http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43771,00.html Online Cincy Cop Threats Probed By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) 2:00 a.m. May 15, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- Ohio police are investigating alleged threats posted to the website of a journalists' collective directed against Steven Roach, the policeman whose shooting of an unarmed black man led to riots in Cincinnati last month. A Hamilton County, Ohio prosecutor has sent the Ohio Valley Independent Media Center (IMC) a subpoena for any records relating to a post last week titled "Steve Roach, dead man walking." The only problem: The admitted author of the post, a self-proclaimed anarchist who uses the alias proffrat_private, lives in rural central Victoria, Australia. In a telephone interview, "proffr" said he is trying to further the ideas of Jim Bell, author of the controversial Assassination Politics essay who was convicted in April of two counts of threatening federal officials. Bell's essay, written about five years ago, is a thought experiment describing a system designed to intimidate lawless police and politicians by outlining a method through which they could be assassinated. Proffr calls his version Operation Soft Drill, a term Bell also used, and says he wants to intimidate police and corporate polluters into respecting human rights. "I'm here out in the open," proffr said. "I'm putting forth the basic James Bell dream, which is that people can put forth freedom on the Internet. This is a tool that was lying on the ground and I picked it up." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue May 15 2001 - 14:42:56 PDT