The LA Weekly covers the June 30 court appearance of Sherman Austin, webmaster for RaisetheFist.com, an anarchist who faces federal charges for distributing various information on his website, including some instructions on bombmaking. Back in October of last year Sherman made a plea agreement with the Federal prosecutor which astonishingly was thrown out by the Judge in the case who said it was too lenient.
Sherman and the Feds came to a second agreement for more much jail time and the Judge still balked, suggesting at least eight to ten months is more appropriate. All this, mind you, for simply publishing some information that is probably available at your public library, and without otherwise committing any kind of violence or other “crime.”
Anarchogeek gives some thought as to why Sherman is facing such severe repression while “other sites like protest.net, riseup, infoshop, tao, resist.ca, burn, earthliberationfront.com, etc.. haven’t.”
He suggests that
“The critical issue is that Sherman is a younger activist who doesn’t have many connections with other activists. He lacks an inherited security culture and support network which function to protect other radical websites. It seems like he’s alternating between radical fuck the state anarchism and listening to non-politicized adults in his life who are telling him to settle and plea bargain. When more experienced anarchists in Los Angeles tried to contact Sherman they were unable to connect so that he could network to get the support from the activist community. …
“I think it’s a mistake of the activist community that we haven’t been able to do more to support Sherman. It sets a precedent in which anarchist speech can start to be criminalized. “
Previously:
Charges Against RaisetheFist Webmaster Dropped. What’s Going On? 2/18/02 RaiseTheFist.com Webmaster Arrested in NYC 2/6/02 Mainstream Reports on RaisetheFist Bust 2/4/02 Indymedia.nl Slapped by Netherlands Court 7/3/02
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