose" for
someone to say something.  That is not what our Constitution holds.  200+
years of jurisprudence says that there must be a very negative purpose
(such as immanent  threat to someone's life or well-being) in order for
speech to be prohibited.  If we banned speech that didn't have a "purpose,"
we could possibly ban huge categories of books, movies, magazines, and
coffee-table conversations.

Telling someone how to make a bomb does not pose an immanent threat.  If
you told them how to make it, and said "now go and blow up the
supermarket," that would be construed as an immanent threat (and/or
inciting to violence).  That would be clearly illegal.

I'm not a lawyer, but the above is pretty valid legal principle, according
to my understanding.

>I wonder if there is a way for the government to monitor certain web sites.  
>Like, if a computer logs on to a site (making bombs for dummies) a message
is 
>then sent to the FBI?  That sounds like something I would not have a problem 
>with spending my hard earned tax dollars on.  How about you?

Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland....

Again, in this country, to investigate someone, police need a reasonable
suspicion that someone has committed or will commit a crime.  Since merely
describing the bomb-making process (see above) is not illegal, nor is
reading such info, so there is no crime to investigate.  Imagine this:  An
FBI agent writes a manual about home-made bombs to inform his colleages
about what evidence they might encounter.  Should this be illegal?  After
all, such a manual could easily find its way into the hands of the general
public.  Should someone be investigated for reading this material?

Last night, I did an Internet search for "Anarchists Cookbook," to see how
easy it was to find such information on the Internet.  Wow.  I found a
really good source of things that I never imagined possible.  Not that I
would ever plan to use such info, but I was curious.  You are saying that
the FBI should investigate me.  I'm not too keen with that proposition.

On this mailing list, I have stated reasons for decriminalizing drugs.
Should the police investigate me for this, or put me in jail, for
expressing these views?  It's not a far stretch from your argument.

Thanks,

Robert Hoffmann                      817 S. Adams
Alt-Escape Adventures                Moscow, ID  83843  USA
http://www.alt-escape.com            Phone: (208) 883-0642
	             Fax:   (208) 883-8545