This document is meant to be a "reader" or "pathfinder" presenting an overview of the social and legal situation surrounding the Raise The Fist raid and arrest. It's being produced to clarify what's happened. I hope it helps the reader understand the current conditions of political protest, social dissent, cyberlaw, and the FBI's understanding of anarchist groups and hackers. Follow the links to get deeper information.

- Sherman Martin Austin was the webmaster of RaiseTheFist.com, an anarchist website.

- He lives in Los Angeles County with his siblings and mother. It was raided on the 24th by a team comprising the LAPD, Secret Service and FBI. He was not arrested at that time.

- He drove to the east coast, with the intent of protesting the WEF in New York. At the protests, he was arrested on misdemeanor charges.

- The charges were dropped, and he was immediately re-arrested by the FBI on charges of publishing bomb-making information, an alleged violation of the USA PATRIOT act.

- Sherman is scheduled to be extradited to California on Wednesday the 13th.

More information about this case is available on the LA IndyMedia, SF IndyMedia, and Cryptome websites.

Contemporary acts of political dissent are being prosecuted under increasingly harsh laws with fines that are larger, and prison terms longer, than in the past. The following excerpt by Patricia Nell Warren, taken from the online anthology The Darkness Arrives, compares what political people today face compared to those of the Civil Rights era. (The linked article also includes information about the IMC case against the FBI.)

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus, in a time of unrelenting segregation law, when blacks were still lynched in the South. Was Parks jailed for a year? No. She was arrested and fined . In 1958 the Rev. Martin Luther King was fined for ignoring a police order at a demonstration. (King chose fourteen days in jail rather than paying the fine.) Through the '60s and '70s, the campus takeovers, anti-war marches, and grape-pickers' strikes, these arrests were usually treated like parking tickets. Charges were summary, and the cops let you go. A long arrest record was an activist's badge of honor. Only a few did serious prison time because they advocated overthrow of the government.

Today the United States has suddenly junked its respect for civil disobedience. Quietly, when Americans weren't looking, law enforcement and legislators have slapped a high markup on the penal price of protest. They now consider that kind of activism to border on "domestic terrorism," and are prosecuting it under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the way organized crime and harassment of abortion clinics are now prosecuted. A key court decision, NOW v. Scheidler, has "created outrageously prohibitive sanctions for what are essentially minor violations of law," according to Crisis magazine. Nonviolent protesters are being hammered with huge bails, huge fines, multiple counts, and many months, even many years, in prison. A single arrest can now destroy your life. -- Patricia Nell Warren "Fourteen Dollars"

The media spin has been generally negative, presenting the story in the most sensationalistic and accusatory narrative (see LA Times article). Most articles almost state that publishing bomb making information is illegal. In fact, the legal precedent, as restated in a lengthy DOJ report published in 1997, shows that it is legal, protected speech. Later, in 1999, the court found, in a case by Planned Parenthood against groups listing abortion doctor's home addresses, that some specific kinds of speech were illegal if they were a "true threat" against individuals described in the speech. It's unclear whether there were any specific individuals being threatened on RaiseTheFist, as the bomb information didn't specify an individual to target.

Regardless, what matters isn't that the text of USA PATRIOT law forbids the bomb information, but whether the law itself is constitutional. That's what will be determined in court.

"Anarchism" is showing up as a threat on the FBI's radar. A recent report, Threat of Terrorism to the United States, listed "anarchist" groups along with foreign terror groups, right wing militias, and the ELF (which this author regards as actual terror groups).

In the report, the FBI haphazardly threw together leftist groups to create the appearance of a large threat, demonstrating some basic lack of understaning about the groups they were demonizing. They listed as "anarchist" three things which are not anarchist groups: Reclaim the Streets (is an unlicensed rave), Workers World Party (is a communist, not anarchist group -- see link), and Carnival Against Capitalism (is an umbrella term for a style of protest with planned entertainment).

IMPORTANT: Sherman is NOT being charged with computer tresspass at this time. By my own amateur estimation, there's not sufficient evidence that proves that he was involved with entering computers and changing web pages. He's only being charged with violation of PATRIOT. This information is presented to shed some light on government raids of computer systems in homes.

The FBI has a long and strange history with computer hackers. Their early efforts involving bulletin board shutdowns in the 80's were generally ham-handed and appeared to be driven by a fear of savvy computer users. More recently, computer tresspass and vandalism has taken on a more social edge and is being used by young people to spread political messages. Penalties for cybercrime are considered, by many, to be far out of proportion for the actual damage inflicted. Wheras spraypainting a wall is a misdemeanor with a fine ranging from 0 to ,000, computer tresspass is a felony with fines that typically range in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Secret Service - an anthology of the Secret Service targeting of computer hackers (2600, hacker magazine, late 80's early 90's)

The Hacker Crackdown - about SS and FBI attacks on hackers in the 80's. (book published in 1990)

Global Hell - story about the youth who hacked whitehouse.gov (CNN story, 1999)

Pimpshiz, pro Napster cracker who propagandized for music trading (CNET)

This document lacks information about the USA PATRIOT act, First Amendment case law, and probably other information relevant to the case. There's also been an inflammatory article in the NY Post that could use some deconstruction. These subjects require some coverage, and any assistance researching these issues is appreciated.

Johnk,

Why do you regard the ELF as terrorist?

I consider the act of burning most buildings to be terrorist. (I'm referring to the arson cases attributed to the elf.)

Though I tend to side with the ELF, I consider them to be tactically more like the more like abortion clinic bombers than an @-ist group like Food Not Bombs. They're leveraging the power of fire/explosives to scare people.

There's a gray area when you promise only property destruction, and explicitly don't seek to harm anyone, but the effect is still like terrorism, because the targets don't trust the arsonists to keep their word. The demand of the terrorist is: change your behavior, or suffer more damage at the hands of this small secret group.

I guess the next natural question is: is all property destruction terrorism? I don't think so. In a riot, for example, people expect their property to be damaged. Simple vandalism isn't terrorism, unless it comes with the promise of a more violent act.

Since it's Black History month, I'll use the "blacks moving in" example. Suppose that someone sprays "go away" on the door of the new Black neighbors. That's a baby step toward terrorism. If, later, they burn a cross on the lawn, and kill the dog, I'd say that's so much like a promise of future violence that it's terrorism.

I don't really know the ELF actions that well. Maybe they have a track record that might mitigate the "message" delivered by their actions, so that people don't feel threatened. On the other hand, the very threat of arson makes people want to shit their pants.

My definition of terrorism really hinges on the victim's viewpoint more than anything else. If you look at it from a 3rd person perspective, it's a little different.

And, if you view it from the perspective of the terrorist, again, it's different.

I have posted articles and cartoons about both these issues;

rtf and elf. Here are the urls if you are interested:

regarding raisethefist:

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=125165&group=webcast

regarding elf and ecoterrorism:

http://richmond.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1108&group=webcast



also, there has been a lot of email and internet interference from my end when I tried to communicate with rtf's website or when I tried to send an email; constant error messages blocking communications. Same for laanarchists.org

If there is anyone close to this issue, I am willing to donate time, art, and other efforts as necessary. Just email me. If there is any kind of error message, please keep trying or post where I can send a snailmail.

They seem like conscientious vandals. At least they seem to make sure that people aren't going to get hurt, so, you might be able to say it's just vandalism. OTOH, they're relying on fear for their full effect. They don't just want to burn the house in a subdivision, they want to make people think it's a really bad idea to live in that subdivision. When the office burns up, they're hoping they don't rebuild it.

I still think elf arson's a form of terrorism. I can't support the tactic, in general, not at this time, in this country. (Folks should use their security culture training on me. The fat, long haired asian guy don't need to know about it.)

In the context of the above article, it really matters less what I think is terrorism, than what the _government_ thinks. I think the ELF falls into their definition.** The other groups, though, are so far away from terrorism that they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath.

[** I have to correct myself here. Actually, it's a gray area whether the ELF is a terrorist group. The new category of "domestic terrorism" is defined in the new USA PATRIOT act. This definition hasn't been tested for constitutionality yet.]

I don't buy their argument that ideological similarities implicate all eco or anarcho groups as terrorist. That's unfair to the pacifists, philosophers, and even bullshitters, who operate above ground. IMHO, terrorism has to be identified by actions, not on message or ideology. And, after you identify it, you can make a moral judgement about it.

(Check out the ecoterrorist article also on the home page.)

I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO PUT A DISCLAIMER AFTER ALL THIS "TERRORISM" TALK I'VE MADE. RTF HAS NOT BEEN CALLED A TERRORIST GROUP. I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT RTF, BUT THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT.

I hope that's totally obvious.

These are just my opinions. I'm not a lawyer or anything. I just surf the web, and have a growing pacifist streak.

I gotta read up on PATRIOT now.

Useful summary John. I note that you've been on top of this issue since it first appeared (kudos to SFIndymedia). Anyway, this was extensively (and often ignorantly) commented on on http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/31/1820238&mode=thread"> slashdot, there are some discussions in there of First Amendment rights that may be helpful.

It's hard to see in the interface, but there's a field for URLs. This links to ths slash article.

Although FBI agents have mentioned the PATRIOT Act and that act no doubt affected the manner and methods of investigation, Sherman has not been charged under any PATRIOT provisions. See http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/02/115464.php#115658 for links to the law in question, which dates from 1999.