373 lines
23 KiB
Plaintext
373 lines
23 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
_
|
|
| \
|
|
| \
|
|
| | \
|
|
__ | |\ \ __
|
|
_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
|
|
| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
|
|
| | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | |
|
|
| | /________/ | | / / /________/ | |
|
|
| | | | / / | |
|
|
| | | |/ / | |
|
|
| | | | / | |
|
|
| | | / | |
|
|
| | |_/ | |
|
|
| | | |
|
|
| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
|
|
| |________________________________________________________________| |
|
|
|____________________________________________________________________|
|
|
|
|
...presents... How to Break the Law
|
|
by Anonymous
|
|
|
|
>>> a cDc publication.......1993 <<<
|
|
-cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
|
|
____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____
|
|
|____digital_media____digital_culture____digital_media____digital_culture____|
|
|
|
|
For a fair number of readers, the day may come when the men in the funny
|
|
suits walk up to you, ask if you are you, and then exercise their power of
|
|
arrest. For those without much experience in getting arrested, let me tell you
|
|
what in general it will be like (details may vary).
|
|
|
|
But first let's review arrest etiquette. Arrest etiquette can be
|
|
complicated for the arresting officers but it is easy for the arrestee. There
|
|
are only two rules: 1) keep your mouth shut and 2) cooperate physically with
|
|
the arrest. Following rule two will help preserve your kidneys, limbs, and
|
|
skull but following rule one is the most important.
|
|
|
|
During the first two years after your arrest, there are only four words
|
|
that you should speak to minions of the State in an official capacity:
|
|
|
|
"I want a lawyer"
|
|
|
|
Say nothing else. You gain NO benefits by saying things to the cops and
|
|
the prosecutors for free. If your lawyer cuts a deal for you, you can talk in
|
|
exchange for something but once you speak you can't take the words back.
|
|
Lawyers are constantly amazed and entertained by the things their clients tell
|
|
the cops. Don't say anything. It's stupid.
|
|
|
|
In _The Hacker Crackdown - Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier_;
|
|
Bruce Sterling's account of the Legion of Doom/911 Document/Steve Jackson Games
|
|
busts of 1990, he reports that all the busted hackers had no clue about how to
|
|
be arrested. They could reprogram telco switches with ease but they didn't
|
|
know the basic rules of how to hack the criminal justice system so watch it.
|
|
|
|
Once you are placed under arrest, you will probably be handcuffed and
|
|
transported to a booking facility where you will be photographed,
|
|
fingerprinted, and perhaps given a free set of clothing (these days, usually in
|
|
orange). Then you will be put in a temporary holding cell with many other
|
|
interesting people. Your fellow residents will ask you why you've been
|
|
arrested, and when you tell them that you've taken a fall for operating an
|
|
outlaw BBS, they'll probably laugh. Eventually, you'll be brought up before a
|
|
judge or magistrate who will set your bail. If you don't make bail you will be
|
|
sent to a longer term facility, perhaps a city prison, to await trial.
|
|
|
|
While you're waiting, you can review all the things that you should have
|
|
done before breaking the law. Most free thinkers can come up with a lot of
|
|
reasons for violating the law at one time or another. Just breathing is often
|
|
sufficient. Like any other semi-hazardous activity, careful preparation is the
|
|
key. The purpose of this article is *not* to tell you how not to get caught -
|
|
such strategies vary with the laws violated. No, this article is aimed at
|
|
providing you with an outline of how to prepare for getting caught. No matter
|
|
how careful you are in the planning of your criminal career, things can go
|
|
wrong. Thinking about the possibility of failure in advance may encourage you
|
|
to improve your over-all strategy and at least will diminish the damage that
|
|
the authorities can do to you.
|
|
|
|
Psychological preparation is absolutely the most vital task that you must
|
|
undertake. Before you decide to break the law you must have convinced yourself
|
|
that the State is wrong and that, for you, the risk of punishment is less
|
|
significant than the benefits from violating the law. There often is a good
|
|
foundation for this undertaking, as many people believe that most States are
|
|
without much moral justification and amount to criminal gangs in themselves.
|
|
So, at least on a philosophical level, breaking the law might be fairly easy
|
|
for some of us to do at one time or another. But it is important to realize
|
|
that when you break the law you are playing it for real, and you might have to
|
|
face the music. So, while it is obviously better not to be apprehended in the
|
|
first place, defending yourself psychologically if you do get caught will prove
|
|
significant, since if the State cannot touch your soul, it gains little by
|
|
arresting you. With proper contemplation you can build on this knowledge and
|
|
provide yourself with the best defense against State aggression.
|
|
|
|
The philosophical advantage held by those of unconventional mind can be
|
|
contrasted with the situation of some conservative tax rebels whose radicalism
|
|
is undercut by their belief in the basic legitimacy of the State. I've seen
|
|
conservatives break down when the courts predictably tossed out their
|
|
constitutional arguments in tax cases and sentenced them to prison. Their
|
|
background of basic support for the State apparatus lays a heavy layer of guilt
|
|
on them once they are labeled criminals. If you intend to break the law be
|
|
sure, in advance, that you won't be feeling guilty. There will be enough
|
|
people only too eager to send you on a guilt trip over your activities, without
|
|
your adding to it.
|
|
|
|
On a practical level there are many steps you can take to lessen the
|
|
ability of the State to punish you effectively:
|
|
|
|
1) Learn something about the law. It helps to know, in advance if you
|
|
can, when you are violating the law and a little about the court system and the
|
|
possible penalties. This is important for you, even if you don't intend to
|
|
violate the law, since there are enough laws around to allow the State to get
|
|
you almost any time it wants on one charge or another.
|
|
|
|
There are loads of legal self-help books out there today. Berkeley's Nolo
|
|
Press and the ACLU have published books covering business and personal legal
|
|
problems and the rights of various sorts of people (students, mental patients,
|
|
gays, etc.). If you have the time, energy, and money, going to law school
|
|
might be a good idea. This is particularly true in California where loose
|
|
eligibility requirements for the State Bar examination have encouraged the
|
|
proliferation of "free enterprise" law schools and where it is fairly easy to
|
|
get a legal education in your spare time.
|
|
|
|
2) Protect your assets. Apart from imprisonment, violations of the law
|
|
may result in fines. In addition, your activities may lead to civil penalties.
|
|
In tax law violations, your property is obviously in jeopardy. In fact, with
|
|
many popular forms of "criminal" activity, your money is in greater danger than
|
|
your liberty.
|
|
|
|
The recent expansion of the seizure laws has filled the pages of USA Today
|
|
and the big-city dailies with page-long lists of bank accounts and other
|
|
property seized by law enforcement agents. This represents a civil liberties
|
|
problem of immense proportions, not to mention a practical problem for would-be
|
|
law violators.
|
|
|
|
The best way to protect your property from loss is to hide it where the
|
|
State cannot find it. Secrecy is your greatest asset. What the State cannot
|
|
find, it cannot confiscate. You should sell your major personal possessions.
|
|
If you own your own home or an expensive late-model car, you risk losing these
|
|
possessions if you are convicted of a crime. Transferring these assets to
|
|
friends or relatives is not usually good enough. If the party trying to
|
|
collect money from you can prove that they were given away for less than their
|
|
real value with intent to hide them from creditors, the transactions can be set
|
|
aside as fraudulent transfers.
|
|
|
|
Keep some of your wealth in some anonymous, easily concealable form, such
|
|
as cash or gold and silver coins. If you feel that you must keep bank
|
|
accounts, you must arrange it so that no one knows of their existence or can
|
|
connect them with you. In some cases, even Swiss Bank accounts can be attached
|
|
by the US authorities if you are convicted of a crime. If you have interest
|
|
earning accounts in your name in this country, the bank will report the
|
|
interest earned to the IRS every year (and thus the existence of your account).
|
|
|
|
What you should do with any bank account in this country is to set it up
|
|
under a nom de guerre. Even though this is harder than it used to be, it is
|
|
still possible. However you choose to set up your account, you must arrange it
|
|
so that statements are not sent to you at your ordinary address. You can
|
|
request that the bank hold statements for you at the bank itself, or you can
|
|
use a mail drop of some sort. If you let any evidence of the accounts
|
|
existence come to you through the mails, you may lose the account if the
|
|
government opens your mail. The same problem is encountered with securities or
|
|
other types of "paper" investments - they tend to generate a lot of mail. And
|
|
before you risk them, you should make some arrangements to cut off this paper
|
|
flow.
|
|
|
|
Of course, you may want to keep a small bank account to pay your day-to-
|
|
day expenses, but you should only deposit an amount you can afford to lose if
|
|
the account is attached. But be careful not to leave a paper trail connecting
|
|
this account with any others you might have. It is probably safest not to keep
|
|
any significant assets in domestic banks at all. The risks are great, and
|
|
thanks to the Federal Reserve Board's Open Markets Committee, the benefit of a
|
|
$US account in a US bank is slight. Foreign bank accounts in strong currencies
|
|
are another matter. I refer you to Harry Brown's _Complete Guide to Swiss
|
|
Banks_ for a good discussion of bank secrecy in general and foreign bank
|
|
accounts in particular.
|
|
|
|
You must avoid investments, such as land, which are on public record and
|
|
are difficult to hide. Highly liquid investments that are easy to hide are
|
|
better. Precious metals are a good idea, and you may want to keep a little
|
|
cash around in case you decide to avoid arrest by fleeing. You can think of
|
|
different ways of hiding these assets, but remember that the same consid-
|
|
erations which apply to bank accounts apply to any safe deposit boxes in which
|
|
you might want to store valuables.
|
|
|
|
You should live in a rented dwelling. You don't want your home to be in
|
|
jeopardy while you are sparring with the government. Car leasing is easy to
|
|
arrange these days. If you don't own these major assets, the government cannot
|
|
take them. You could also drive an older car. It won't be worth seizing or
|
|
won't be much of a loss if it is.
|
|
|
|
Your random personal property is generally safe from attachment, but any
|
|
valuable collections of books or art will be in jeopardy. So you should
|
|
liquidate them or take steps to protect them. You can discern the principle
|
|
involved from this brief outline.
|
|
|
|
Your major assets are either hidden in liquid form or safely in bank
|
|
accounts that only you know about and that can not be traced to you. You
|
|
should not use substantial property that is in your own name. Rent instead.
|
|
Each state has its own laws which set forth how much and what type of property
|
|
is exempt from attachment by creditors. Be aware that *government* creditors
|
|
have additional collection powers not available to private creditors.
|
|
Investigate the law in your state to find how much of the property in your
|
|
possession is safe. It's usually not very much, so plan accordingly.
|
|
|
|
This may seem like a radical change to your life, but it is probably
|
|
better to change the nature of your property - even if the change is
|
|
inconvenient - than to take the chance of losing it. Besides, cash, gold,
|
|
silver, or foreign bank accounts should probably be part of your investment
|
|
program already.
|
|
|
|
3) Think about your job. If you have a conventional job with a
|
|
conventional employer you may lose it if you are arrested or convicted. You
|
|
may have an easier time of it if you are self-employed or engaged in some
|
|
unconventional activity on a professional basis. I am not saying that you have
|
|
to quit your job, but you should analyze the effect that a run-in with the law
|
|
will have on your occupation. It will at least encourage you to think about
|
|
alternative means of earning a living, one that will not suffer if you are
|
|
arrested.
|
|
|
|
It is through our jobs that we are controlled. Reluctance to change jobs
|
|
keeps us in one place, when it might be safer to leave. Lots of social
|
|
regulation has been piled on the employer/employee relationship. It is there
|
|
that most of the taxes we pay are collected.
|
|
|
|
Studies of the effect of criminal conviction on income have shown that the
|
|
average blue-collar worker regains the same wage earned before imprisonment
|
|
within one year after release. On the other hand, imprisonment dramatically
|
|
reduces the wages of white-collar workers, whose jobs are more likely to
|
|
involve reputation and "credentials". If you are self-employed, you will be in
|
|
better shape, because you are unlikely to fire yourself for "criminal"
|
|
activity.
|
|
|
|
Fortunately, there have been some major changes in employment arrangements
|
|
for employees as well. There are numerous contract (temp) and consultant
|
|
positions available today for any type or level of job experience. If you have
|
|
been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, there are agencies that will be happy to
|
|
place you as a temp CEO. Insurance professionals, lawyers, middle-managers,
|
|
engineers, secretaries, and waiters, all have temp employment agencies that
|
|
serve them. These jobs can be obtained without background checks and other
|
|
invasive procedures (urinalysis).
|
|
|
|
4) Avoid involving others. While you are protecting your property, you
|
|
should be sure that you are not entangling friends or relatives in your
|
|
activities. Each person should be left to make her or his own decision in
|
|
regard to an illegal undertaking. You must separate your property and your
|
|
actions from the property or activities of those close to you, particularly
|
|
those with whom you have a sexual relationship. It is neither fair nor
|
|
particularly good for your relations with others to get them involved in your
|
|
arrest. If you are living with other people it is a good idea to avoid
|
|
carrying on illegal activities in the home. If you do your business elsewhere,
|
|
the cops will find it more difficult to charge those living in your home with
|
|
accomplice liability based on their knowledge of your crimes. At no time
|
|
should you have anyone who is not a completely informed co-conspirator sign any
|
|
documents which are involved in your illegal activities. Don't slip your
|
|
spouse the 1040 to sign after you've "plead the Fifth" on it and claimed Bill
|
|
Clinton as a dependent.
|
|
|
|
You should also sever your financial ties with the uninvolved. The state
|
|
can grab the full balance of joint bank accounts, even if the "innocent"
|
|
partner deposited most of the money. Other forms of joint property may be
|
|
safer, but the state can still grab your half and convert the other owner into
|
|
a co-tenant with the government. Keep your money and other property separate.
|
|
If you've followed the suggestions in Section 2 above, you will already have
|
|
eliminated most entanglements with others, but such involvements are something
|
|
to watch out for. As I also pointed about above, don't transfer your property
|
|
to friends or relatives in anticipation of any criminal activities, since the
|
|
state can go after it anyway, dragging others into court.
|
|
|
|
5) Develop at least a nodding acquaintance with a lawyer (or someone with
|
|
as big a mouth). If you are arrested, it is very comforting to have someone to
|
|
call. Someone on the outside can do more about getting bail together,
|
|
reporting your case to Amnesty International, and getting you out, than you can
|
|
do from inside. You might like to get to know a sympathetic lawyer, if you
|
|
happen to have one in the neighborhood. There are even anarchist lawyers. As
|
|
an anarchist law student once said when asked by his friends how an he could be
|
|
a lawyer, "My father is a physician, but that doesn't mean that he believes in
|
|
disease." A philosophically-compatible lawyer should be able to give you some
|
|
moral support since he should at least understand your attitude towards the law
|
|
you violated.
|
|
|
|
6) Practice privacy in your daily life. Most of us are not used to
|
|
keeping information about ourselves *to* ourselves. We regularly fill out
|
|
forms, giving loads of personal information about yourself. Whenever people
|
|
ask us questions, we tell them the truth. If you break these habits in advance
|
|
of need, you'll be in good practice to lie convincingly when you need it. I
|
|
can't give you a full course in privacy techniques in this article, but here
|
|
are a few pointers:
|
|
|
|
a) Have all your mail delivered to a mail receiving service. There is no
|
|
need for anyone but your friends to know where you sleep. "My Sister
|
|
Sam's" Rebecca Schaefer might be alive today if a psycho fan hadn't looked
|
|
up her address in the files of the California DMV. Whenever anyone asks
|
|
your address, give them the mail drop address, using the box number as an
|
|
apartment number.
|
|
|
|
b) Use a voice mailbox for receiving phone calls from strangers. These
|
|
computer-based services are available for about $10/month almost every-
|
|
where in the US. You receive what looks like a normal phone number. You
|
|
can record a greeting message. These services are almost undistinguish-
|
|
able from a phone line with answering machine, but they can be obtained
|
|
without giving the voice mail company any information about you and, of
|
|
course, there is no geographic link between you and the account.
|
|
|
|
c) Get your utility service in a phony or borrowed name. Public Utilities
|
|
are legally required to give you service. They may require a deposit if
|
|
they don't know you, but that's a small price to pay for privacy. You may
|
|
need some created ID to start service in bureaucratic places like
|
|
California, but it still can be done.
|
|
|
|
d) Encrypt the personal files and records on your computer's hard drive
|
|
and floppies. There are many high-quality, free encryption programs out
|
|
in the world today. So you have no excuse. Don't depend on the encrypt-
|
|
ion technologies built into programs like Lotus 1-2-3 or PKZIP, because
|
|
they use easily-broken cipher techniques.
|
|
|
|
e) Dispose of your paper records. Almost everyone who's convicted of a
|
|
crime is convicted by their own records.
|
|
|
|
f) Don't give the government information about yourself. Ninety-five
|
|
percent of what they know about you is based on things you've told them.
|
|
Even if you want to follow the letter of the law in these matters, watch
|
|
your bureaucratic filings. Some of them are not required and others carry
|
|
no practical penalties. Few people have done any hard time for census
|
|
resistance.
|
|
|
|
g) Avoid domestic credit cards. Government investigators can do credit
|
|
checks on you by computer without a warrant. The less information in your
|
|
credit reports the better. The best way to secure your financial privacy
|
|
is to have an off-shore credit card. If you must use a domestic credit
|
|
card, use a secured credit card that can be obtained without giving lots
|
|
of personal information.
|
|
|
|
If, after you have done everything you can to protect your mind and your
|
|
property from the hazards of the criminal justice system, you are arrested
|
|
anyway, it's not the end of the world. At least you are receiving some
|
|
personal attention from an otherwise cold and distant government. It is sort
|
|
of a compliment actually. Not everyone is worth arresting. Most of those
|
|
arrested aren't worth prosecuting. And most of those prosecuted and convicted
|
|
aren't worth imprisoning either. In this era of limits, governments can only
|
|
afford to prosecute and punish a limited number of people.
|
|
|
|
The government criminal justice enterprise is much less efficient than
|
|
McDonalds, so chances are they will offer you some sort of deal. They don't
|
|
want to spend tons of dough to put you away and $60 to $100 thousand a year to
|
|
keep you there. Watch those deals though. Michael Milkin pleaded guilty and
|
|
got a sentence as long as he would have gotten if found guilty at trial.
|
|
Sometimes it's better to take the trial, particularly in political
|
|
prosecutions.
|
|
|
|
If you end up having to spend an extended period of time as a guest of the
|
|
government, you should try to take as relaxed an attitude as possible. It may
|
|
help to think of the prison experience as a well-earned vacation. After all,
|
|
you'll finally get the chance to read all those books you've put off reading
|
|
over the years. You will also get thousands of dollars worth of services
|
|
yearly, including clothing, meals, lodging, entertainment, medical care (sort
|
|
of), and education.
|
|
|
|
Most significantly of all, you will gain first-hand experiences that can
|
|
help your philosophical and literary development. Many famous writers made
|
|
good use of their prison time. Also, you will have the opportunity to live in
|
|
a totalitarian socialist state. In this day and age it's becoming hard to find
|
|
living examples of totalitarian socialist governments. A few years in prison
|
|
will encourage you to redouble your efforts to fight such social systems.
|
|
_______ __________________________________________________________________
|
|
/ _ _ \|Demon Roach Undrgrnd.806/794-4362|Kingdom of Shit.....806/794-1842|
|
|
((___)) |Cool Beans!..........510/THE-COOL|Polka AE {PW:KILL}..806/794-4362|
|
|
[ x x ] |Ripco................312/528-5020|Moody Loners w/Guns.415/221-8608|
|
|
\ / |The Works............617/861-8976|Finitopia...........916/673-8412|
|
|
(' ') |Lunatic Labs.........213/655-0691|ftp - ftp.eff.org in pub/cud/cdc|
|
|
(U) |==================================================================|
|
|
.ooM |1993 cDc communications by Anonymous 03/01/93-#214|
|
|
\_______/|All Rights Drooled Away. SIX GLORIOUS YEARS of cDc|
|
|
|