Mirror of raisethefist.com

This is a mirror of some of the files from raisethefist.com, an anarchist website which was raided and shut down by the FBI. Its creator, Sherman Austin, has been arrested and charged with violation of the following:

18 U.S.C. 842 (p)(2)(A): DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION RELATING TO EXPLOSIVES, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WITH THE INTENT THAT SUCH INFORMATION BE USED IN FURTHERANCE OF A FEDERAL CRIME OF VIOLENCE; 26 U.S.C. 5861(d): POSSESSION OF A FIREARM WHICH IS NOT REGISTERED TO HIM IN THE NATIONAL FIREARMS REGISTRATION AND TRANSFER RECORD.

Bad news! On September 3, 2003, Mr. Austin began a one-year prison term. This is a longer term than even the prosecutor asked for—the judge apparently felt the need to send some sort of message. This despite the fact that there's no evidence whatsoever of violent intent, and the allegedly offending materiel wasn't even written by Mr. Austin himself.

These files were stolen from http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/, which is maintained by Dave Touretzky, a reasearcher at CMU.

These pages were cited in the FBI affadavit leading to the arrest. Judge for yourself if you think that people should be arrested for writing. reclaim.html is a good place to start.

Note: For the record, building and using bombs and other weaponry is mean. Please don't do it, whether you're an anarchist, a government, or anybody else.

This page itself (the one you're looking at) was under threat. Apparently, someone filed an anonymous complaint with the Columbia webmaster about this page, which was at the time hosted on a Columbia University webserver. At a meeting (4 December 02) with some deans from the Student Affairs office, I was told that the University will not force me to remove the page. Hopefully, there will be no further threats to this page; I'll write more here if there are.

And, a special note to those who would complain, anonymously or otherwise: why don't you send me your thoughts instead of writing to random intermediaries? My email address is m at mlcastle dot net; you can get a free, secure email account if you don't want me to know who you are. Encrypted mail is preferred if you know how to send it; grab my public key.

Special thanks to the EFF for their advice in this matter. Are you a member?

An interview with Sherman Austin may be of interest to readers.

 Name                    Last modified      Size  Description
 Parent Directory                             -   
 bloc.html               15-Feb-2002 05:37  4.9K  
 bottle.html             15-Feb-2002 05:37  565   
 debloc.html             15-Feb-2002 05:37  2.2K  
 draino.html             15-Feb-2002 05:37  709   
 fertilizer.html         15-Feb-2002 05:37  951   
 index_.html             15-Feb-2002 05:37   11K  
 match.html              15-Feb-2002 05:37  430   
 molotov.html            15-Feb-2002 05:37  2.1K  
 pipe.html               15-Feb-2002 05:37  2.1K  
 reclaim.html            15-Feb-2002 05:37  1.3K  
 security.html           15-Feb-2002 05:37   13K  
 shield.html             15-Feb-2002 05:37  728   
 smoke.html              15-Feb-2002 05:37  447   
 tactics.html            15-Feb-2002 05:37  6.7K  
 unarrest.html           15-Feb-2002 05:37  2.2K  
 weapons.html            15-Feb-2002 05:37  3.1K