------------------------------ From: Assorted Subject: From the Mailbag Date: 4 March, 1991 ******************************************************************** *** CuD #3.07: File 2 of 6: From the Mailbag *** ******************************************************************** From: dgelbart@QUESTOR.WIMSEY.BC.CA(Dave Gelbart) Subject: Robert Miles - "computer wizard" Date: Sat, 23 Feb 91 23:08:00 PST *Very* interesting article "The FBI comes rapping...". But, on Robert Miles being a "computer wizard", well, in his own words: "...in a computer journal, called PC/Computing, a nationwide publication, out of Cambridge, Mass., there is an article by some lying idiot...in which he calls me a computer wizard, and states that I was a defendant in the Berg case in Denver. Sorry, about that old boy. I was never tried in Denver. The friends who were, will be amazed to learn that I was a co-defendant in that trial. And as for me being a 'computer wizard', wow, did that crack up Dotty... I can hardly fix the toaster. ... So, what you read in this article.... ha! ... Yesterday, ah couldn't spell one, now ah is one..... .....a real live Computer Wizard." "..." is where I have deleted irrelevant sections. "...." and "....." were in the original text. Not that this proves much, -- I trust Miles about as much as I trust the media -- but in the pictures I've seen of him, he certainly doesn't *look* like a techie type. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Subject: Civil Liberties and the Computer Underground Date: February 23, 1991 Has CuD been intentionally backing off their earlier defense of civil liberties? Recent issues lack the spark of earlier ones. What's happening with Len Rose? Why aren't there more articles on follow-ups to investigations, Ripco, Secret Service activities, searches, Steve Jackson Games, and all the issues that CuD started with? I enjoy the news and some of the articles, but I subscribed because of you guys seemed about the only ones willing to take a strong stand and speak out. Whatever happened with the informant thing? Another issue I'd like to see raised is all the anonymous posts in CuD and on the nets. In one issue you said you publish anonymously when people are afraid of reprisals. This reminds me of McCarthyism, where people were afraid to speak out for fear of being listed. Maybe the fear that the nets are monitored by vindictive types (and there are a few of these on comp.org.eff.talk) or law enforcement. Plus the fact that it's so easy to send hate mail and otherwise harass on the nets. If you're being pressured or if people are complaining about you being too pro-hacker or too radical, would you publish it, or would you just allow yourselves to be co-opted? I'd personally like to see more fire in between the other material. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (Editors' response: No, we haven't been pressured or in any way or "encouraged" to change our position. Quite the opposite. Yes, we may have become less strident--although there would be a few who would claim otherwise. We have been advised to refrain from publishing anything substantive about on-going cases by those involved in them for fear of putting the principles at risk or of subverting legal strategies responding to what many see as abuses of authority. We're willing to publish articles that are both radical and conservative, and we generally have not had many articles from either extreme. However, we do have two special issues planned (tentatively 3.09 and 3.10) on government surveillance and what people in the CU can do about it. ******************************************************************** >> END OF THIS FILE << ***************************************************************************