court trial against me -

[Robert Hogan]

On Wednesday 14 November 2007 20:22:09 TOR Admin (gpfTOR1) wrote:
> Hi Mirko,
>
> 1: by German law a Tor node admin is something like an access provider.
> You are not responsible for your traffic. If the court have only an IP
> address and you have a tor status log, they have nothing.
>
> 2: Tor is a legal service in Germany (today and yesterday, tomorrow we
> will see). If you provided only a legal service, it is no way to
> construct a case of aiding and abetting and you are not a disquieter or
> something like that.
>
> 3: May be, there is a judge, who do not these facts. The law depends not
> only on one judge. Dont give up.
>
> 4: You need help. Try to contact the following organizations:
>
>   - AK Vorratsdatenspeicherung (data retention free contact form ;-) at
>     http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/70/82/lang,de/ )
>
>   - German Privacy Foundation e.V i.Gr. (data rentention free contact
>     form at http://www.privacyfoundation.de/index.php?id=36 )
>
>   - Humanistische Union e.V. (They have lawyers by training and they are
>     interested in TOR.)
>
>   - Chaos Computer Club,
>   - Heise Verlag, try to contact the journalist H. Bleich
>
> By the way (for other admins), it is not a good solution, to ignore the
> first letter. Go to the "visit" and explain, what you have done and what
> you have not done.
>

This is all excellent advice, and it is characteristic of the level of 
solidarity and helpfulness regularly displayed by Tor operators on this list.

But it underlines the fact that a Tor operator in need is always:

1. In need of concrete, immediate help. Guaranteed. 
2. Completely on their own. 

The second point can't be emphasized enough. Nothing we say on this list can 
help with the legal bills or demonstrate physical solidarity in court. Mirko 
is a tor server operator. There are hundreds of us. But that judge and 
prosecutor looked around the court and thought to themselves, 'If this Tor is 
so legit, where's your backup Mirko?'

The fact that Mirko waited until the case was done and dusted before reporting 
in shows us all the problem we have. We *expect* to be cut loose.

We are a single-issue, special interest group. Mirko shouldn't have to go 
begging to a bunch of tangentially-interested organizations looking for a 
sympathetic ear. He should be able to come to us and we, as a group, should 
be able to cover some of his legal costs and access to a specialist lawyer. 
We should have had representation in that court blasting the prosecutor back 
to conveyancing cases. Simple as that. Unless we can do that as a body, we 
are all fucked as individuals. Period.

If you want to know my suggestion for remedying this situation:

http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Nov-2007/msg00144.html

I would give time and money to such an organization. So let's get some sound 
advice from each other and set one up.






-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/attachments/20071114/cd76c3e1/attachment.pgp>