This just came in on the shermanaustinlegal mailing list from riseup.net:

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The Federal Public Defenders Office informed me today that the FBI will not return property seized from my home on the day of the raid (jan. 24, 2002). The property will be turned over to  STATE authorities pending further investigation and possible prosecution. This is NOT Double Jeopardy.  A person may be prosecuted twice for the same offense as long as the second proceeding takes place in a separate sovereign's court.

The Fifth Amendment clause, "nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy" proclaims a simple guarantee of freedom from multiple prosecutions for the same offense. Simple, that is, until the doctrine of "dual sovereignty" emerged during alcohol prohibition. Ever since the first application of the doctrine in 1922, legal scholars have strongly criticized the government's notion that a defendant whose conduct violates the laws of two sovereigns has "committed two different offenses by the same act." This legal fiction prevented state governments, many of which were unsympathetic to the federal government's liquor laws, from defeating the fed.'s ability to punish prohibition violators by bringing a sham prosecution or by imposing a minimal sentence.

The Supreme court, in effect, added the words, "by the same sovereign" to the end Double Jeopardy Clause. Framers of the Constitution never considered the possibility of this obstructive addition to the Fifth Amendment because the Constitution and its first ten amendments restricted the newly formed federal government from enacting types of laws that generally overlap the police powers of the states. In recent years, however, the vast expansion of the scope of federal laws resulted in an enormous number of crimes for which one may be subject to consecutive state and federal prosecutions.

I need your help. We need to file a motion for the return of the property. A motion would involve a court hearing and the prosecutor would be required to file a response to the court as to why they are not returning the property. This would provide me with the information that I need in order to begin planning a strategy to fight this. I can't rely on the FPD office to do this for me -- they represent their interests NOT Sherman's interests. Sherman needs an attorney who is willing to fight. We need to raise cash ASAP. If you can help with benefits, donations, or have suggestions, PLEASE reply.

Jennifer Martin Ruggiero

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Donations can ONLY be sent here:

Jennifer Martin

12115 MAGNOLIA BLVD

#155 N. HOLLYWOOD,CA 91607

USA

at the bottom of the page it says there are 2 comments but they don't show and there's no links to click on.

I'm posting what should be a third comment to see if the first two become visible or if this one is

this should be the 3'rd comment

When you consider that they busted him for basicly nothing - I used to do far more dangerous things when I was a kid, explosions, fireworks, tried to make as big of a fireball as possible, blasting caps, liquid propane, etc..

I also have and collect much more dangerous knowledge - I have been since the mid-90's, things that are now illegal...

Cryptome has a pretty good collection of some of it and they've been pressured as well over it - they stand thier ground with lawyers and so on. The feds never had an easy excuse for them like they did with Sherman (hacking - what a joke, they set up honeypots then selectively use them to go after people as they choose)

The comments were hidden, but the software left the box at the bottom. They were rude jokes with no merit.

This dual soverign situation seems unfair. It would seem to imply that the harshest, most restrictive law applies at all times. What prevents a city from turning itself into a fascist city?

I'm not a "federalist" and like the idea of "states rights" and "local control" but not if it is a means to restrict personal freedom.

by about the time I typed that, that's what I was thinking..

RE: Sherman's stuff

Whether they get the equipment back would make little difference in the larger scheme of things - they seem determined to "make an example" out of him so they probably have other tricks up thier sleeves beyond what evidence they're sitting on now.

I've found hardware to be easyly replaced - it's the data that really matters. My oldest digitally saved data is from '86 which was on an audio cassette which went through a house fire and barely survived, matter of fact I had to use special emulation software and some reconstruction of the actual audio in a wave editor (FSK) to recover it as each block was signed with a checksum which had to be correct

I still have the cassette - it's all black from the smoke (it was in a cassette recorder in the actual room where the fire was - virtually everything else was destroyed, it survived by being on the floor and near a doorway where air was coming in, it only partially melted and the cassette recorder lid protected it enough to still be partially readable. It helped that I recorded each block of data 3 or more times - I was able to piece together parts from each save)

When Sherman gets out hopefully he'll encrypt all his files from now on (scramdisk works well)

Hardware isn't where the evidence is after all - it's the data that they can use against him..

They also seized the computers at the Regen-V house in Pomona during the whole mistaken-ELF incident with the FBI/WCPD.

In one year, the feds got hold of a half dozen activist computers in the LA area.

These are unconstitutional seizures. The comps are taken on suspicion as evidence, and the evidence itself is what they really want. [Sherman did nothing illegal, and what he did (linking to a website with material about making a bomb) is done by thousands of sites, and known by millions of people.]

I bet there are some "computer forensics experts" getting more work these days.

Since physical security measures are ineffective the only solution is encryption. A system that's as easy to use as possible (transparent ideally) yet provides strong enough encryption to resist even the NSA and is free plus has a real-mode DOS command line version in case windows crashes and can work with removable/fixed media.

Scramdisk offers all this..

People are letting the freedom encryption provides pass them by while corporations are enslaving us with it - everything new coming out uses it against us.

If Sherman "did nothing illegal" then please explain why he is in prison now? People don't typically go to prison for no reason. If Sherman is such an innocuous character then why is he in the clink? Obviously the Feds disagree with your assessment (that he "did nothing illegal"). Furthermore, if he is being wrongly jailed then why aren't you and your leftist friends down there in front of the jailhouse raising hell every single day until they release him? Don't you realize that it could be YOU next? Or perhaps the fact he "did nothing wrong" means so little to you that all you're inclined to do is preach about the wasting of American civil liberties on the internet? Or perhaps you do not in fact really believe that Sherman is an innocent as he claims to be? I think all of these questions demand answers, none of which have EVER been presented by LA-IMC since the onset of Sherman's so called persecution at the hands of a tyranical and out of control government. I tell you what: when you adequately and acurately answer these questions maybe myself and many other people will pay attention. Until then, good luck with your website rants.

How come they didn't shave that nappy head of his? Don't they still shave prisoners heads when they get thrown in the joint?

If not, they should start back...

if you paid attention before when the links were shown, followed them, read the complete story and especially *read all the court and FBI papers* you would see that they railroaded him.

As just pointed out above all he did was link to information hosted elsewhere - information which was only recently made "illegal" anyway, and information which other web site still offer.

The reason they were able to do it was he did some minor hacking - that was the excuse they used to start the whole process. They weren't even going to use that until they figured out they didn't have anything better on him !

The physical evidence (other than computer hardware) they used were things like tea bottles (these became bombs in the FBI report)

As a kid I used to have really dangerous materials, equipment and chemicals - Sherman had nothing compared to what I had only for fun.

And that's the real point - they didn't like his lifestyle, his attending protests and so they targetted him.

I suspect they entrapped him on the hacking charges as well.

The reason why this site has supporters is because we're aware of these issues and due to the conditions it could have been one of us (me especially - I'm much "worse" then Sherman ever dreamed of being)

Sherman just lacked experience and made a few mistakes - which is to be expected at his age. The only difference is they did him the worst they could have possibly did.

They will sit on his possessions saving them for the future.

As soon as he attends a protest or does something else not illegal, but something they don't like, they'll pull it out to use against him again...

"When you consider that they busted him for basicly nothing - I used to do far more dangerous things when I was a kid, explosions, fireworks, tried to make as big of a fireball as possible, blasting caps, liquid propane, etc..

I also have and collect much more dangerous knowledge - I have been since the mid-90's, things that are now illegal...

Cryptome has a pretty good collection of some of it and they've been pressured as well over it - they stand thier ground with lawyers and so on. The feds never had an easy excuse for them like they did with Sherman (hacking - what a joke, they set up honeypots then selectively use them to go after people as they choose)

"

Hex..do you realize you actually went as far as starting a sentence about someone other than yourself but only got as far as the hyphen before you lapsed back into your narcisistic ramblings.

Pathetic racist.

No shit? Really? Can't say I've ever heard that one before. When most people get busted they immediately throw up their hands in confession and beg for forgiveness. Since Sherman's denial of any wrong doing is so aparent, which is completely contrary to the norm, he's obviously an innocent and simply misunderstood youth. That coupled with the indymedia harangues of his innocence, well, I should just fall lockstep in line and head down to city hall to protest!

Okay, so now that we've firmly established the intuitive and obvious innocence of Mr. Austin, let's address the real question. Namely:

"Why do the Feds give two squirts about some little pissant innocuous recalcitrant youth that simply 'made a mistake'?"

This question has NEVER been adequately addressed on LA-IMC (and probably never will), which is too be expected because the punk is most likely guilty of criminal activity and a potential threat to society. It is just so typical that you radicals can never explain why you think the Government is out to get you and your fellow cohorts in crime. But the short of it is, if you're not doing anything illegal or presenting yourselves as a threat to the community then no one (including the Feds) could care less what you're up to. But there's a line and when you cross it, you're done. The rest of us are not just going to sit around and wait for you to blow something up. For instance, Hex anon has proclaimed his pyromaniacal tendencies and illegal activities (such as rampant manufacture of Blue Boxes, making bombs and such) on here numerous times and if I were a Department of Homeland Security Agent I would certainly be inclined to dig further into the background of this cyber-whacko.

You obviously haven't read any of the doc's that are available on-line regarding the case and Sherman’s innocence. I suggest that you EDUCATE yourself and get back to us. There have been reasons stated in public spaces both on-line and numerous forums explaining in detail WHY SHERMAN IS INNOCENT! Read before you engage in rhetorical dissertations on why YOU don't think he is innocent. Get your facts straight!

Don’t become just another uneducated right wing illiterate snob who hasn’t done his homework. We already have one of those running our country.

Either it can be reasonably answered or it can not. Why do the Feds consider Sherman Austin such an enormous risk that they would stonewall him and convict him of innocuous crimes? Please answer the question (or don't).



yawn.

"There have been reasons stated in public spaces both on-line and numerous forums explaining in detail WHY SHERMAN IS INNOCENT!"

And ALL of those reasons are merely opinion and wishful thinking.

The reasoning (or rather, what you use instead of reasoning) you bozos use seems to go like this:

"A progressive/anarchist/leftist was arrested! It's obviously repression! He/she is innocent and is a political prisoner! Any evidence presented by the EEEEvil gubbmint is fabricated! He/she was just minding his/her own business, and wasn't doing anything at all violent or illegal!"

Sheesh. Whattya expect from people who think breaking windows is a Constitutionally-protected form of expression?

nonanarchist