Molon Labe! (25 page)

"Really? I thought encrypted digital cash was a proven technology. Isn't the anonymity of payors and payees assured, not only from each other but from any third party including law enforcement?"

"Yes, sir, that part is true. The technology
does
guarantee anonymity. But I was referring to the
human
element of the payment operation. Here's how AP was supposed to work. A website, probably based offshore, would list the names of politicians and judges for assassination and collect, as a clearinghouse, anonymous e-cash donations for anyone who successfully 'predicted' the date of their deaths. Obviously, only the murderers themselves could know that in advance."

"Yes, I'm familiar with the overall scheme. Where's the problem?"

"Let's say that the average politically-motivated killer required at least $500,000 to offset his risk. Then, let's say that the average politically-motivated donor would chip in a max of $100. That means a
minimum
of 5,000 donors, and realistically three to five times that. Remember, the donors are forsaking money for a murder that might
never
take place, and if it doesn't, there's no way to get a refund."

The CT Chief asks, "Where would the money be in the meantime?"

"Presumably in a website e-cash account waiting for a 'predictor.'"

"Just sitting there for years?"

"Potentially, yes, sir."

"Hmmm. That doesn't seem like an attractive plan to the donors."

"No, sir. Anonymity is also a double-edged sword because the website people cannot know the donors' identities. So, the donors and the killers cannot
quite
touch. The killers won't act unless the money is there, and the donors won't sufficiently chip in on blind faith of action which may never happen."

"What if donors instead
pledged
to donate X amount upon a death? That removes the blind faith issue."

"For the donors, but not the
killers
. They are already taking a huge risk in the act; they certainly wouldn't take on the secondary risk of nonpayment. For a contract killing to happen, people have to donate money
before
the murder. Very few killers would act based on a promise of
expost facto
donations, so the money has to be in the hands of the website coordinators first. No, the pledge scenario just couldn't work. The faith component has to be splintered into thousands of little donor pieces, not singularly shouldered by the killer. If AP was to work, the money must be waiting for the killer in advance.

"Another aspect of the funding dilemma bears mentioning. To donate anonymously would require a
very
high degree of internet and computer sophistication. Although the encrypted digital cash technology is well-proven, there are still many secondary avenues of detection, such as email history. Nipping this in the bud was, as you know, one of the main reasons of the DCS1000 'Carnivore' program. By monitoring all email traffic at the
ISP
level, we can get some hooks into many anonymous e-cash transactions, and it takes an above-average level of computer privacy technique to circumvent that. To fund an AP murder, you'd have to: first, be online; second, be very familiar with encrypted e-cash; third, have almost hacker-quality computer skills to completely cover your tracks; and fourth, be willing to forego some hard cash in the
hope
of a death. There probably just aren't the numbers of people out there to sufficiently fund a murder. Not very often, anyway."

The CT Chief ponders this, nodding.

"Besides, we thought of a way to foil any real-world AP scheme."

"How's that?" asks the Chief.

"The entire idea is hinged upon the killer
proving
that his 'prediction' was the correct one. Let's say that John Q. Senator is a website target and the actual donations total $500,000. Such would be public information to us as well as to every potential donor and killer. Now let's say that a very serious individual who personally hates John Q. Senator has decided to commit the murder and knows that the Senator will be vulnerable on, oh, 3 March 2009. He emails his encrypted 'prediction' of the Senator's death. On 3 March 2009 he successfully commits the murder.

"But here's the catch nobody considered: there is no guarantee that the Senator's death will be
reported
as having occurred on 3 March 2009. Remember, all of law enforcement knew that the Senator was not only on the target list, but that donations for his death had reached a viable level. So, are we going to dutifully report the correct time, place, and manner of his death? Of course not. That would assure his killer of untraceable payment, turning law enforcement into a sort of collaboration. The catch to AP is that it often depends upon our cooperation — cooperation which we can withhold.

"No, what the Bureau
would
have done as soon as an AP website listed its targets was this: Publicly declare that any death of such persons will be concealed by government authorities for at least several days, thus negating any sufficiently accurate 'prediction' by the perpetrator. Unless a target were killed in a very public manner — which dramatically increases the perp's risk —the details of his death could be kept foggy enough to thwart payment. The 'prediction' has to be verified to the satisfaction of the website coordinators, and we could introduce enough doubt in the matter. Plenty to dissuade an ongoing series of murders."

The CT Chief asks, "What if the killer can provide proof of his deed to the website in addition to his 'prediction'?"

"That would
enhance
the website's complicity, which they would be very reluctant to do."

"Well, what about the highly public murders? The Senator's head is blown apart by a sniper's bullet during an outdoor speech?"

"Since the killer's risk is
much
higher in such a scenario so would his required payment, and this magnifies the funding problem I described earlier. Instead of $500,000, now
$1,000,000
becomes the new equilibrium. Maybe even more. I suspect that most targets worth a million dollars or more in donations would have sufficient security to neutralize an AP threat.

"Furthermore, an executive order could be signed that would offer any website target Secret Service protection. That would increase a perp's risk many times more, raising the stakes beyond the wallet of a populist scheme.

"So far, I have discussed only the donors and the killers. Their link is the website, and that's the
real
Achille's heel of AP. The website could easily be discredited by the spread of rumors. We could claim that it had been compromised, or that it was stealing the donor funds, or that it had no intention of ever paying off any 'predictors.' We could easily destroy any trust the participants had in the website."

The CT Chief nods in admiration. "Yes, that
would
work."

"But let's assume that an AP website
does
manage to survive long enough to foment a few murders. Websites are run by people, and
anybody
is subject to arrest, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment. AP's inventor James Bell found that out personally. His argument that website personnel have no knowledge of or complicity in a crime just won't wash. Holding money for killers and then effecting disbursement of that money
is
complicity.

"Since judges would be on a target list, they could not allow an AP scheme to operate unmolested. All judges in the land would have a vested interest in shutting down AP websites immediately. Judges can rule any way they desire if the daisy chain remains intact to the Supreme Court, which it would once we educated the judiciary of the threat which AP poses to them.

"In short, such a site could simply not be allowed to legally exist for very long in the U.S. Justice would shut it down almost immediately."

"What if it's based offshore?"

"Not a problem. We would pressure whatever foreign government had jurisdiction in shutting it down.

"What if that foreign government approves of the AP website and refuses to shut it down?"

"Then we'd fight fire with fire. AP can go both ways. We'd simply create a
competing
AP website targeting
their
officials."

"Gee, you
have
given all this some thought, haven't you?"

A tight smile. "Yes, sir, a bit."

"So, give me the takeaway here on AP and the Krassnyites."

"In our opinion, 'Assassination Politics', while a very frightening notion, is too vulnerable a scheme to succeed. What Harold Krassny did, however, is far more disturbing. By example he agitated random individuals. He basically said, 'There are bad people out there who deserve to be killed, and you can kill them with little risk. So what are you waiting for?'

"Now
that
is a very difficult proposition to counter, especially since Krassny's dead. There is no website; there are no donors. These perps are linked only by a common idea, one they've all thought of before Krassny's example. Krassny was a bolt of lightning into a parched forest, and the resulting fire is, or soon will be, out of our control. We can protect a few trees in particular, but many acres will burn and there's nothing we can do about it. Gentlemen, we're facing a force of Nature here. The conflagration will end only by a lack of heat, or by a lack of fuel. It either rains or the fire runs out of forest."

"Since the potential 'forest' is so large, how about making it rain?"

"That's probably our best hope, but at the moment I have no ideas on how to create a deluge. Many Americans have felt pushed around long enough, and they've reached a level of desperation that overwhelms all moral sense. In fact, their moral sense is what's
energizing
this thing. Because of its considerable public support it is a phenomenon many times worse than Islamic terrorism. There's a lot of pent-up rage that is becoming unbound. Most of the victims are seen by many average Americans as evil powermongers, and few tears have been shed over their deaths.

"Although Bell's AP scheme has not transpired, he
did
get a lot of normally peaceable Americans thinking about retribution, and that was a larger contribution than even the technical details of AP. Here's a James Bell quote:
'With my essay, I simply proposed that we libertarians begin to treat aggression by government as being essentially equivalent to aggression by muggers, rapists, robbers, and murderers, and view their acts as a continuing series of aggressions. Seen this way, it should not be necessary to wait for their next aggression; they will . . . always be aggressing, again and again, until they are stopped for good.'
"

The room erupts. "Shit!"

"Good Lord!"

"Bell fertilized the soil — not for himself because the AP sprout could never take root — but for Krassny. His example
has
taken root. What we're facing is a vicarious bloodlust focused on government leaders and political figures. It's likely to become our newest national spectator sport. We're staring at the French Revolution here, and Harold Krassny is the ghost of Robe-spierre. I think that heads have only just
begun
to roll."

2008 USA social news

Hearing media people describe liberals is like listening to a fish characterize water:
Water? What water? (at 63)

Postulating the existence of the ghosts of liberal imaginations and pursuing the logic of their paranoia, what is the threat posed by the "religious right" precisely? Is the nation in imminent danger of having its coarseness removed? When anal sex, oral sex, and premarital sex are all gleefully laughed about on prime-time TV, the peril of religious values infecting the culture would seem to be somewhat overrated.
(at 180)

— Ann Coulter,

     
Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right

A tidal wave of "political correctness" crashes over the land. Hollywood stars try to outdo each other in moral sanctity and in blaming the "religious right" for the nation's economic woes. It is all Bush's fault.

Our principal trouble today in this country seems to be that too many people have too much time on their hands.

— Justice Clarence Thomas, 1998

2008 political news

The Canadian province of Quebec finally secedes after a referendum passes at 53%. Though hardly a popular mandate, the other 47% seem poised to take the looming secession in stride. Democratic equanimity is, after all, the Canadian way. Separatist movements in Alberta and B.C. double in strength nearly overnight. Canada, historically a rather purposeless nation formed largely by default, is splitting at her tenuous seams.

After eight years, the Democratic Party is finally back in the White House. McBlane and Wiedermann are elected. Liberals across the country are dizzy with joy to have finally seen the last of Bush, Inc. — determined to make the Republicans pay for their Orwellian regime.

The federal gun registration under the
DWA
is amended to include semiautomatic shotguns and handguns, as well as manually-loaded centerfire rifles. (Rimfires remain exempt.) Also affected for the first time are the pre-1899
"antique"
firearms (
e.g.,
Mauser bolt-actions, Winchester lever-actions, etc.), which were formerly exempt from nearly all federal gun regulation. National compliance is estimated to be an average of only 12%, and less than 5% in the rural South and inland West.

A police state is a self-perpetuating system that will grow until it collapses under its own weight, or until people have reached the limits of their endurance.
(at 17)

— Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman,
The State vs. The People