response 26 of 147:

Apr 2 03:10 UTC 1995

  This is getting a little drifty, but it's interesting, so what the heck....
That account is very nearly accurate.  However, two common errors are
included in Steve Jackson's own "Top Ten False Facts About the Secret Service
Raid:"
 
 5. This was part of Operation Sun Devil.
    No it wasn't.  Sun Devil was a totally separate project, aimed at credit
    card fraud. Because it had a neat name, it got a lot of headlines.  Since
    computers were involved, some reporters got the two confused.  The Secret
    Service helped the confusion along by refusing to comment on what was, or
    wasn't part of Sun Devil. Sun Devil was not a "hacker" investigation.  So
    says Gail Thackeray, who was its spearhead.
 
 7. We were raided by the FBI.
    No we weren't.  We were raided by the US Secret Service.  The FBI had
    nothing to do with it.  (In fact, when Bill Cook, the assistant US
    attorney named in our suit, was doing his "research," he talked to the
    FBI. They told him he didn't have a case. We have this from FBI sources!)
 
  SJG did have to reconstruct their book from memory, and while most of their
original material and notes concerning the book were returned after its late
publication, they never did receive everything back.  Here's an excerpt from
the complaints in their lawsuit against the SS:
 
  58. On June 21, 1990, the Secret Service returned most, but not all,
      of the computer equipment that had been seized from SJG over three
      months earlier.
  59. The Secret Service did not return some of SJG's hardware and data.
  60. The Secret Service did not return any of the printed drafts of
      GURPS Cyberpunk.
 
  In looking at the original search warrant, I stand corrected that they used
copyright law to justify the seizure.  They considered a text file in
question a proprietary document which had been electronically stolen.  That
was a false classification, but that's what they put in the warrant:
 
  18 USC 2314 provides federal criminal sanctions against individuals who
  knowingly and intentionally transport stolen property or property obtained
  by fraud, valued at $5,000 or more in interstate commerce. My investigation
  has revealed that on or about February 24, 1989, Craig Neidorf transported
  a stolen or fraudulently obtained computerized text file worth
  approximately $79,000.000 from Columbia, Missouri, through Lockport,
  Illinois to Austin, Texas to Loyd Blankenship and Chris Goggans.
 
  As Steve Jackson said, "the one bright spot in this whole affair was the
creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to address this and similar
outrages."  Amen to that!
 
  While I think the SS and perhaps the FBI may have gotten a good refresher
course in some basic points of law from this, they aren't the only danger.
The Church of Scientology S&S was primarily conducted by local police
officers, many of whom were on the payroll of the CoS.  On-duty police
officers served the search warrant, and let off-duty (CoS-paid) officers in
to erase disks and backup tapes.  (Allegedly, anyway...this happened in Feb.
'95, and the case is still pending...from the sounds of it, it makes the
SS look competent!).

response 28 of 147:

Apr 3 04:34 UTC 1995

I think i'm getting ill.

response 30 of 147:

Apr 4 00:31 UTC 1995

... or is that "crunch"?

response 32 of 147:

Apr 4 03:35 UTC 1995

Nope.  I think the idea was to get a specific policy in place first,
then find a verifier to implement it.  At the last board meeting
someone pointed out that it made sense to set the policy first, because
if the verifier is chosen first, we might end up having a verifier
who can't live with the policy that is chosen.

response 34 of 147:

Apr 4 17:38 UTC 1995

        Will this verifyer be allowed some leeway, and common sense room,
or will they be tied to the policy as stone?

response 36 of 147:

Apr 5 19:59 UTC 1995

        I thought the idea of the verifier was to let it go to one person.
Is this not the case?

response 38 of 147:

Apr 5 20:53 UTC 1995

Re #35:  I think you have the best idea, there.  Is this "official" policy??

response 40 of 147:

Apr 5 21:47 UTC 1995

If I were a member, I would consider formally proposing it.

response 42 of 147:

Apr 6 19:55 UTC 1995

        Ajax, I was not referring to a No-appeal system, but one in which
the FIRST say-so would be through just one person, and only IF the
party wished to appeal, would others be involved.

response 44 of 147:

Apr 12 05:46 UTC 1995

                                     ..for five days and five nights (and
about two and a halv hours).

response 46 of 147:

Apr 12 12:14 UTC 1995

Um... I looked back to response #35 and didn't see anything that
looked like an unanswered question.  Is there one?

response 48 of 147:

Apr 13 15:20 UTC 1995

  It's reiterative of stuff already said, but I'll respond to #42: sounds
exactly like what's planned.  The person with the first say-so has a list
of acceptable ids; if the id given is in that list, they say "ok," end of
story.  If it's not, they ask for id from the list.  If the person cannot
or will not provide id from the list, but still want to be verified, they
can then appeal to the board to add a new form of id to the list.