24 November 2001
Source: Digital files from Court Reporter Julaine V. Ryen, Western District
of Washington, Tacoma, WA. Telephone: (253) 593-6591
This is Day 4 of the testimony.
See other testimony: http://cryptome.org/usa-v-jdb-dt.htm
471
1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
2 AT TACOMA
3
4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Docket No. CR00-5731JET
) Court of Appeals No. 01-30303-00
5 Plaintiff, )
)
6 v. )
) Tacoma, Washington
7 JAMES DALTON BELL, ) April 6, 2001
)
8 Defendant. )
)
9
10 VOLUME 4
TRANSCRIPT OF TRIAL
11 BEFORE THE HONORABLE JACK E. TANNER
SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE, and a Jury
12
13 APPEARANCES:
14 For the Plaintiff: ROBB LONDON
Assistant United States Attorney
15 601 Union Street, Suite 5100
Seattle, Washington 98101
16
For the Defendant: ROBERT M. LEEN
17 Attorney At Law
Two Union Square
18 601 Union Street, Suite 4610
Seattle, Washington 98101-3903
19
20
21 Court Reporter: Julaine V. Ryen
Post Office Box 885
22 Tacoma, Washington 98401-0885
(253) 593-6591
23
24
Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript
25 produced by Reporter on computer.
472
1 I N D E X
2 Page
3 VOLUME 4 471 - 649
4
WITNESSES ON BEHALF OF PLAINTIFF:
5
JEFFREY GORDON
6 Direct (Continuing) .......... 474
Cross ........................ 504
7 Redirect ..................... 517
8 JEFFREY GORDON (Recalled)
Direct ....................... 520
9
Plaintiff Rests ............................... 522
10
WITNESSES ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT:
11
JAMES D. BELL
12 Direct ....................... 541
13
MOTIONS:
14
Defendant's Motion for a Verdict of Acquittal
15 Pursuant to Rule 29 ............................ 523
As to Count 1 .............................. 524
16 Denied ............................... 525/534
As to Count 2 ............................. 525
17 Denied ............................... 525/534
As to Count 3 .............................. 525
18 Denied ............................... 526/534
As to Count 4 ............................. 527
19 Denied ............................... 534
As to Count 5 .............................. 528
20 Denied ............................... 534
21 Defendant's Motion For a Mistrial Renewed ...... 529
22
23 EXHIBITS Admitted
24 116 477
119 478
25 127 486
473
1 I N D E X
2 EXHIBITS Admitted
3 130 540
132 540
4 134 540
135 540
5 140 478
151 479
6 155 479
157 480
7 162 480
170 482
8 184 485
235 494
9 236 494
237 494
10
A-1 592
11 A-3 594
A-4 598
12 A-5 598
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
474
1 (Defendant present.)
2 MORNING SESSION
3 (Jury not present.)
4 THE COURT: Are we ready? Anything before the jury?
5 MR. LEEN: No, sir.
6 MR. LONDON: Actually, Your Honor, we are prepared now
7 to file the redacted version of Exhibit 51, so I can hand that
8 up.
9 THE CLERK: Thank you.
10 MR. LEEN: Your Honor, may I indicate for the record,
11 while I object to the exhibit in its entirety, this is the --
12 the government allowed me to make suggestions of redactions. We
13 still object to the exhibit, but I think at least this comports
14 with what the government felt was relevant about the exhibit.
15 THE COURT: All right.
16 Bring the jury.
17 (Jury present; 9:40 a.m.)
18 THE COURT: Let the record reflect the jury has
19 returned. Good morning.
20 (Jury responds good morning.)
21 THE COURT: The witness is on the stand. The witness
22 is still under oath. Redirect -- I'm sorry, direct.
23 DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continuing)
24 BY MR. LONDON:
25 Q. Agent Gordon, when we were going through your testimony
475
1 yesterday before the break, I believe we, in terms of the
2 chronology of the timeline things, had gotten up to what you
3 were observing on the Internet and in other respects about Mr.
4 Bell's -- some of Mr. Bell's communications and his conduct,
5 through pretty much, I think, the end of the summer. I want to
6 turn your attention to Exhibit 116, an email dated September 15,
7 2000, to the Cypherpunks. Did you observe that on the Internet
8 on or about September 15th?
9 A. Yes, I did.
10 Q. All right. And did you notice something about Agent McNall
11 in that email?
12 A. Yes, I did.
13 Q. What did you notice about that email that caught your
14 attention?
15 A. On the third page, it mentioned that he thought that ATF
16 Agent, or BATF Agent Mike McNall would -- he thought it was
17 Agent Mike McNall who did the deal with Lund to have him
18 assaulted.
19 Q. What did you make of that? I mean, did it make any sense to
20 you?
21 A. Well, I understood what he was at least claiming. It
22 certainly -- and that he was apparently doing more research.
23 But, no, I mean, it certainly wasn't true, and --
24 Q. But had you prior to this ever heard Mr. Bell's allegation
25 that he had been beaten up by someone at SeaTac named Ryan Lund
476
1 and that this had been done at the behest of the government to
2 try to coerce him into taking a plea in 1997?
3 A. Yeah. I heard that allegation before. I think it had come
4 up during his probation violation hearings, and I had seen other
5 information relating to that purporting to be from him on the
6 Internet. But this was the first time that I had seen the name
7 or even -- ever heard of Mike McNall.
8 Q. All right. Now, when you say you saw Exhibit 116 on the
9 Internet, was that on a place on the Internet that is a public
10 site that anyone can access if they simply enter the email
11 address for that website?
12 A. This was on the Cypherpunks list which is public, and the
13 Cypherpunks list actually can be seen in several -- there's
14 several different ways you can see or get the Cypherpunks list.
15 One way is to have it come and sent to you as email, and in this
16 case, that's what I do. I set up a separate mailbox, an email
17 address, to receive the Cypherpunks list. But the Cypherpunks
18 list also gets publicly posted to a web page, which they call
19 the archive, or several web pages that have it so that if you
20 don't want to set it up and have it emailed to you, you can just
21 go to the web page and look at the various emails on that web
22 page. So there's different places you can see it. In this
23 case, when I got it initially, I saw it as receiving it as
24 email.
25 Q. But in any respect or in any manner, were you monitoring any
477
1 kind of private email between Mr. Bell and anybody else,
2 anything that wasn't -- that he wasn't publicly posting to the
3 email?
4 A. No.
5 MR. LONDON: We offer Exhibit 116.
6 MR. LEEN: No objection.
7 THE COURT: It's admitted.
8 (Exhibit No. 116 was admitted.)
9 Q. (By Mr. London) Now, around about October 10th, did you
10 also observe another email publicly posted on the Internet?
11 Exhibit No. 119, I draw your attention to that.
12 A. Yes. I don't remember the exact date that I saw it, but 119
13 is my printout that I make.
14 Q. And what did you notice about 119 that caught your
15 attention?
16 A. This is just publicly posted to the Usenet portion of the
17 Internet and so it's publicly available. It's like a bulletin
18 board that anybody can go see it. And this is one where he just
19 discuss -- just says, "Please consider my essay, 'Assassination
20 Politics,'" and gives the web page -- one of the web pages where
21 that's located as it is. And he mentions, "you need to read my
22 idea of a solution to the problem." So it was just another
23 evidence, to me, anyway, that he was still, as of October 10th,
24 2000, advocating Assassination Politics.
25 MR. LONDON: I offer 119.
478
1 MR. LEEN: No objection.
2 THE COURT: 119 is admitted.
3 (Exhibit No. 119 was admitted.)
4 Q. (Mr. London) All right. Now, that one was dated October
5 10th. A few days later, on October 24th, did you see a message
6 posted on the Internet with the header, "Say Goodnight to
7 Joshua"?
8 A. Again, I'm not sure the exact date I saw it, but, yes, I did
9 see a -- that message.
10 Q. Was that message dated October 24th? If you will look at
11 Exhibit 140.
12 A. Yes. This is my printout that I made.
13 Q. All right.
14 MR. LONDON: We offer 140.
15 MR. LEEN: No objection.
16 THE COURT: 140 is admitted.
17 (Exhibit No. 140 was admitted.)
18 Q. (By Mr. London) Now, I believe yesterday you did testify
19 that you had already observed some publicly available Internet
20 correspondence between Mr. Bell and John Young or via the
21 Cypherpunks list about a Mr. Mueller and a CIA Intelink in
22 Oregon. Specifically, which exhibits did you download that
23 included the references to Mr. Mueller in Oregon? I will ask
24 you to start with 151.
25 A. 151 is an exhibit that I received and downloaded relating to
479
1 that.
2 Q. That was 151?
3 MR. LONDON: I will offer 151.
4 A. Yes, that was 151.
5 THE COURT: Are you offering 151?
6 MR. LONDON: Yes, Your Honor.
7 MR. LEEN: No objection.
8 THE COURT: 151 is admitted.
9 (Exhibit No. 151 was admitted.)
10 Q. (By Mr. London) Will you turn to 155?
11 A. Yes. This is also one of the emails that I downloaded from
12 the Internet.
13 Q. What does it describe?
14 A. This is again CIA in Oregon.
15 Q. Does it mention Mr. Mueller?
16 A. Yes, it does.
17 MR. LONDON: We offer 155.
18 MR. LEEN: No objection.
19 THE COURT: It is admitted.
20 (Exhibit No. 155 was admitted.)
21 Q. (By Mr. London) 157. What is 157?
22 A. 157, again, an October 28th email message involving CIA in
23 Oregon that I downloaded from the Internet.
24 MR. LONDON: We offer 157.
25 MR. LEEN: No objection.
480
1 THE COURT: It's admitted.
2 (Exhibit No. 157 was admitted.)
3 Q. (By Mr. London) Please turn to 162.
4 A. Okay, I have it.
5 Q. What is 162?
6 A. This is a message again to the Cypherpunks list that I
7 downloaded from the Internet.
8 Q. Concerning Mr. Mueller and the CIA?
9 A. 162 is the one that is not -- no.
10 Q. What is that about?
11 A. This is the one, or this is a message which he says, in
12 discussing apparently government employees, "Under libertarian
13 principles they are fully guilty of initiating 'force and/or
14 fraud'. And there are no 'statutes of limitation' on our
15 response to these people regardless of current law.
16 "Now would be an excellent time for anyone to go to their
17 county voter's registration office, and order a copy of the
18 voter's registration database for current and future use."
19 MR. LONDON: We would offer 162.
20 MR. LEEN: No objection.
21 THE COURT: 162 is admitted.
22 (Exhibit No. 162 was admitted.)
23 Q. (By Mr. London) What is the date of that email?
24 A. October 30th.
25 Q. Would you turn to Exhibit 170 now. And as you look at that
481
1 exhibit, perhaps you can describe where you were on October
2 31st, at approximately 10:35 in the morning.
3 A. I was in my office, the Treasury Inspector General Office,
4 in Portland, Oregon.
5 Q. And what happened?
6 A. The fax machine started making the normal fax machine noises
7 when a fax comes in, and this is the exact document -- I've got
8 my initials and the date on the back -- that came in through the
9 fax machine.
10 Q. Now, about this time, had you been involved in discussions
11 with Mr. Bell or with Mr. Bell's attorney, Mr. Solovy, to
12 arrange the return of the guns that we heard testimony about
13 yesterday?
14 A. Yes. Actually --
15 Q. And his other property.
16 A. By this point, by October 31st, I had just simply shipped
17 all the property that -- all the other property back to Mr.
18 Bell's residence. Since we were at an impasse, we couldn't get
19 any instructions, so we shipped it to him directly, so we didn't
20 have that, but I couldn't do that with the guns. I needed
21 somebody to come and pick them up, so we had -- even after this
22 July 31st deadline had past, we had given another deadline to
23 his attorney to -- and that deadline, I believe, was either
24 October 31st or November 1st. I think it was November 1st, to
25 either have somebody pick up the guns or we were going to
482
1 destroy them. And that was what was going on at that point. We
2 had a fixed deadline of November 1st.
3 Q. So this fax came in, and what did it say?
4 A. Well, most of the fax was my original fax from July 31st.
5 That's the typed portion. But written on it was the, "How about
6 if I drop by your house tomorrow night with my designee to pick
7 up the four items? Or maybe you'd prefer at the address above?
8 Jim B."
9 Q. And what was the address above?
10 A. The address above is the U.S. Treasury Inspector General, my
11 office address, at 1220 Southwest Third in Portland, and it has
12 my phone number and my fax number on it.
13 MR. LONDON: All right. We offer 170.
14 MR. LEEN: No objection.
15 THE COURT: 170 is admitted.
16 (Exhibit No. 170 was admitted.)
17 MR. LONDON: And we would ask that that be published to
18 the jury.
19 Q. (Mr. London) The four items, is that a reference to the
20 four weapons?
21 A. I presume so, yes.
22 MR. LEEN: Objection, Your Honor. Move to strike.
23 Conclusion.
24 Q. (By Mr. London) Well, how many items remained for you --
25 THE COURT: Why don't you read it to the jury because
483
1 it looks very difficult to see.
2 A. It says, "How about if I drop by your house tomorrow night
3 with my designee to pick up the four items? Or maybe you'd
4 prefer at the address above? Jim B."
5 Q. (By Mr. London) Now, the original version of this with the
6 blue ink handwriting, that was recovered during the search at
7 Mr. Bell's house, correct?
8 A. Yes, that's what we have marked as Exhibit 171.
9 Q. So it's your understanding that what happened here is Mr.
10 Bell took a fax cover sheet, a fax that you had sent to him and
11 to Mr. Solovy, and simply wrote in hand that message, and then
12 faxed it back to you on October 31st?
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. How is a facsimile transmitted from one person's computer or
15 fax machine to another person's?
16 A. Through the phone lines.
17 Q. And --
18 MR. LEEN: Objection, Your Honor. That's conclusory.
19 THE COURT: You can cross-examine him on it. It will
20 stand.
21 Go ahead.
22 Q. (By Mr. London) I'm sorry, can you repeat your answer?
23 A. Normally all the fax machines, generally speaking, that I'm
24 familiar with, are hooked to telephone lines. You plug them
25 into your telephone or to a telephone line. I know the one in
484
1 our office that receives -- the only way we receive faxes is
2 through the phone line. Our fax has a phone number, (503)
3 326-2246. That's our fax line, and it's plugged into the
4 telephone and you call into it, dial into it, and it answers and
5 receives the fax.
6 Q. All right. Are fax machines and telephone lines used
7 regularly as instruments in interstate commerce?
8 A. Yes.
9 MR. LEEN: Objection. Calls for a legal conclusion.
10 THE COURT: As to what he does?
11 MR. LEEN: No. He's asking about how -- about
12 telephone lines and interstate commerce and such. I'm saying
13 that's a legal conclusion.
14 THE COURT: As he uses them? Is that the objection?
15 MR. LEEN: No. As to whether or not this constitutes
16 interstate commerce, Your Honor. That's my objection. That's a
17 conclusion.
18 THE COURT: Well, he may answer.
19 A. Yes. In my experience, and certainly all the time we use
20 our fax, this particular fax machine, all the time to send faxes
21 to other offices and witnesses and all sorts of people across
22 state lines.
23 Q. (By Mr. London) Now, on November 4th -- please turn your
24 attention to Exhibits 184 and 185 -- did you see anything more
25 on the Internet indicating that Mr. Bell, perhaps, now had found
485
1 the home of Scott Mueller, this supposed CIA agent?
2 A. Yes. 184 is the original that I downloaded off the Internet
3 of, again, another CIA in Oregon email message. In this one, he
4 specifically -- it indicates that he's been out there, or
5 somebody's been out there because it gives specific information
6 about the residence. He says, "This address is a house in a
7 rather new subdivision," and he also says, "Two vehicles," and
8 he gives the license plates, "are in the driveway."
9 Q. All right.
10 MR. LONDON: We offer 184.
11 MR. LEEN: No objection.
12 THE COURT: 184 is admitted.
13 (Exhibit No. 184 was admitted.)
14 Q. (By Mr. London) Now, that was dated November 4th. Two days
15 later the search warrant was executed at Mr. Bell's residence at
16 7214 Corregidor, correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. All right. We've already talked about a lot of the items
19 that were recovered from the search. Are you familiar with all
20 of the CD-ROMs and phone disks and Department of Motor Vehicle
21 printouts and the spiral notebook with all the information
22 showing where he had been? Have you looked at all of that
23 evidence?
24 A. Yes, I have.
25 Q. Are you also familiar with the tax assessor printout?
486
1 A. Yes, I am.
2 Q. Turn to Exhibit 127, which I don't think anyone has talked
3 about yet.
4 A. Yes, I have it.
5 Q. What is 127?
6 A. This is a receipt that I found in Mr. Bell's bedroom during
7 the search.
8 Q. A receipt for what, issued by whom?
9 A. This was issued by Clark County and it's got an address in
10 Vancouver, Washington. It says it's received from Bell, is
11 handwritten in, and says "For 10 Assr," assessor, "prints."
12 Q. So what does that appear to be to you?
13 A. This appears to be the receipt, because it's dated
14 October 11, 2000, for the purchase of what I believe is
15 Exhibits 125 and 126. Those are also dated the same day,
16 October 11, 2000. The real property records for Jeffrey
17 Gordon are two different Jeffrey Gordons, apparently.
18 MR. LONDON: We offer 127.
19 MR. LEEN: No objection.
20 THE COURT: 127 is admitted.
21 (Exhibit No. 127 was admitted.)
22 Q. (By Mr. London) Now, you had been to the Bell residence on
23 a prior search warrant in 1997, correct?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You were familiar with the layout of the house, correct?
487
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. What evidence was there when you went in October -- excuse
3 me -- November with the search warrant, when Mr. Bell was
4 actually living at that residence?
5 A. Well, Mr. Bell was present and actually asleep when we
6 arrived in the bedroom in the basement in the residence. His,
7 what appeared to be his, personal possessions were there and his
8 clothes. The documents all in the basement area all seemed to
9 be related to him.
10 Q. Is that where he had his computers?
11 A. There were two -- as I understand it, two computers in the
12 basement and an additional computer upstairs.
13 Q. Did Mr. Bell say anything at all to suggest that this was
14 not where he was actually living?
15 A. No.
16 Q. All right. Several days after the search warrant was
17 executed -- we are now on November 9th -- did you see an article
18 in the Columbian newspaper about Mr. Bell?
19 A. I don't recall the exact date, but I know I have seen
20 articles in the Columbian about him.
21 Q. Could you look at Exhibit 214, please.
22 A. Yes. This is an article that I cut out of the Columbian
23 myself. I've got my initials up in the corner.
24 Q. And what does it say about Mr. Bell, or what did you notice
25 in this article that might have caused you to be particularly
488
1 interested in it?
2 A. Well, he made what I consider admissions that he has been
3 using motor vehicle records and that specifically he had gone to
4 the homes of agents' houses and taken pictures. And, you know,
5 he reiterated, I guess, his feelings that we're absolutely
6 crooked, things like that. That was a concern.
7 Q. Now, the tracking device in his car, that had already been
8 installed several days earlier during the execution of the
9 search warrant, correct?
10 A. Yes. That was done on November 6th.
11 Q. Now, were you concerned enough about your safety that you
12 wanted to be able to have a way of monitoring the tracking
13 device yourself at home at night?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And what did you do to make sure that you could find out if
16 that tracking device was getting anywhere near you?
17 A. What I did is -- the system was kind of designed for this.
18 We set it up -- we told the system that if Mr. Bell left a
19 certain defined area, basically a couple miles square around his
20 house, so that it wouldn't notify us, for example, if he just
21 went to the store close by or went to get a drink, but if, you
22 know, he left that area, that it would alert my pager, and then
23 I would know to go and check the system so that we could see
24 where he was going. And I kept a list of as many targets as I
25 was aware of, or potential targets for him, of the various
489
1 people that I knew he was gathering information on so that I
2 could hopefully, if I saw him going somewhere, identify who he
3 was trying to go after and notify them or take whatever steps we
4 needed to do for their safety.
5 Q. And were you at home around 12:15, early in the morning of
6 November 10th?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And were you monitoring the device, or what were you doing
9 around that time?
10 A. Sleeping.
11 Q. And what happened?
12 A. The pager went off and alerted me. I went to the computer
13 and checked where Mr. Bell -- or where the device, the tracker
14 was.
15 Q. The display that the jury saw yesterday of the progression
16 of the tracking device going south across the river to the
17 residence on South Clackamas, were you able to see essentially
18 that same thing as it was happening in live time?
19 A. Yes. That's -- it looks very -- exactly like that only in
20 real time, so it's a lot slower because it's not in that fast,
21 fast pace mode.
22 Q. So you watched it, and what did you see?
23 A. I think by the time I got on, got on to see it, he was
24 already southbound. He had already crossed the border and was
25 south on 205. I wasn't sure -- 205 is a main artery, so I
490
1 wasn't sure where or what he was doing. I was concerned about
2 it because it was so late at night. That's an unusual time to
3 be doing a normal trip, so I continued to watch it to see if I
4 could figure out where he was going.
5 Q. And at what point did you figure out where he might be
6 headed?
7 A. At the point he turned on to South Clackamas River Drive, I
8 recognized that as the Groener/Andrews, the street that they
9 lived on.
10 Q. So what did you do?
11 A. I contacted -- the first thing I did was contact 911 and ask
12 them to have local units respond to the residence to see if they
13 could get out there as soon as possible to ensure the safety of
14 the residents.
15 Q. And did you try to call the residents yourself?
16 A. Yes, I did. I, I dialed Mr. Groener's phone number.
17 Q. And what happened?
18 A. I got put into -- I wasn't sure at the time whether it was a
19 voice mail machine or answering machine, and so I thought maybe
20 it was an answering machine and maybe he just wasn't answering
21 because it was so late at night, so I kind of shouted into it,
22 "Chris, Chris, if you're home, answer the phone. Answer the
23 phone. I need to talk to you," and I identified myself.
24 Q. Were you concerned about Agent McNall as well at this point?
25 A. No. I wasn't concerned about Agent McNall because I knew
491
1 that he no longer lived in that area. I was concerned about the
2 Andrews, I was concerned about Mr. Groener at the immediate
3 time. But I did know that -- did contact him because I knew he
4 was -- or I arranged to have him contacted because he was
5 familiar with the property and wasn't that far from it and could
6 respond to the scene.
7 Q. Did you call anybody else besides 911? Did you contact your
8 own supervisor?
9 A. Yes, I did. I contacted -- I stayed -- I was on line with
10 911. I contacted my supervisor. I contacted another treasury
11 agent in our office, had him respond to be with me in case we
12 needed to take some action or response. I placed him on alert,
13 and actually I had him make the call to ATF and try to get ahold
14 of Agent McNall and to alert ATF. I paged and tried to get
15 ahold of ATF's case agent to advise them that this was going
16 on.
17 Q. Now, you were aware that Mr. Bell was stopped by the
18 Clackamas County Sheriff's officers a few miles from the Groener
19 house, correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. But that he was also ultimately released that evening,
22 correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. The next morning, on November 11th, did you see an article
25 by Declan McCullagh on the Internet on Wired News in which Mr.
492
1 Bell was quoted talking about picketing your house?
2 A. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I recall a Wired News
3 article in regard to that.
4 Q. Would you look at Exhibit 229.
5 A. Yes. This is an article that I printed out myself.
6 Q. All right. And in that article, was Mr. Bell quoted as
7 saying that he was thinking very strongly of picketing Gordon's
8 house?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And that he was hopping mad and feeling very hostile and
11 that he was not going to be stopped?
12 A. Yeah. He said, "If you think this is going to stop me,
13 baloney."
14 Q. All right. So Mr. Bell had been present during the
15 execution of the federal search warrant and you were there,
16 correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. He had been stopped now just a few miles from his second
19 visit to the Groener property, correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And he was now telling the reporter that he was not going to
22 be stopped, correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. All right. And an arrest warrant was finally obtained for
25 him and he was arrested on November 17th. Were you present at
493
1 the scene?
2 A. I responded to the scene and arrived shortly after he was
3 detained in the car.
4 Q. He was stopped in his car?
5 A. Yes. In fact, we used the tracking device to help make the
6 arrest so we knew where he was driving and had the Vancouver
7 Police Department make a traffic stop on him, and as soon as
8 they got him pulled over, then I responded to the scene.
9 Q. All right. Now, his car was searched incident to the
10 arrest, correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And a number of items were found in there that you believed
13 to be relevant to this. Can you tell us what they are? And I
14 will direct your attention to Exhibit 235.
15 A. Yes. On the -- 235 is an item that I saw and found in the
16 car, and my initials are on the back of it. This is a photo
17 processing envelope that was sitting on the passenger seat in
18 the car.
19 Q. And can you look at 236?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What is 236?
22 A. This is the -- one of the pictures that was inside the photo
23 processing envelope that we just spoke of. It's got my initials
24 again on the back. One of the pictures we found in the car.
25 Q. And do you know what that is a picture of?
494
1 A. Yes. That's -- we had some testimony on this earlier, I
2 believe. This is one of Mr. Mueller's -- I think it's his
3 previous residence.
4 MR. LONDON: We offer 236.
5 MR. LEEN: No objection.
6 THE COURT: 236 is admitted.
7 (Exhibit No. 236 was admitted.)
8 Q. (By Mr. London) And look at 237.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. What's 237?
11 A. 237, again, is an item that I found in the car and seized.
12 This is a receipt from -- while it's dated November 17th, which
13 is the date of the arrest, at 8:40 p.m., which is just prior --
14 the time just prior to the arrest, and it's for photo/elec,
15 which I assume to be electronics.
16 Q. Now --
17 MR. LONDON: We offer 237.
18 MR. LEEN: No objection.
19 MR. LONDON: And 235.
20 MR. LEEN: Let me look.
21 MR. LONDON: It's the envelope.
22 MR. LEEN: No objection.
23 THE COURT: 235 and 237 are admitted.
24 (Exhibits Nos. 235 and 237 were admitted.)
25 Q. (By Mr. London) Agent Gordon, have you had an opportunity
495
1 to do what we call a search using a search engine on the
2 Internet for Scott Mueller?
3 A. Yes, I have.
4 Q. What is -- describe for those of us who may be less savvy
5 about the Internet what a search engine is and how you run a
6 search for someone over the Internet?
7 A. Okay. There's many websites or web pages on the Internet.
8 There's millions and millions of them. There's lots of
9 information. And so if you're looking or are interested in a
10 particular subject or particular person, you don't know
11 necessarily what web page to go to, so there are various
12 companies or people out there that have set their computers to
13 go to each different web page and kind of catalog what's on that
14 site and to create an index, kind of like the card catalog at a
15 library. And so if you go to -- and that's the search engine
16 people. If you go to that search engine, you can type in what
17 you're looking for and it will go out and search its memory and
18 tell -- and point you or tell you which different web pages you
19 might want to try to find that information.
20 Q. So, for example, if you were to type in a name with the
21 search engine, essentially search all over the Internet various
22 websites and pull down all of the places where that name
23 appeared.
24 A. Different search engines use different methods of locating
25 it, but, yes, that's essentially what happens.
496
1 Q. All right. And what happened when you ran the name Scott
2 Mueller?
3 A. Well, I think I ran the full name -- did it a couple of
4 different ways. But when I run, for example, Scott Deforest
5 Mueller, those three names, I came back basically with the CIA
6 in Oregon Cypherpunks-type postings. In other words, the
7 postings that Mr. Bell made giving all his information.
8 Q. And outing Mr. Mueller as a CIA agent?
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. Did you have a chance to observe or to look through Exhibit
11 137, which I have referred to as the stalking diary? This is
12 the spiral notebook that was found during the search of Mr.
13 Bell's home.
14 A. Yes, I have.
15 Q. And have you had a chance to see that, or whether there are
16 many telephone numbers recorded in that book?
17 A. Yes, there are.
18 Q. For various individuals?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Have you had a chance to compare the telephone numbers
21 recorded in this diary with Mr. Bell's telephone records from
22 the residence at 7214 Corregidor?
23 A. Yes, I have.
24 Q. And what does the comparison show?
25 A. It's not a perfect match. There are some phone numbers in
497
1 the diary -- some long distance numbers that are in the stalking
2 diary that aren't on his phone bills, but generally speaking,
3 quite a few of them are and matched up. In some cases when
4 there were dates in the diary and in some cases they matched
5 up. But there were some matches.
6 Q. All right. So -- but is it your testimony that on days
7 indicated in the diary in which telephone number information was
8 recorded, there's corresponding evidence in the phone records
9 that he was actually calling those numbers from his home, or
10 some of them?
11 A. Yes. Except that most of the diary doesn't really have
12 dates, so it's -- it's hard to correlate exact dates to days. I
13 think we have at least one example of it where it did match up.
14 But in general, yes. And there were certainly numbers that are
15 written down in the stalking diary that then the phone records
16 show -- where there are phone records available, show that they
17 have been called.
18 Q. All right. Did you have a chance to make up an exhibit or
19 kind of a diagram to show this?
20 A. Yes. Although the diagram that we have only relates to the
21 phone bills through a Uni-Tel. There was another phone provider
22 for some of the period of time, and those records, even though
23 the phone calls may be in here, weren't -- that's not included
24 in this chart.
25 Q. All right. I would ask you to look at Exhibit 180 and tell
498
1 us if that's the chart that you prepared showing that Mr. Bell
2 was actually telephoning some of the numbers that were also
3 found in his diary.
4 A. Yes. This is the chart that I prepared.
5 MR. LONDON: I would like to ask that that be
6 published.
7 MR. LEEN: No objection.
8 Q. (By Mr. London) Can you describe the information --
9 MR. LONDON: The jury needs to see it.
10 Q. (By Mr. London) Can you just describe how you prepared this
11 and what it shows?
12 A. Yes. On the left side is the --
13 THE COURT: They can't see. Members of the jury can't
14 see it.
15 MR. LONDON: Is that better? That's about as much as I
16 think we will be able to magnify it.
17 A. Okay. On the left side I tried --
18 THE COURT: Why don't you -- have you got a pointer?
19 MR. LONDON: You've got a pointer.
20 THE COURT: That might help.
21 MR. LONDON: Why don't you use that.
22 Q. (Mr. London) Okay.
23 A. Okay. So on the left side I have tried to put what the
24 stalking notebook, Exhibit 137, what it says and the page number
25 in parens, so for the first entry it's Larry Olstad with a phone
499
1 number 849-4635. That would be Exhibit 137, page 1. And then
2 on the other side, the right side after the line, I have put the
3 -- again, the phone number that was found on the Uni-Tel phone
4 bill and the dates that that number was called, the phone
5 records show it was called.
6 Q. All right. But you're not suggesting that these are phone
7 numbers of people who are actually being stalked, are you, these
8 are more -- how would you describe these numbers?
9 A. These are just numbers that are listed, and you can see, for
10 example, there's the assessor's office, or just various people.
11 They are not necessarily victims in the case. It just shows
12 that -- relates the stalking notebook to actual activity.
13 Q. All right. But there are -- do you see the third entry, the
14 Benton County, Washington, Assessor's Office?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Is the county assessor's office someplace where you can get
17 property records if you are looking for someone's address?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And the last, the King County Assessor, is that -- the same
20 question there?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And the second one, assessor/treasurer. What does that mean
23 to you?
24 A. The same thing, it's some sort of, most likely a county
25 office or something.
500
1 Q. It's got a 253 area code.
2 A. I think that's up in this area, the Pierce County area.
3 Q. You're a law enforcement agent, isn't that correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You carry a gun as part of your everyday responsibilities,
6 correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. What would your answer be if someone were to say to you, why
9 are you afraid of this guy, or what reason, what cause do you
10 have to be afraid of this guy? You're the guy who's carrying
11 the gun. He's the guy who had to give up his guns.
12 A. Well, there's a lot of answers to that. One is that he's
13 clearly targeting me at my residence, at my home where my family
14 lives, so it's not just me, it's my family. It's not just when
15 I'm on duty or working as a law enforcement officer, where I
16 would normally be carrying my gun in antici- -- you know, have
17 it ready, but it could be while I'm sleeping at night or when
18 I'm not there.
19 There were -- but he's a person who's strongly advocated the
20 assassination of government officials, and specifically tax
21 officials.
22 He -- there's the whole chemical weapon issue, the fact that
23 he's at least stated that he's made Sarin gas, a highly
24 dangerous nerve agent. We found precursor-type chemicals for
25 that in his residence. He's got a degree in chemistry from MIT,
501
1 so he clearly has the ability to make those.
2 He's dumped chemicals in an IRS office in retaliation for
3 rela- -- comparatively minor, I guess, in retaliation for the
4 seizure of his vehicle. So what's he going to do because we put
5 him in jail?
6 And he's -- the time he spent in jail had no effect on him.
7 It -- or it certainly didn't deter him from this activity; it
8 increased it. He did -- or similar activity was coming after
9 agents in '97, and we put him in jail on supervised release, and
10 instead of learning from that, now he's even more aggresive and
11 escalating.
12 Q. In fact, in '97 he was never accused of actually showing up
13 at anybody's house, is that fair?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. What steps have you taken, if any, to try to increase your
16 security because of this?
17 A. I've purchased additional firearms for the family and the
18 house. I've installed the first part of the security system in
19 my residence and gotten an additional one. I've obtained an
20 anti-stalking order from the State of Oregon.
21 My -- I had to, you know, talk to my family about what steps
22 to take while Mr. Bell was still on the loose or before he was
23 in custody. I had to, you know, sit down with my wife and talk
24 about the situation, and she had, you know, started carrying
25 around a large firearm with her, you know. So.
502
1 I mean, every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do
2 is look out the window, or especially when he was -- look out
3 the window. When I walked out to my car, I check up and down
4 the street. When I come home I take evasive routes and check
5 the neighborhood, and if there's a car that gets off the freeway
6 behind me at the same time as I do, I turn a couple different
7 directions to go a different way to see if they are actually
8 following me or not.
9 Q. What would you say to the accusation, if it were to be made,
10 that you are just as obsessed with him as he is with you?
11 A. Well, from a -- maybe just from a defensive posture. I
12 would have been very happy had he gotten out of jail and just
13 completely left us alone or left me alone. I really took no
14 steps upon him being released from custody in April. I didn't
15 do -- go near him or do anything other than monitor public
16 information on the Internet, receive some phone calls when
17 people called me about him, and that's basically it. I didn't
18 try to arrange -- continue, which I had been for at least a year
19 prior, continue to try to arrange the return of his property
20 back to him.
21 Q. There's been some suggestion, I guess by counsel, that Mr.
22 Bell's accessing or his use of the Department of Motor Vehicles
23 database is perfectly legal. Is that your understanding?
24 A. No, it's not.
25 Q. What laws govern the use of the Department of Motor Vehicle
503
1 materials, such as the material that he has on CD-ROMs and has
2 been using to search for your address and the addresses of
3 others?
4 A. There's both state and federal laws restricting the use of
5 DMV data, especially the more recent stuff. In response to some
6 of these stalking and harassment problems that there have been,
7 the government passed, I think it's 2712 -- I don't remember
8 exactly what statute it was -- that restricts what you can use
9 and how -- who can obtain the DMV data and what you can use it
10 for.
11 Q. In fact, doesn't it restrict its lawful use to those who are
12 going to use it for commercial purposes?
13 A. Yes. There's several uses. For example, law enforcement
14 can use it or various -- but essentially that's one of the uses,
15 is for those who are using it for commercial or marketing
16 purposes.
17 Q. All right. Are you aware that agents who work with you have
18 tried to obtain a sample of Mr. Bell's handwriting pursuant to
19 an order of this court?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Did Mr. Bell comply?
22 A. No, he did not.
23 Q. Does that explain why there's no handwriting comparison in
24 this case comparing his handwriting to the handwriting in the
25 notebooks?
504
1 A. That's correct. We were unable to -- we obtained the order
2 from the court to have Mr. Bell give us exact handwriting
3 samples. The examiners need the same handwriting that appears,
4 the same words, and they need it multiple times in order to make
5 a scientific comparison to see if it's that individual's
6 handwriting. And when the agents on -- after having coordinated
7 with Mr. Bell's attorney prior to going out to the prison, went
8 there twice to give him the opportunity to obey the court order,
9 and both times he refused to even meet with them.
10 MR. LONDON: Nothing further.
11 THE COURT: Cross-examination.
12 CROSS-EXAMINATION
13 BY MR. LEEN:
14 Q. Good morning, Agent Gordon.
15 A. Good morning, Mr. Leen.
16 Q. In the course of investigating Mr. Bell, you used the
17 Internet.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And did searches on the Internet.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Much the way Mr. Bell did searches on the Internet.
22 A. Presumably.
23 Q. You did cross-references of telephone directories.
24 A. On occasion.
25 Q. Much the way Mr. Bell did cross-references of telephone
505
1 directories.
2 A. I didn't use it exactly the same, but there -- the way he
3 did it, but similar.
4 Q. When did you first open a file on Mr. Bell?
5 A. October '96.
6 Q. When was Mr. Bell's vehicle seized?
7 A. February '97.
8 Q. Were you aware that it was going to be seized?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Were you involved at all in the decision to seize his
11 vehicle?
12 A. I was in -- the final decision wasn't mine, but I certainly
13 had a lot of involvement in the process.
14 Q. When the vehicle was seized, was there a copy of
15 Assassination Politics, that is a hard copy, in the vehicle?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Was that the first time you had become aware of that
18 article?
19 A. No.
20 Q. You had become aware of it through an Internet search or --
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. -- somehow or another were directed to it on line?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Did you pull up tax records from databases regarding Mr.
25 Bell?
506
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did you monitor on the Internet Cypherpunk list any email
3 Mr. Bell may have written or email that was written to Mr. Bell?
4 A. At what time period?
5 Q. Well, after -- any time after you opened the file.
6 A. Later on, yes.
7 Q. Were you aware that there was a Special Agent Walsh using
8 the name Steve Wilson sent to infiltrate the Multnomah County
9 Common Law Court?
10 A. I wouldn't describe it like that.
11 Q. How would you describe it?
12 A. Well, he -- I was certainly aware of Agent Walsh and the
13 undercover operation that we had going. His -- his mission was
14 not to infiltrate the common law court, though.
15 Q. Was his mission to monitor Mr. Bell?
16 A. His mission was essentially to determine what Operation
17 Locate IRS was and to determine if Mr. Bell or anybody else
18 planned to harm any Internal Revenue Service agents.
19 Q. Were you aware that Mr. Wilson, under the name Steve Wilson,
20 Agent Walsh was communicating email to Mr. Bell?
21 A. Certainly, yes.
22 Q. Were you aware that some of that email indicated that Steve
23 Wilson thought that the government was acting out of control and
24 were a bunch of crooks and much of the same type of rhetoric
25 that Mr. Bell had been himself writing in emails?
507
1 A. I don't recall those specific words, and I don't think there
2 was a whole lot of that, but certainly he was playing that role.
3 Q. Were you aware that Agent Walsh asked Mr. Bell to build for
4 him or supply to him an illegal fm transmitter?
5 A. In fact, I'm specifically aware that that never happened.
6 Q. Are you aware that Special Agent Walsh contacted Mr. Bell
7 numerous times outside the Multnomah County Common Law Court?
8 A. I wouldn't describe it as -- well, it depends on your
9 definition, numerous. On occasion, yes.
10 Q. And met with him?
11 A. On one -- I believe one occasion, yes.
12 Q. Now, you said that Mr. Bell was using Mr. East's house for
13 phone calls and as a mail drop.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And when did that occur?
16 A. That was occurring in that same time frame. I think on his
17 employment application, which was actually around October '96,
18 he had used Mr. East's address and phone number -- I believe
19 phone number. I know that at one point Agent Walsh received
20 what we believed was a call from Mr. Bell, caller ID, identified
21 it as coming from Robert East's house, and that would probably
22 have been around May of '97.
23 Q. All right. Now, you indi- -- when Mr. Bell's vehicle was
24 seized for payment of back taxes, approximately how much money
25 did he owe?
508
1 A. You know, I don't recall exactly, and it depends on how you
2 define what you owe, because there was audit things going on.
3 Q. The principal amount, as opposed to with interest.
4 A. I think it was somewhere around 50,000, but it could have
5 been down from that.
6 Q. Are you aware of how he incurred that tax, what kind of
7 income he had generated prior to that which he had not paid
8 taxes on?
9 A. Yeah. There was multiple years of it. There were stock
10 sales in some years, and then there was a big hundred-thousand-
11 dollar payment of some sort back in the late '80s that he had
12 never -- I don't believe he had ever filed a tax return related
13 to, so they audited him to assess taxes on it.
14 Q. Were you aware that Mr. Bell actually was -- ran a business
15 at one time?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And do you know anything about the particulars of that
18 business?
19 A. I've heard about the business and also some of the IRS side
20 of that, yes.
21 Q. And what type of business was that?
22 A. I think it was called Semi-Disk Systems, or something
23 relating to computer components or something like that.
24 Q. So at one point he was a legitimate businessman.
25 A. Well, I've heard different stories about that.
509
1 Q. Now, Mr. Bell is not being prosecuted for having authored
2 Assassination Politics, is he?
3 A. No.
4 Q. And he's not being prosecuted for the chemicals that were
5 recovered from his house in 1997, is he?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Did you, when you searched his residence in November of
8 2000, I think it was November 6 of 2000, did you recover any
9 firearms?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Did you recover any precursor chemicals to make nerve gas or
12 other dangerous substances?
13 A. There were dangerous substances there, but we didn't take
14 them.
15 Q. In particular, what were they?
16 A. There was a list that haz-mat gave me -- or hazardous
17 material guys gave me. I know mercury, or -- there were some
18 chemicals there.
19 Q. Now, you're aware that Mr. Bell is a chemist.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And you're aware that his -- you've interviewed his parents,
22 or agents that are working with you have interviewed his
23 parents.
24 A. Agents that are working with me have, yes.
25 Q. And you're aware that he's been a hobbyist in chemistry
510
1 since he was a preteen.
2 A. I've heard that, yes.
3 Q. And you're aware that he was exceptionally bright, is
4 exceptionally bright.
5 A. People say that, yes.
6 Q. And he attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
7 A. Yes, I confirmed that, yes.
8 Q. And he graduated.
9 A. I believe so, yes.
10 Q. And do you know approximately when?
11 A. Late '70s or '80s, something like that.
12 Q. You've indicated that you returned the weapons that had been
13 seized in 1997 from Mr. Bell, you returned them to Robert East.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Why did you return them to Robert East if you felt that he
16 was an associate of Mr. Bell?
17 A. Because the United States Attorney's Office advised me that
18 I had no legal means to maintain them. That I was required by
19 law to return them. They were Mr. Bell's property, and I was
20 required to return them, and so at that point it was his choice
21 to -- or his attorney's choice as to his designee as to who he
22 wanted to have them, and our only requirement was that it was a
23 person who was legally entitled to possess them. And since Mr.
24 East is legally entitled to possess firearms and Mr. Bell
25 designated him to be his designee, apparently, I returned them
511
1 to him.
2 Q. Have you ever seen those weapons again?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Now, there was a tracking device placed in Mr. Bell's
5 vehicle at the same time that the search warrant took place on
6 November 6th.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Were there any tracking devices ever placed in Mr. Bell's
9 residence -- vehicle prior to November 6th, 2000, that you're
10 aware of?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Was there any monitoring of Mr. Bell from residents in the
13 neighborhood prior to November 6 -- well, let's start first,
14 prior to November 6th, 2000?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Was there any monitoring at all of Mr. Bell's activities
17 other than what we've just discussed and your reading of public
18 emails prior to November 6th, 2000?
19 A. Well, certainly we did -- when you say monitoring, I mean,
20 we were keeping him -- you know, when he's at the court. We had
21 Agent Walsh, for example, in contact with him. But if you're
22 talking about electronic monitoring or surveillance teams, I
23 think, for example, the day of the -- that the IRS seized his
24 vehicle, we had a team out watching for the vehicle that day.
25 But other than that, there was no sustained effort. There was
512
1 no wire taps or bugs or electronic microwaves or anything like
2 that.
3 Q. Was his phone ever listened to?
4 A. The only electronic monitoring of the phone was when Agent
5 Walsh made phone calls with Mr. Bell or received phone calls
6 from Mr. Bell's, we used one-party consensual monitoring on
7 that, which we are legally entitled to do. And so we tape
8 recorded, and we consider that electronic monitoring. We
9 electronically monitored the calls between Agent Walsh and Mr.
10 Bell.
11 MR. LONDON: I just want to ask for clarification of
12 the time when that happened.
13 THE WITNESS: That would have been in 1997, prior to
14 Mr. Bell's arrest, when we had the undercover operation going
15 on.
16 Q. (By Mr. Leen) Now, Mr. Bell isn't being prosecuted for
17 anything that happened prior to 1997, is he?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Or prior to 1998?
20 A. No.
21 Q. In fact, he's not being prosecuted for anything other than
22 the specific dates and crimes in the indictment, is that
23 correct?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Now, when you first saw the email, "Say Good Night to
513
1 Joshua," did you know who Joshua was?
2 A. I presumed it was the son of a law enforcement officer, but
3 I did not know who, no.
4 Q. You don't have a son named Joshua?
5 A. No.
6 Q. When did you start monitoring the Cypherpunks mail list?
7 A. Probably late -- mid to late '97.
8 Q. So this was a couple of years prior to Mr. -- to these
9 present acts that Mr. Bell is under prosecution for?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Now, you indicated that you received a facsimile dated
12 10/31/2000 which was a response facsimile to yours.
13 A. I don't think --
14 Q. That was a bad question, actually. Let me rephrase it.
15 You sent a letter or a facsimile to Mr. Solovy, who was the
16 attorney at that time who represented Mr. Bell.
17 A. In July I had sent a -- that fax with my fax cover sheet to
18 Mr. Solovy, yes.
19 Q. And that -- that was related to the four firearms?
20 A. I think at the time it was related to all the property, or
21 the majority of the property, because in July I hadn't returned
22 any of it, or hadn't returned most of it yet.
23 Q. In fact, you still haven't returned two of the computers
24 that were seized in 1997.
25 A. Right. We had one of them in here the other day for the
514
1 testimony.
2 Q. Now, then, on October 31st, Mr. Bell sent the facsimile to
3 you which we've seen here with the handwriting on it.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Is that correct? Did Mr. Bell ever direct any other
6 facsimile to you, that you're aware of?
7 A. No.
8 Q. So that was the only one instance?
9 A. The only fax.
10 Q. Now, does -- are you aware that you can send facsimiles by
11 computer?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You can scan and -- you can scan documents onto a computer
14 and then facsimile it from a computer.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And you're aware that Mr. Bell's computer had cable access,
17 not telephone access.
18 A. Right.
19 Q. You were present at the November 6th search of Mr. Bell's
20 residence.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Now, you indicated that when the tracking device was put on
23 Mr. Bell's car there was a list of persons that you were
24 concerned that he might injure or harm in some way.
25 A. Yes.
515
1 Q. Your name was on the list.
2 A. Actually, many Jeff Gordons were on the list.
3 Q. All right. And Mike McNall's name was on the list.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You told us about Mr. Groener and Mr. Andrews. They live
6 next door to each other.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Who else was on the list?
9 A. Peter Avenia was one, Mr. Bell's prior attorney.
10 Q. Anyone else?
11 A. Yes. There was another -- I believe there was another
12 defense attorney that had somehow been involved in his case that
13 he had been looking up his address to.
14 Q. Anyone else, that you can recall?
15 A. I believe there were several more, but I can't remember who
16 right now.
17 Q. Now, you obtained a no-contact order at some point.
18 A. Yeah. An anti-stalking order, I believe.
19 Q. And that was after Mr. Bell was actually in custody and
20 arrested on these charges?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. But not prior to his arrest?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Now, you've referred to his -- Mr. Bell's spiral notebook as
25 a stalking diary.
516
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Does it say "stalking diary" on it?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Those are your words, a stalking diary?
5 A. I usually don't use the word "diary." I usually refer to it
6 like a stalking notebook.
7 Q. Does it have information that Mr. Bell has accumulated over
8 -- since his release from custody?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. You have indicated that the DMV records are not available to
11 private citizens unless they meet certain statutory categories,
12 such as businessman for marketing purposes, things like that.
13 A. Correct.
14 Q. When did those laws go into effect?
15 A. A couple of years ago, I think.
16 Q. Do you know when?
17 A. Not off hand, no.
18 Q. Did you speak to the individual who sold Mr. Bell the DMV
19 database CD-ROM?
20 A. Yes. Or -- at least one of them, yes.
21 Q. And when an individual purchases one of those by statute,
22 aren't they supposed to sign a certain form?
23 A. I don't know whether -- I don't believe the statute
24 specifically requires the form to be signed, but this individual
25 wanted people to sign it, yes.
517
1 Q. Was he able to produce it, the form that Mr. Bell signed?
2 A. No.
3 MR. LEEN: One second.
4 No further questions. Thank you.
5 THE COURT: Redirect.
6 MR. LONDON: Very briefly,
7 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
8 BY MR. LONDON:
9 Q. Agent Gordon, when you send a facsimile using a computer, as
10 opposed to a stand-alone fax machine, you're doing it from the
11 computer that is essentially functioning as a fax machine,
12 correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And, in fact, doesn't a computer that can do that have all
15 of the technology that a stand-alone fax machine has built into
16 it?
17 A. For sending the fax. It might not have the same printing
18 capabilities.
19 Q. All right. But if Mr. Leen asked you if it was possible or
20 suggested that it was possible that Mr. Bell might have scanned
21 your cover sheet into his computer with his handwritten notes on
22 it and then sent it via his computer as opposed to a stand-alone
23 separate fax machine and it was that way that the note had been
24 sent.
25 A. Well, it couldn't have been sent over a cable modem because
518
1 at some point it had to go through the phone lines because my
2 fax machine is not hooked to the Internet. It's only hooked to
3 the phone line. So there's no way that that fax can be sent to
4 my fax machine without using the phone lines.
5 Q. In the 1997 undercover work by Mr. Walsh of the Multnomah
6 County, so-called, Common Law Court, was there any political
7 motivation ever discussed, that you're aware of, for the
8 infiltration, as it's been termed, of that group?
9 A. No. And, in fact, the decision to have him go to the court
10 was made only because that was the only way we could think of to
11 get him in contact with Mr. Bell to find out what was going on.
12 Q. Did the decision to investigate Mr. Bell or try to find out
13 more about him in '97 depend on Assassination Politics or upon
14 Operation Locate IRS?
15 A. It was probably a combination of both. The fact that he was
16 on the one hand proposing, or at least discussing the
17 assassination of the government officials, and in particular tax
18 agents, as a, you know, a philosophy, and at the same time what
19 was apparent to us, imple- -- taking steps towards that by
20 actually gathering up the names and home addresses which was, if
21 you were going to be implementing or if you were going to try to
22 get a jump start by killing off some agents to start the
23 assassination process, that would be the first step.
24 Q. I guess another way to ask the question is, if you hadn't
25 known about Operation Locate IRS but you had known that you had
519
1 simply the author here of an essay entitled "Assassination
2 Politics," that's all you had known, would you have decided to
3 open an investigation as a matter of internal security for the
4 Internal Revenue Service?
5 A. No. I -- you know, in just reading the Internet as a casual
6 user, even, I come across inflammatory anti-government rhetoric
7 all the time. It doesn't make me happy and sometimes it's, you
8 know, upsetting, but we don't investigate that. It was the acts
9 in particular of gathering up the names and home addresses of
10 this operation that was apparently going on with the common law
11 court on top of the assassination plan or discussion that made
12 it -- got it to the point that we needed to investigate.
13 Q. As a law enforcement officer, are you legally permitted to
14 access various databases as a legitimate investigative tool?
15 A. Yes.
16 MR. LONDON: Nothing further.
17 THE COURT: Recross.
18 MR. LEEN: No further questions, Your Honor.
19 THE COURT: The witness may step down.
20 We will take a 15 minute recess.
21 Jury is cautioned, please do not discuss the case among
22 yourself or with anyone.
23 Please go to the jury room.
24 (Jury excused at 10:50 a.m.)
25 THE COURT: Anything to take up, either party?
520
1 MR. LEEN: No, Your Honor.
2 THE COURT: All right.
3 (Recessed at 10:50 a.m.)
4 (Jury not present; 11:15 a.m.)
5 THE COURT: Where are we?
6 MR. LONDON: Your Honor, I am almost ready to rest. I
7 just wanted do briefly recall Agent Gordon to the stand for two
8 or three short questions.
9 THE COURT: Then what's going to happen?
10 MR. LONDON: Then we're going to rest. And then I
11 understand Mr. Leen has some motions to be taken up outside the
12 presence of the jury.
13 THE COURT: Bring the jury.
14 (Jury present; 11:16 a.m.)
15 THE COURT: Jury's returned.
16 Government.
17 MR. LONDON: Yes. Just a few final questions of Agent
18 Gordon.
19 THE COURT: Are you recalling the witness?
20 MR. LONDON: We're recalling Agent Gordon.
21 THE COURT: All right.
22 JEFFREY GORDON, PLAINTIFF'S WITNESS, RECALLED
23 DIRECT EXAMINATION
24 BY MR. LONDON:
25 Q. Agent, just a reminder, you are still under oath. I just
521
1 want to ask you one or two questions.
2 When you were present at the search warrant at Mr. Bell's
3 residence on November 6th, did you observe a fax machine next to
4 his computer?
5 A. Yes, I did.
6 Q. Where in the house was this?
7 A. I noticed one in the upstairs next to the computer
8 between -- there's like a bar between the kitchen and the dining
9 room area.
10 Q. All right. Now, the fax message that you received at your
11 office for which there's a telephone record showing it as a
12 telephone transmission from Mr. Bell's residence, could that be
13 shown on the telephone record, if that fax had been sent from a
14 computer other than through a phone line?
15 A. Well, no. I mean, it clearly shows on the Exhibit 178 on
16 the phone bill that the phone -- the phone call that we received
17 that generated the fax came to my fax machine, (503) 326-2246
18 from Mr. Bell's residence, so it couldn't have come through a
19 cable modem. It has to be coming through the phone lines at the
20 residence.
21 Q. All right. You had a chance to observe the satellite
22 display, the tracking display for the tracking device for
23 November 10th when it moved from the vicinity of Mr. Bell's home
24 on Corregidor in Vancouver and went to the McNall residence on
25 South Clackamas River Drive, correct?
522
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And it appeared at all relevant times to be traveling on
3 roads or the road systems, correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Federal and state.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Based on your knowledge and experience, are the roads of the
8 United States and the states used for the purpose of conducting
9 interstate commerce?
10 A. Yes, they are.
11 MR. LONDON: Nothing further.
12 THE COURT: Cross-examination.
13 MR. LEEN: No questions.
14 THE COURT: The witness may step down.
15 (Witness excused.)
16 THE COURT: Next witness.
17 MR. LONDON: The United States rests.
18 THE COURT: Okay.
19 MR. LEEN: Your Honor, the defense would like to make
20 some motions outside the jury's presence.
21 THE COURT: How long do you think it's going to take?
22 MR. LEEN: Ten minutes.
23 THE COURT: Please go back to the jury room. Still do
24 not discuss the case among yourselves or with anyone else.
25 (Jury excused; 11:20 a.m.)
523
1 THE COURT: Mr. Leen.
2 MR. LEEN: Yes.
3 THE COURT: Before, the court wishes to put something
4 on the record.
5 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
6 THE COURT: The court -- the record should reflect the
7 court has observed the defendant and defendant's counsel, Mr.
8 Leen, discuss the testimony of each and every witness called by
9 the government in this case. The conversations and the
10 exchanges between the defendant and his counsel always appeared
11 to be congenial to the court, and the court considers that the
12 defendant has cooperated and participated with his attorney in
13 his defense.
14 What have you got to say? What are your motions, Mr. Leen?
15 MR. LEEN: Yes, Your Honor. I would just like to
16 respond to the court's comment.
17 THE COURT: It doesn't call for a response.
18 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
19 Rule 20 -- the defense makes a Rule 29 motion for verdict of
20 acquittal.
21 THE COURT: You had better go to the podium.
22 MR. LEEN: Oh, yes, sir.
23 Thank you, Your Honor.
24 We are now at the end of the state's case in chief. The
25 defense would move for a verdict of acquittal pursuant to Rule
524
1 29. As to each and every count of the indictment -- of the
2 superseding indictment the defense would submit that there is
3 insufficient evidence as a matter of law to make a prima facie
4 case.
5 As it relates to count one -- we would also -- well, I will
6 just start with the sufficiency.
7 There was insufficient evidence that Mike McNall was in
8 reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to himself or
9 to his immediate family based on the evidence that was adduced
10 during his examination.
11 THE COURT: Wait a minute. Why don't we go through
12 each count so I can keep track of your argument.
13 MR. LEEN: Okay.
14 THE COURT: Under the superseding indictment.
15 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir. And I will start with count one.
16 THE COURT: All right.
17 MR. LEEN: As to count one, we have two reasons why we
18 believe it should be dismissed. One has to do with sufficiency,
19 the other has to do with constitutionality.
20 As it relates to sufficiency, Mr. McNall, I believe,
21 testified that Mr. Bell's behavior caused him to have concerns.
22 I don't believe that that's sufficient from which a jury could
23 conclude or from which the court could conclude that there has
24 been a prima facie showing that he was in reasonable fear of
25 death or serious bodily injury to himself and to his immediate
525
1 family.
2 Also, as it relates to count one, we -- we would submit that
3 count one is an unconstitutional exercise of the commerce power
4 and therefore should be dismissed as an unconstitutional charge.
5 THE COURT: That motion will be denied.
6 MR. LEEN: As to count two, we would submit that as a
7 matter of law there is insufficient evidence to establish that
8 Mr. Bell traveled across the state line with the intent to
9 injure or harass Jeff Gordon, and also that there was -- as a
10 matter of constitutional law, that count two, which is the same
11 statute as count one, but we will adopt that same argument, was
12 an unconstitutional exercise of the commerce clause.
13 THE COURT: Well, if the question of constitutionality
14 to the first count applies to count one, doesn't it apply to all
15 the counts?
16 MR. LEEN: I would think so. But I would raise it
17 anyway.
18 THE COURT: Same ruling.
19 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
20 THE COURT: On the constitutionality.
21 Next?
22 MR. LEEN: As to count three, Your Honor, there are a
23 couple of arguments. First, count three requires that the
24 defendant use a facility in interstate commerce, and I think
25 that a telephone line would qualify for that, to engage in a
526
1 course of conduct. There has been testimony of one specific
2 isolated instance where a facsimile line was used and a
3 telephone line was used. We would submit that that does not --
4 a single isolated instance does not constitute a course of
5 conduct.
6 We would also argue that the statute, which is a different
7 statute than the one in count one and count two, is an
8 unconstitutional exercise of the commerce clause.
9 THE COURT: Same ruling as to constitution. I will
10 deny that.
11 Let me ask that question. Is there some law out there that
12 shows the number that must be made, telephone calls, to
13 constitute a pattern or course of conduct?
14 MR. LEEN: Well, pattern in other criminal statutes
15 requires two or more. Some require three. But a course of
16 conduct, we would submit as a matter of law, is more than a
17 single instance. If the congress wanted to say --
18 THE COURT: I can't threaten you, as a matter of law,
19 by one phone call?
20 MR. LEEN: You can, but that doesn't constitute a
21 course of conduct. It would be a different statute you would
22 have to use.
23 THE COURT: Isn't that a question of fact for the jury
24 instead of law?
25 MR. LEEN: I think it's a question -- there has to be
527
1 two or more to constitute a course of conduct.
2 THE COURT: Go ahead.
3 MR. LEEN: As to count three, this was an amendment to
4 what is charged in count one and count two, and our argument --
5 and I filed a memorandum on the point. I feel that it's -- the
6 statute, the indictment in count four fails to comply with the
7 requirement of Rule 7(a), I believe it is -- I will just double
8 check. I don't have it here, but the indictment requires that
9 it track the statute and allege each and every material element
10 of the offense. While count four tracks the 1996 statute, it
11 does not track the 199 -- the 2000 statute. The 2000 statute
12 does not say --
13 THE COURT: Mr. Leen, let's do this.
14 MR. LEEN: Yes.
15 THE COURT: Are you going to present any evidence?
16 MR. LEEN: We will present a case, yes.
17 THE COURT: You will. Let's do this. Let's dismiss
18 the jury and have them come back at one o'clock. Instead of
19 having them sitting there.
20 MR. LEEN: Sure.
21 THE COURT: Bring them back for two minutes.
22 Tell them to go to jury -- go to lunch, do not discuss the
23 case among themselves or anyone else. Be back in the jury room
24 at one o'clock.
25 (Mr. Leever excused the jury.)
528
1 THE COURT: Go ahead.
2 MR. LEEN: It does not track the statute, Your Honor.
3 It requires that Mr. Bell did travel in interstate commerce, and
4 the indictment alleges that he merely traveled from a state line
5 -- across a state line from one state to another.
6 Now, the prosecutor has argued to the court, and the court
7 has pointed out, that the -- that courts in this circuit and
8 other circuits have said crossing from one state to another
9 constitutes the same thing as interstate commerce, but the
10 statute -- excuse me -- but the indictment does not allege
11 that. And so while it's a question of fact from which the jury
12 could find that, it doesn't allege the element of interstate
13 commerce.
14 Also, Mr. Mueller was completely unaware of the fact of the
15 travel, completely unaware of whatever Mr. Bell's intent for
16 doing the traveling, until he was notified, I think several
17 days, if not weeks, later. And so as far as -- as far as Mr.
18 Mueller was concerned, there was no crime, that he had a
19 reasonable fear to be of death or serious bodily injury to
20 himself or his family, until such time as he was notified by
21 Agent Gordon that he should be in reasonable fear because of
22 what Mr. Bell's activities were.
23 And I would just adopt that argument again as it relates to
24 Mike McNall in count one. He was completely unaware of any of
25 Mr. Bell's activities until notified days, if not weeks, later
529
1 by Agent Gordon.
2 Finally, as to count five, we just -- the same arguments
3 apply as to the 2000 statute. It doesn't -- the indictment,
4 which is based on the 2000 statute. It does not allege travel
5 in interstate commerce. It merely alleges in the charging
6 language in count five that he traveled from one state to
7 another, and that Agent McNall did not testify to facts
8 sufficient from which it could be concluded that he was in
9 reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to himself or
10 his immediate family. Also, he was unaware of Mr. Bell's
11 activities until notified by Jeff Gordon days, if not weeks,
12 later.
13 THE COURT: Okay. Government.
14 MR. LEEN: May I also make my motion for mistrial?
15 I renew my motion for mistrial that I have made during the
16 course of the trial, renew it again at this time.
17 THE COURT: All right.
18 MR. LEEN: Thank you.
19 MR. LONDON: Your Honor, with regard to the
20 awareness --
21 THE COURT: Go to the podium.
22 Go to the podium, counsel.
23 MR. LONDON: With regard to the awareness of the
24 victims, there's nothing --
25 THE COURT: Let's take them as they come. Count one.
530
1 MR. LONDON: I won't address the constitutionality or
2 commerce clause issue in view of the fact that the court appears
3 to have decided on that.
4 THE COURT: Um-hmm.
5 MR. LONDON: The allegation is there's insufficient
6 evidence of fear by Mr. McNall. That was the first basis of an
7 alleged deficiency in proof.
8 Mr. McNall not only testified that he was concerned, but he
9 testified as to a number of steps that he took in reaction to
10 learning that Mr. Bell had drawn a beat on him, was trying to
11 find his house, and had actually found the last residence that
12 he had lived at before moving to his current residence. He
13 testified about discussing added security measures with his
14 agency, ATF. He changed the travel plans to be able to stick
15 around. He testified about at least one work-related trip that
16 he decided to forgo so that he could be there to protect his
17 family.
18 I think that you can certainly interpolate from those steps
19 the fact that he was extremely concerned and fearful about this
20 gentleman's intentions towards him.
21 With regard to whether he ever would have learned about Mr.
22 Bell's stalking of him without being notified by Chris Groener
23 that he had shown up at the house, or without being notified by
24 Jeff Gordon that there were emails up there on the Internet
25 talking about him and Ryan Lund, that's irrelevant. There's
531
1 nothing in the statute that requires that the victim learn of
2 this until, unfortunately, it's too late, when the guy shows up
3 on his doorstep. The critical thing is, if it's reasonable for
4 the victim to have found out in the way he did, then
5 unfortunately, Mr. Bell has to take his victim's awareness in
6 the way that he finds them.
7 Mr. Bell was posting things publicly to the Internet. He
8 knew from his prior prosecution and from the investigation that
9 law enforcement was watching what he was doing on the Internet.
10 You can't -- you can't go out there and do this stuff and think
11 that there's no chance that your victims are going to find out
12 until it's too late.
13 THE COURT: Are you saying that there's nothing in the
14 statute that says that -- under the stalking statute that says
15 that somebody gets the first bite?
16 MR. LONDON: What I'm saying is that there's nothing
17 that says under the stalking statute that the victim can't learn
18 about the stalking --
19 THE COURT: Well, what I'm asking --
20 MR. LONDON: -- by being notified by law enforcement.
21 THE COURT: What I'm saying is, when I say the first
22 bite, the alleged stalker, surely under the statute, doesn't get
23 a chance to physically do something to the person, are they?
24 MR. LONDON: That is exactly my point.
25 THE COURT: That's what I mean by the first bite.
532
1 MR. LONDON: Right. The first bite. The rest is --
2 THE COURT: So what you're saying, it doesn't make any
3 difference how the target of the alleged stalker finds out about
4 it. The fact he does find out about it is sufficient under the
5 statute.
6 MR. LONDON: Yes, Your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Okay.
8 MR. LONDON: So that goes not only for Mr. McNall, who
9 learned in two different ways, one when Chris Groener called him
10 up and said Mr. Bell had been at in his back yard, but also when
11 Agent Gordon notified him that his name, McNall's name, was
12 showing up in emails posted to the Internet by the defendant.
13 With regard to Mr. Mueller, the gentleman in Bend who Mr.
14 Bell outed as a CIA agent, true enough, he never knew about Mr.
15 Bell's activities until he was notified by law enforcement, but
16 once again, Mr. Bell has to take his victims as he finds them,
17 and it's a legitimate thing for law enforcement to notify
18 somebody before it's too late that he is the subject of an
19 excessive campaign by an individual to intimidate or harass him
20 by outing him as a CIA agent and posting that on the Internet
21 for all the world to see.
22 It's a curious argument that is made because if Mr. Bell --
23 if law enforcement waited, if we were aware of what this
24 gentleman was doing and we did not notify potential victims of
25 what he was doing and then someone got hurt, can there be any
533
1 doubt that the victims' families would be suing us for
2 malfeasance of duty?
3 THE COURT: Let me ask a question. So the government's
4 position on all five counts -- let me ask you this. Has the
5 writing -- what's the name of it, that's been circulated over
6 the Internet?
7 MR. LONDON: His essay originally?
8 THE COURT: Uh-huh.
9 MR. LONDON: It's Assassination Politics. It's out
10 there on the Internet.
11 THE COURT: In the government's opinion, is that
12 sufficient to put people on the alert?
13 MR. LONDON: Absolute ---it's sufficient to put people
14 on the alert. I wouldn't say that if that's all that he had
15 done that it would be sufficient for us to charge him with
16 anything, unless he coupled it with a reference to a particular
17 individual.
18 THE COURT: So there was some sort of overt act, no
19 matter how subtle, to connect somebody with it?
20 MR. LONDON: That -- the continuing availability of
21 Assassination Politics on the Internet and his continuing
22 reference in emails to people to go look it up on the Internet
23 is certainly an overt act in furtherance of this kind of
24 stalking, I think, but we don't rely on that for our proof in
25 this case. We rely on much more immediate overt acts of his
534
1 showing up at people's homes and his running reams of database
2 searches and printouts for them.
3 THE COURT: Well, that's a direct overt act that you're
4 talking about.
5 MR. LONDON: Yes.
6 THE COURT: Can't there be subtle acts?
7 MR. LONDON: Yes.
8 THE COURT: That this jury can consider. They can
9 consider both direct -- for the purpose of the defendant's
10 arguments to dismiss, there's insufficient evidence on which a
11 reasonable juror could disagree, is that correct?
12 MR. LEEN: I say -- that's what we have said, Your
13 Honor, yes.
14 THE COURT: The defendant's motions to dismiss on
15 counts one, two, three, four, five will be dismissed.
16 Now where are we?
17 MR. LEEN: We're at the beginning of the defendant's
18 case, Your Honor.
19 THE COURT: All right. Does the defendant wish to
20 testify?
21 MR. LEEN: Yes.
22 THE COURT: Okay. How does he wish to testify? It's
23 my understanding that you might want to use demonstrative
24 evidence.
25 MR. LEEN: He's indicated he would like to --
535
1 THE COURT: Which means he will be off that witness
2 stand.
3 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
4 THE COURT: With a United States marshal right next to
5 him.
6 MR. LEEN: That's understood.
7 THE COURT: So how are we going to work it?
8 MR. LEEN: If he uses the blackboard somewhat near
9 where it actually is right now, the marshal could be seated in
10 the chair back there and be seated there.
11 THE COURT: Without -- without asking what he's going
12 to put on there --
13 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
14 THE COURT: What we're going to do, we're going to use
15 butcher paper on one of those easels.
16 MR. LEEN: All right.
17 THE COURT: And whatever he tends to put on, he's going
18 to put it on out of the presence of the jury. We will provide a
19 pointer.
20 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
21 THE COURT: Because I want him on the witness stand.
22 MR. LEEN: Is it possible that he could have a pad
23 to --
24 THE COURT: I just do not trust him because of his past
25 practices as to the security of everyone in this courtroom. I'm
536
1 not saying he can't do it. But I want the marshals there at
2 every instance, close by.
3 MR. LEEN: It's understood, Your Honor.
4 THE COURT: So if he has something he wants to put on
5 there, have him draw it up, without the presence of the jury,
6 have him put it on there, and then he can refer to it.
7 MR. LEEN: Okay. Just a suggestion, is it possible
8 that he could be brought back about 15 minutes before we start
9 so that he could, with the marshal there, have him put it on
10 there?
11 THE COURT: Just have him here at one o'clock.
12 MR. LEEN: The defendant would also --
13 THE COURT: Can he take the butcher pad to the lockup
14 room?
15 DEPUTY MARSHAL: Yes, Your Honor.
16 MR. LEEN: Would he be allowed to have access to both a
17 marker and a pen so that he could write some notes and also --
18 THE COURT: This is up to the marshals. They are in
19 charge of his security.
20 MR. LEEN: I think it requires authorization from the
21 court. Otherwise they will not allow him to have a writing
22 instrument.
23 THE COURT: What will the marshals permit?
24 DEPUTY MARSHAL: We can provide what he needs, both pen
25 and marker, Your Honor.
537
1 THE COURT: All right.
2 MR. LEEN: That would be fine.
3 Your Honor, the defendant indicates that he needs his notes
4 from SeaTac before he can testify.
5 THE COURT: What?
6 MR. LEEN: The defendant indicates that he has his
7 notes, which are in a counselor's office pursuant to a prior
8 court order, all notes that he took when he was doing discovery
9 would remain in the counselor's office. He doesn't have them
10 and he needs them.
11 THE COURT: And you're just now bringing that up?
12 MR. LEEN: I just now have been advised that that's
13 what the defendant wants.
14 THE COURT: When we reconvene at one o'clock, the court
15 is going to ask the defendant, is he prepared to proceed. And
16 the answer is going to be yes or no.
17 MR. LEEN: I understand.
18 THE COURT: Anything else?
19 MR. LEEN: Not from the defense, Your Honor.
20 MR. LONDON: No, Your Honor.
21 THE COURT: All right. They've got marking pens. Give
22 the paper to the marshals so they can inspect it, do whatever
23 they have to do.
24 All right, court's in recess. One o'clock.
25 (Recessed at 11:40)
538
1 AFTERNOON SESSION
2 (Jury not present; 1:09 p.m.)
3 THE COURT: Be seated, please.
4 Where are we? Jury?
5 MR. LONDON: Your Honor, before the defendant takes the
6 stand, I would like to advise the court that over the lunch hour
7 the court clerk and the case agent did a review of the exhibits
8 that were offered, and apparently I neglected to actually offer
9 four exhibits for which foundation is laid. I understand from
10 Mr. Leen that he's not objecting to my offering those at this
11 time.
12 MR. LEEN: That's correct, Your Honor.
13 MR. LONDON: We would offer Exhibits 130, 132, 134, and
14 135.
15 MR. LEEN: I have no objection. If the court wants to
16 do it outside the jury's presence, that's fine with me.
17 THE COURT: No. Do it in front of the jury.
18 MR. LONDON: All right, Your Honor.
19 THE COURT: Mr. Leen.
20 MR. LEEN: Yes, Your Honor.
21 THE COURT: Does the defendant intend to take the
22 stand?
23 MR. LEEN: He does, Your Honor.
24 THE COURT: You're going to question.
25 MR. LEEN: I am.
539
1 THE COURT: He's to stand to the right, right in front
2 of the marshal.
3 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
4 THE COURT: With the pointer.
5 MR. LEEN: Okay.
6 THE COURT: Why don't you turn it around a little so --
7 juror number six and one are going to have a problem.
8 Turn it more.
9 MR. LEEVER: I'm going to, Your Honor. I just turned
10 it so that you could see it.
11 THE COURT: Yeah. Okay. That's fine.
12 DEPUTY MARSHAL MOGAN: Is that okay?
13 THE COURT: Are you all right?
14 DEPUTY MARSHAL MOGAN: Yes, Your Honor.
15 THE COURT: All right.
16 Okay?
17 MR. LEEN: Yes, Your Honor.
18 THE COURT: Are you ready for the jury now?
19 MR. LEEN: Would you like the defendant to take the
20 stand first?
21 THE COURT: No.
22 Bring the jury.
23 MR. LEEN: Debby, what numbers do I use? Do I use --
24 THE CLERK: You start with A-1.
25 MR. LEEN: A-1.
540
1 THE CLERK: Right.
2 (Jury present; 1:10 p.m.)
3 THE COURT: The record should reflect all members of
4 the jury are present.
5 Government.
6 MR. LONDON: Yes, Your Honor. Before we proceed to the
7 next matter, I would like to move to reopen for the limited
8 purpose of offering four exhibits I neglected to offer into
9 evidence.
10 THE COURT: All right. What are they?
11 MR. LONDON: They would be 130, 132, 134, and 135.
12 MR. LEEN: I have no objection.
13 THE COURT: They are admitted.
14 (Exhibits Nos. 130, 132, 134, and 135 were admitted.)
15 THE COURT: Government rests?
16 MR. LONDON: Yes, the government rests.
17 THE COURT: Defendant, first witness.
18 MR. LEEN: Thank you, Your Honor.
19 We would call the defendant, James Bell.
20 THE COURT: Okay.
21 THE CLERK: Raise your right hand.
22 JAMES DALTON BELL, DEFENDANT, SWORN
23 THE CLERK: Please state your full name and spell your
24 last name.
25 THE WITNESS: My name is James Dalton Bell, spelled
541
1 B-e-l-l.
2 DIRECT EXAMINATION
3 BY MR. LEEN:
4 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Bell.
5 Would you please tell the jury how old you are?
6 A. Well, as of today, I'm exactly 43 years old.
7 Q. Mr. Bell, I would like to ask you to tell the jury a little
8 bit about your background. Where were you born?
9 A. I was born in Ohio, 1958. The city was Akron. Well,
10 actually, it was a suburb called Cuyahoga Falls. And my father
11 worked at, I believe it was, Goodyear, I think, or a rubber -- a
12 tire company. Needless to say, I don't remember very much about
13 that time. But I guess it was a nice place to live. I drove
14 back by there on the way back from one year in college and drove
15 by the place my parents lived before I was born.
16 Q. Mr. Bell, where did you go to high school?
17 A. Shawnee Mission North High School in Kansas. It's in the
18 northeastern portion of Kansas. Shawnee Mission is sort of like
19 a general term for a large number of little towns that have
20 eventually run together. So it's -- I guess it's sort of like
21 the Seattle area where all these little, these -- you know
22 Redmond and Bel- -- I'm not local, by the way. I'm from
23 Vancouver, so I don't know the local area. But the whole place
24 basically ran together years ago, and Shawnee Mission is the
25 general term for a rather large area in the southwest of Kansas.
542
1 Q. Where did you go to college, sir?
2 A. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It's a fairly
3 well-known technical college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which
4 is right across the Charles River from Boston. MIT has been
5 around for well over a hundred years, and it teaches science and
6 technology. Its motto is mens et manus; mens meaning science,
7 and manus meaning engineering. I went there in 1976 to get a
8 degree, and the degree I eventually received from there is
9 chemistry, but I've also taken, from MIT, in addition to all the
10 regular chemistry courses that were required, plus many more
11 that weren't required, I have taken courses in electronics,
12 material science, silicon for semiconductors, and so forth.
13 Physics, many courses in physics. Computer software, computer
14 hardware. Optics. Acoustics. Various other technical areas.
15 I pretty much took a lot of courses. Some people focus on a
16 particular area. I took courses in virtually every area that I
17 could spare the time for.
18 MIT was a great place. The reason it was such a great
19 place, frankly, is because when I got there, virtually everybody
20 there, in a sense, was like me. I could have an intelligent
21 conversation with virtually anybody there on virtually any
22 technical subject that I could think of. Everybody there had a
23 substantial amount to add because of the amount of reading they
24 did.
25 Q. After you graduated from MIT, where did you go?
543
1 A. Well, toward the end of my college career, of course, I --
2 there was a week where they had career day, and, of course, all
3 the company -- you know, companies had sent representatives and
4 agencies, and so forth, to interview various budding graduates,
5 and I, of course, went to the career day, and I wanted to find
6 out where I could find a job. So I went to the career day and
7 I, I interviewed with a number of people, a number of
8 companies.
9 I interviewed with General Electric, in fact, and talked to
10 them and explained my electronics background. My very extensive
11 electronics background. Building computer hardware, electronic
12 circuitry, things called op-amps and SCRs, triacs, transistors,
13 FETS, that kind of thing. And they were interested in me for
14 the electronics background, but they were also interested in me
15 primarily because I had the chemistry degree, and the
16 combination of being -- having an extreme amount of knowledge in
17 electronics and an extreme amount of knowledge in chemistry is
18 rather rare. People don't usually have multiple areas where
19 they have large degree experience.
20 In any case --
21 Q. Did you take a job with someone?
22 A. Yes, I did. One of the other organizations I interviewed
23 with was a company called Intel -- I'm sure you've heard of it.
24 They are a big company now, but at the time they were rather
25 small and they were primarily, of course, in Silicon Valley,
544
1 California, Santa Clara. They had a facility in Phoenix, I
2 think, but one of their facilities, or sets of facilities, was
3 in Beaverton, Oregon.
4 Well, I interviewed with them, and one of the interviewers,
5 after having heard what my background is in both chemistry and
6 electronics, because Intel does both chemistry and electronics
7 because they build chips, they were very interested to find out
8 that I knew all this material about chemistry and electronics.
9 So the guy asked me, "Well, if you were to work for Intel, where
10 would you want to work? We have three facilities," he said,
11 "Phoenix, California, and Beaverton, Oregon." And I said,
12 "Well, frankly, I would rather not go to California." And the
13 guy looked at me, and he laughed a bit, and he said, "Yeah, I
14 know what you mean." He says, "Well, how about Oregon?" I
15 said, "Yeah." I know a friend, I have an MIT friend who has
16 inadvertently lured me to Oregon by all the wonderful stories
17 I've heard about it. And I said, "Yeah, I would love to see
18 Oregon."
19 Well, he scheduled a trip where I visited -- I visited
20 Oregon, and I -- a few weeks later, so that -- before I had
21 made -- or actually, after I had made the trip, I believe, an
22 odd thing happened. Mount St. Helen's blew. And I sheepishly
23 called the guy back, he was back in Oregon at the time, and I
24 said, "Do I still have a job?" And he said, "Yeah, our place
25 missed most of the ash."
545
1 So, yeah, I worked for Intel. I went --
2 Q. How long did you work for Intel, sir?
3 A. I worked for Intel approximately 18 months. I was a, what's
4 called a product engineer for a particular silicon chip. I
5 believe -- I can't recall the ac- -- the code name -- excuse
6 me. It eventually turned out to be something called the 2186
7 integraded RAM. It's a combination of static RAM and dynamic
8 RAM. I realize that's a technical subject, but it was an
9 innovated thing at the time, and I was to be the person to
10 design the program to test these chips coming off the line and
11 the manufacturing process.
12 Q. Did you eventually leave Intel and take up a different
13 employment?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Would you tell jury where you worked next?
16 A. Yes. Excuse me, I'm sorry. I blow the whistle. (Witness
17 has a drink of water.)
18 Yes. At the very beginning of 1982 I had an opportunity,
19 because I had been building circuitry, hobby circuitry for my
20 own, to build a device which acted, in effect, as an electronic
21 disk. As you probably know, a physical disk on a computer is a
22 metal platter that's covered with magnetic particles and it
23 spins and data is read and written with a head that moves back
24 and forth. That's slow. And I built for my own purposes, for
25 my own hobby, a board that used a whole bunch of memory, and it
546
1 was activated by software to look like a very fast hard disk,
2 maybe a hundred times faster than an ordinary hard disk and a
3 thousand times faster than a floppy disk. And if you recall the
4 time frame, hard disks back then, hardly anybody had them.
5 Floppy disks were very slow and didn't hold much data.
6 I built this board, and on my own I developed a product, or
7 the idea for a product, and I intended to go into business for
8 myself, and early 1982 the time was right, and Intel had -- was
9 going to drop the particular product that I was going to design
10 -- or not design, but to be a product engineer for, so that was
11 an appropriate time for me to quit. I didn't want to cause any
12 trouble when I -- when I left, and the opportunity arose, that
13 chip was no longer going to be manufactured.
14 Q. So did you start your own business?
15 A. Yes, I did. The company name was Semidisk Systems. The
16 term semidisk comes from -- semi is short, in this day, for
17 semiconductor, and disk, of course, which is a hard or floppy
18 disk. Semidisk Systems built these products for various
19 different kinds of computers for a number of years. It was a
20 very small company. It was about, at most, like five employees
21 at any one time, and I was the head guy and, you know, I was
22 sort of the boss. I didn't really want to be boss, but by
23 default I became boss.
24 And we built these products. We sold thousands -- well, two
25 or three or four thousand total. At the time it was about a
547
1 three thousand -- or two thousand to three thousand dollar
2 product, and it eventually, of course, as prices dropped, it
3 went down to five hundred and so forth. We sold thousands. We
4 sold them to government agencies and sold them to large
5 corporations. We sold them to Japan, England, France. Many to
6 Australia. Literally all around the world. These were computer
7 boards. You know what a computer board looks like. It plugs
8 right into a bus on a computer. Very simple to install, and the
9 software made it easy to install.
10 Q. Did the company eventually go out of business?
11 A. Yes. In 1992, semiconductor memory prices plateaued.
12 Normally they go down in a rather predictable fashion.
13 Semiconductor prices stopped going down for a number of years,
14 for reasons I suspected but didn't really understand. And the
15 company, because it was -- the hard disks were becoming very
16 common and available, just simply couldn't turn a profit on
17 making these products. And the hard disks were getting much,
18 much faster also. So it made it harder to sell this product in
19 place of hard disks or a floppy -- or not in place of, but
20 augment a hard disk or floppy.
21 Q. What did you do after the business folded?
22 A. Well, the simple term for it, frankly, is unemployed. I
23 made a little bit of money in the company, and for a few years
24 I -- I just did a little bit of electronic consulting work. If
25 people had a computer or hardware problem. This was very
548
1 informal. I wasn't like a -- I didn't like have a telephone
2 directory listing or anything like that. I built products,
3 elec- -- or not -- electronic devices. I designed circuits or
4 -- that I prototyped. I didn't really have a really good
5 follow on idea for a product, frankly.
6 Q. Did you incur any tax liability as a result of your business
7 going out of -- folding, going out of business?
8 A. The company itself, no. It was a corporation, and I
9 think -- I really -- I really honestly don't recall. It's been
10 about, you know, ten years or so. I think -- it basically just
11 folded, you know, it went out of business.
12 Q. We heard from Agent Gordon that you owed a considerable sum
13 of money in back taxes. Do you know how you incurred that
14 liability?
15 A. I have a theory. I had developed, frankly, in the '80s,
16 sort of a phobia for handling -- how shall I say? -- large
17 accounting money. I don't know how to describe it. I couldn't
18 deal with it. I -- frankly, it was a rather, a rather painful
19 closing of my company, and -- and the loss of something to do
20 bothered me quite a bit, and I found it very difficult to deal
21 with large scale financial matters. I still have a lot of
22 trouble doing that kind of thing. I really -- I really can't
23 touch it.
24 Q. So are you saying that that was -- the failure to pay
25 quarterly taxes or keep personal records was what caused you to
549
1 have tax liability?
2 A. I think so. I believe that was it.
3 Q. Did you become aware of the fact that the federal
4 government, the IRS, was demanding back taxes from you?
5 A. Over the years, the middle '90s, frankly, I had a pile of
6 things that -- most of which I hadn't even opened. I was -- I
7 was sort of, how shall I say, passively terrified. I couldn't
8 deal with it. I couldn't handle it. I might have been under --
9 maybe I wasn't able to afford it at some point. I just
10 couldn't -- I couldn't approach it. I realize that, that
11 doesn't make sense.
12 If -- I don't know if you know anything about phobias, but a
13 phobia is a fear, and I had, frankly, an irrational fear of that
14 kind of thing and I just couldn't deal with it. I don't have an
15 irrational fear of anything else -- snakes, spiders, heights,
16 you name it; being outside, being closed up, that kind of
17 thing. But that's the one phobia I had at that time, and I
18 think that was probably linked, probably, to the folding of that
19 company that I had.
20 Q. Did the government tell you that they were -- that they had
21 assessed you a certain sum of money and they were asking for
22 payment?
23 A. Like I said, I had a pile of stuff that wasn't opened. I
24 knew --
25 Q. So are you saying you don't know?
550
1 A. Really, I don't -- I don't know the details. I knew in
2 general terms that whole thing had to be handled, but I just
3 didn't know how much of a problem it had actually become, and I
4 just couldn't deal with it.
5 Q. At some point, did the IRS take action against you?
6 A. Well, in February of 1997, they seized my car. And I
7 believe that was in retaliation for my participation in an
8 organization. It was my -- it wasn't even a participation. It
9 was my attendance at an organization called Multnomah County
10 Common Law Court.
11 Q. Before we go to that, let me ask you, was this -- in 1997,
12 in February, when the IRS seized your vehicle, was that the
13 first formal action that you were aware that they took against
14 you? To seize assets to pay back taxes.
15 A. It's possible in the past they may have taken money from,
16 from a bank account or something, or bank accounts. Like I
17 said, a lot of my papers were simply unopened. I was so
18 terrified of even thinking of that. And, of course, as it got
19 more, it got worse. And I just couldn't deal.
20 Q. So let's go back to the -- now let's go to the Multnomah
21 County Common Law Court. When did you first become involved in
22 their group?
23 A. Well, it was -- I think it was late 1996. I had heard about
24 it frequently mentioned on local, what are called bulletin board
25 echoes, discussion groups. It was over in Portland, and I was
551
1 in Vancouver, Washington, so it was across the Columbia River.
2 Q. I didn't ask you, how did you ever get to Vancouver, and
3 your parents living there, also? The last time we knew about
4 your parents, they were living in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.
5 A. Oh, you want to know about my parents?
6 Q. When did they move to Vancouver?
7 A. My parents moved to Vancouver in the summer of 19, I believe
8 it was, 89.
9 Q. Was that because you were there, or was it independent of
10 that?
11 A. Well, they had bought a house that I was living in.
12 Q. All right.
13 A. And I was -- I need to explain the situation.
14 When I moved out to Oregon in 1980, my sister had graduated
15 from Brown University three years earlier. She had then gone to
16 dental school to become a dentist in Kansas City.
17 Shortly, oh, 1982 or 1983 or something -- '83 -- she began
18 her residency, if you know what that is for doctors and
19 dentists, at the -- I'm trying to recall the name -- Portland
20 Hos- -- or Hospital, and she came out to be a resident there,
21 and she moved into the same apartment complex that I lived in, a
22 place called Kalevale Village on 185th Street in a place called
23 Aloha, Oregon, which is actually just to the west of Beaverton
24 which is just to the west of Portland, Oregon.
25 So she moved out there, and after a few years, she married a
552
1 man, and, of course, shortly after that children happened, and
2 when -- as you know, when grand -- when children have children,
3 the grandparents generally want to see them. So around 1989, my
4 parents moved out into the house with me in Vancouver,
5 Washington.
6 Q. What are your parents' names?
7 A. Sam and Lou Bell. Samuel and Lou Bell.
8 Q. And your sister?
9 A. Lou Ann Bell, or Louise Ann Bell. Or excuse me -- I'm
10 sorry. Her last name now is Wadlin. Her married name is
11 Wadlin.
12 Q. So there were the four of you, two children, and mom and
13 dad?
14 A. No, no.
15 Q. In the family growing up, or were there more brothers and
16 sisters?
17 A. Two, yeah. Myself and my sister, Louise Ann Bell.
18 Q. Now, at some point -- we're up to a point in time, I think,
19 where you told us about your phobias and --
20 A. Uh-huh.
21 Q. -- you told us about the folding of your business and your
22 free-lancing. Why have you -- what are your politics at the
23 point in time where you're getting involved with the Multnomah
24 County Common Law Court? What are your political views?
25 A. Well, ever since about, oh, earlier than 19 -- about 1975,
553
1 I've been a libertarian. I don't know if anybody has ever heard
2 of libertarian politics.
3 Q. What is a libertarian to you, sir?
4 A. A libertarian is a person that believes in individual
5 freedom and liberty, a minimum of laws and controls and
6 restrictions. The primary intent of libertarianism is what is
7 called the noninitiation of force or -- and fraud. That is to
8 say, it's jokingly referred to, the rights of my fist end at
9 your nose. That is to say, I can't initiate force or violence
10 against you and you can't do it against me, and there's a fraud
11 component. I can't initiate fraud against you and you can't
12 initiate fraud against me. Other than that, there isn't the
13 need, frankly, for stacks and stacks of law books; the details,
14 the restrictions, the controls, and that kind of thing. That's
15 the principle of libertarian politics.
16 Q. Are you actually a member of the Libertarian party?
17 A. A dues paying member? I believe, as of right now I might
18 be. I paid my dues for last year. I don't know when the
19 expiration date on the dues is, but I have been a member for --
20 well, I haven't been a dues paying member, but I've been a
21 libertarian fully since about '75.
22 Q. When you vote for presidential candidates, do you vote on
23 the libertarian ticket?
24 A. Every year since or including 1980, yes.
25 Q. Now, what about the Multnomah County Common Law Court was
554
1 consistent with your views on libertarianism?
2 A. Well, at the time -- well, again, I was reading about it on
3 the local computer networks. I really didn't at the time have
4 enough time to visit frequently, and, in fact, there was
5 previous testimony that said I was there for maybe three visits,
6 and that's probably about right, I was there for three visits.
7 And the same guy said that he had been there for 24 visits, and
8 I think there were -- I mean, I don't know how many total
9 meetings there were, but it was -- would have been probably
10 about that. I don't know. But I was there for probably three
11 times. Mostly visiting.
12 And let me -- and let me also explain that a number of the
13 very same people that I had gotten to know over the previous ten
14 or fifteen years in libertarian politics also visited this
15 meeting.
16 And, by the way, it was in a pizza joint, and if you know
17 anything about me and pizza, well, I would visit anything in a
18 pizza joint, you know. And so I -- I -- again, I went over
19 there just to see what it was like.
20 Q. Now, did you meet a man named Steve Wilson at the Multnomah
21 County Common Law Court?
22 A. Yes, I did.
23 Q. Did you -- did a relationship or a communication develop
24 between the two of you?
25 A. Unfortunately, it did. One of the reasons why I went over
555
1 to the organization, or to the meeting once, is because I had
2 been reading over, at least the previous year or two, indication
3 of complaints, not merely in the mainstream press, but in the
4 alternative press over the Internet, the fact that governments
5 would try to infiltrate these organizations to make them do
6 things that people wouldn't want to do; incite violence or
7 incite law breaking. So I was sort of concerned when that
8 organization was formed, not because of the organization itself,
9 but I was afraid that the government was going to try to co-op
10 them or control them or turn them into a publicity issue later
11 and use that to scare the public.
12 Q. Why was that of a concern to you?
13 A. Well, in general terms, because I think that it's improper
14 for a government to infiltrate a political party or an
15 organization designed to debate and discuss political and social
16 issues. It's simply improper. And while I did go over there --
17 excuse me. (Witness has a drink of water.)
18 While I did go over there just to see how things were going
19 in general terms, I wanted to go over to also see if there was
20 any indication of any of that kind of infiltration going on.
21 Q. Prior to this you had written an essay that has been
22 referred to as Association -- Assassination Politics, is that
23 correct?
24 A. Yes. I --
25 Q. When did you write that article?
556
1 A. Well, I started debating the concept -- not really debating
2 -- thinking about the concept in very, very early '95, or even
3 perhaps as late -- or late '94. Just thinking about a concept
4 that, frankly, is a little too complicated to describe here.
5 You will get a copy, I think, in at least one exhibit. And I
6 thought about it and started debating it, individual bits and
7 pieces, in the very early 1995 on various areas on a network
8 called Fidonet. Fidonet isn't really like Internet, it's not
9 nearly as big. It tends to be sort of local, and I would have
10 debates with people, ideas -- debating ideas.
11 I started writing the essay itself, I think, in about April
12 or May of 1995. I wrote part of one. I didn't really intend to
13 write it as a full thing, I just wrote a long article, a fairly
14 long article. Not long -- well, medium-sized article. It
15 looked good. I published it, and I debated it. And people
16 wanted to debate it, they wanted to discuss it.
17 Q. Why, in relationship to this Cypherpunks, why would they be
18 interested in this essay?
19 A. Well, the Cypherpunks itself came -- or the connection to
20 the Cypherpunks actually came a few months later. When I first
21 started writing that essay, I was actually posting it to the
22 FIDOnet, which is a different thing. It's a much smaller
23 network. Back then, of course, most people -- well, they just
24 barely heard of the Internet. Fidonet was a much older -- well,
25 it was something that existed since about 1984 and was what
557
1 people had to do when the Internet was not available. It used
2 to be, if you recall, eight or nine years ago, you couldn't get
3 an Internet account. I'll give you an example.
4 I first used the Internet in 1978 or '79, but once I left
5 MIT, I couldn't use Internet at all because there was no way to
6 connect to it. There weren't modems or contacts.
7 In the absence of something called the Internet, people had
8 developed from the cult Fidonet. Fidonet was a whole bundle --
9 a whole bunch of what are called computer bulletin board
10 systems. Think of it as a person. My computer is sitting on a
11 shelf, let's say -- well, I didn't do this, but let's say it
12 were me. My computer is sitting on a shelf with a telephone
13 line. This computer would be a bulletin board system. People
14 could call it up over a single modem line, upload messages,
15 download messages; upload messages, download, all day. Only one
16 person could talk at one time, only one person could call in.
17 Well, that made it harder to use.
18 These Fidonet systems were a breakthrough. They were
19 designed so these computers would call each other about two or
20 three o'clock in the morning and exchange data. This would
21 happen all night. So that I could upload a message to a
22 particular area on the system on a particular subject on a
23 particular area, like geology. I would ask the question, what
24 is a, you know, an augen gneiss, which is a particular kind of
25 rock, let's say. And at night, two o'clock in the morning, all
558
1 these Fidonet systems talk to each other, and eventually all
2 that message gets out to every area literally in the North
3 America, and eventually the world, and the answers come back.
4 It wasn't like the Internet. It wasn't like, really, real
5 time like now; it was sort of like overnight. It was like
6 FedEx, which by today's standard is slow.
7 So Fidonet is the area I first started posting the essay
8 to. And that was where the debates occurred, and people wanted
9 to debate the concept and --
10 Q. What was so interesting about a concept of an essay called
11 Assassination Politics? What was the interesting aspect of it,
12 as far as you were concerned?
13 A. Okay. As I said in probably the very first paragraph or
14 two, the title "Assassination Politics" sort of -- it's at least
15 half of a joke. That is to say, as somebody pointed out many
16 months later, it's really sort of the end of politics as we know
17 it. The elimination of what I call hierarchical power
18 structures.
19 We have hierachical power structures today. We have, let's
20 say, a president or a king or a dictator on top. We have his
21 work -- you know, lieutenants, you might say. Below him, more
22 workers. It's like a pyramid. At the top is one guy. The
23 pyramid, as it goes down, it gets bigger. And most of us are at
24 the bottom of this pyramid. It's the top of the pyramid, and we
25 are all -- most of us are at the bottom.
559
1 That's how people have been controlled for at least 3,000
2 years. Society used to work in hunter/gatherer groups,
3 families. That wasn't pyramidal. Organizations -- as groups
4 built up, you had kings and Pharaohs, and so forth, and their
5 work -- their lieutenants, and so forth.
6 We are now in a situation of virtually everything is a
7 hierarchical power structure. Hierarchical power structure in
8 companies, in religious organizations like the Catholic Church.
9 Q. Let's focus on, what was so interesting about a political
10 theory that had as its central premise killing people in power?
11 A. That's -- that's a rather crude -- that's a rather crude way
12 of looking at it, if you read the essay. The key here is to be
13 able to replace the current political system with something that
14 protects people, where they need to be protected. The example I
15 use is to recognize the fact that in the 20th century, over 150
16 million people died in wars primarily caused by government,
17 initiated by government, where people didn't have an animus
18 toward each other.
19 In World War I, if you know anything about history, it was
20 caused by the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand.
21 The people of Germany didn't hate the people of England. France
22 didn't hate the people of Russia, or anything like that. One
23 guy got killed, and the power structure, they had to act, they
24 had to -- it's called saber -- it was called saber rattling at
25 the time. You know, you rattle your saber to remind the other
560
1 guy that he was potentially a target if they acted.
2 So over the last hundred years, 150 million people have died
3 in various wars that have been caused by governments. World War
4 II was caused by government. Americans didn't just -- didn't
5 hate Germans in 1930. Italians didn't hate -- well, I don't
6 know -- French in 1930. The Japanese didn't hate Americans.
7 Russians primarily didn't hate Americans. These are people --
8 ordinary people did not want, or did not ask for those wars.
9 They simply happened. And I believe they happened for political
10 reasons.
11 Korea, for example. People of North and South Korea, what
12 is now, they didn't initiate those wars. It was a power
13 structure -- a power struggle between America and Russia. We
14 get along just fine now with Russian people. I know three --
15 I've met three Russian people within the last four months, and
16 they are nice guys. I would love to have them as neighbors. I
17 like to talk to them. They can speak English; I can't speak
18 Russian.
19 People, ordinary people, you and me, can get along just fine
20 if we don't -- if we aren't part of a pyramidal power structure
21 that's fighting another. A country fighting another. When
22 those fights occur, ordinary people die.
23 Q. How does your political paper, Assassination Politics, solve
24 that problem or contribute to world peace?
25 A. The paper, of course, itself doesn't solve a thing. Ink on
561
1 paper is just that, but all ideas in history -- well, up till --
2 or after the invention of paper have been written down. People
3 had a chance to discuss, debate them, read about them, talk
4 about them, and so forth.
5 Once I wrote down my idea -- the idea in principle is rather
6 provocative, and it was intended as a food for thought, a what
7 if? What could we do? And the idea in general worked something
8 like this:
9 What if you didn't like somebody who was threatening you? I
10 don't mean the individual perhaps threatening you, but
11 threatening to invade your land or threatening to attack your
12 people. A good example of an easily hateable dictator right now
13 is Saddam Hussein. Everybody knows that he is and has been the
14 dictator of Iraq for many years, at least 20 years. Ten years
15 ago, we, our county, and many other countries, spent 80 billion
16 dollars in something called Desert Storm. Eighty billion,
17 that's billion with a "B." That's an eight with ten zeros
18 behind it. That's a lot of money. And many Americans and other
19 soldiers went to Iraq, and fortunately not many of them died.
20 But one of the things that didn't happen is that Saddam Hussein,
21 he wasn't taken out of power. He continues to threaten Kuwait,
22 Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Russia. Any country next to him.
23 The American public was under the impression in Desert Storm
24 that we were going to actually take out Saddam Hussein so he
25 wouldn't be a problem. His problem right now, he primarily
562
1 threatens his own people, and yet for ten years he starved his
2 people and he's attacked his people. He's murdered his people.
3 And that problem wasn't solved in 1990. Despite the heroism of
4 American soldiers, it didn't happen.
5 Q. Mr. Bell, that's not the situation in the United States.
6 Let's talk about taking out Senator Hillary Clinton.
7 A. Hold on.
8 Q. If someone doesn't like her.
9 A. I apologize, but remember, I wrote my essay not for America,
10 but for the world. I was not addressing specifically American
11 issues or American people. I was addressing people like the
12 people who were murdered in '76 in Uganda, or approximately; '79
13 to '80 in Cambodia; the Rwanda affair a few years ago in
14 Africa. Various clan wars in Southeast Asia. I was addressing
15 a lot of issues that have, frankly, no immediate direction,
16 connection to America. If you -- I could talk about America, if
17 you want.
18 Q. Let's focus our talk. I understand your -- what you just
19 said, but let's focus on someone who might read your essay and
20 think that you were advocating the death of public officials, or
21 someone as simple as their boss at work, because they didn't
22 like that their pay was cut ten percent.
23 A. Okay. Give me a more specific in your question.
24 Q. Okay. I just read on -- I just saw on the news today that,
25 I think, Agilent Company, a publicly traded corporation, they
563
1 cut everybody's salary ten percent. So let's say I come home
2 from work and, you know, I'm an Agilent manager, and I say, my
3 God, I just lost -- I'm pissed. I think I will use this essay
4 that Mr. Bell has created and put up a thousand dollars and see
5 if someone will take out the chairman of Agilent, you know.
6 Isn't that really a potential consequence of your essay if it
7 was actually put into play?
8 A. It's hard -- first off, let me say, it's complicated. The
9 way society is set up today, and the way society would be set up
10 under this kind of a system eventually, should it come into
11 place, are dramatically different. So it's very hard to just
12 simplistically say, what happens if you add the following? If
13 you -- have you ever seen a movie -- there was a movie years ago
14 about what would happen if America got one F15 jet fighter in
15 World War II and it would mow down all the German fighters.
16 What's interesting to think about, that shows you the
17 inconsistency. An F15 fighter doesn't fight against, you know,
18 T38 trainers or Messrs. Schmidts or something. It would
19 outclass them.
20 It's -- it's a -- the point I'm trying to make is, you can't
21 just insert a whole new system in a little portion of our
22 current system. It would appear to have contradiction.
23 I don't believe there is a contradiction there. I can
24 discuss concepts in general, but I wasn't specifically
25 addressing, adding this concept to a tiny fraction of today's
564
1 society. Particularly, simply that today's society in America.
2 America is -- America might, arguably, be the last place that
3 it's needed compared to a lot of other places. I wasn't really
4 focusing on America. I'm an American, so I know the American
5 system.
6 Q. Well, Mr. Bell, no one is saying you can't write whatever
7 you want. I'm just asking you, isn't it possible under your --
8 this track that you put out, that if I didn't like my boss, I
9 could get maybe a thousand dollars, or maybe get a couple other
10 employees to put up like a nice sizeable bounty of $20,000, and
11 someone who wanted $20,000 and really didn't care too much about
12 taking someone else's life would use this type of plan, if it
13 were actually implemented, to kill someone? And you could do it
14 so that no one would know that I put up the thousand dollars and
15 no one would know who he was, and therefore get away with
16 murder?
17 A. Only quite hypothetically. As I -- my essay, I mean, it
18 also explained, is literally only the first literally few months
19 of discussion of this concept. I discussed it in advance -- or
20 I continued to discuss the concept for a number of years
21 afterwards, going into a lot of detail about issues of exactly
22 the kind my attorney is addressing. Because people noticed and
23 asked questions about the impli- -- the concept, the idea of an
24 implementation. And, of course, I understood that people
25 under -- had concerns of detail -- about details.
565
1 And I had these discussions, and I made -- I made clear that
2 I believed that society would change to a system that was
3 more -- instead of that hierarchial power structure I mentioned,
4 a flat power structure, where more or less we're all -- we're
5 basically equal people, and there isn't a king or a prince or a
6 dictator at the top. It's a, you might say, a flat society
7 where individuals, there aren't -- there aren't such a thing as
8 a prominent politician.
9 Q. So are you advocating anarchy, the absence of government?
10 A. That's -- the problem with -- I understand the question, and
11 I understand what the word "anarchy" means. The problem here
12 is, and let me explain. People confuse anarchy with chaos.
13 There's an old libertarian expression that describes what true
14 anarchy would be, if opposed to chaos. Anarchy is the lack of
15 orders, not the lack of order.
16 Excuse me for a moment.
17 When people think of the word "anarchy," they think of wild
18 in the streets. You know, burning, looting, pillaging, that
19 kind of thing. That's half -- that happens, of course, when,
20 for example, there is no central government. For example, if
21 the government falls and everybody can suddenly do what they
22 want, that often, or sometimes happens. It doesn't always,
23 though, by the way. It does not always happen.
24 However, that's usually a very transient phenomenon. People
25 have lived for thousands of years in small hunter-gatherer
566
1 groups without a pyramidal structure, lack of orders, you know,
2 lack of a big system. If you live with your family and three or
3 five or six other families on a plane in Africa 4000 years ago,
4 you might say that is anarchy. That is to say, there is no
5 king. You don't have a king. You have 30 or 40 people you live
6 with. There's no king, no dictator, because there aren't enough
7 people to have a dictator. That's anarchy.
8 Now, the question -- what happened over centuries or
9 millenia, I guess, as people get into larger groups, societies
10 -- cities, for example -- the concentration of people has made
11 it necessary to have some kind of overall structure. Technology
12 has not been available to control that system without having
13 these kings and princes and their levels of politics down below
14 them.
15 So getting back to your original question about anarchy. I
16 don't advocate chaos, you know. Certainly not. I don't -- I
17 don't believe there should be a lack of order. I believe,
18 however, there should be a lack of orders. Orders from the king
19 to his lieutenants, the princes, to the ministers, and finally
20 down to his soldiers and knights, and finally the sword poked
21 into the ribs of a slave. There should be a lack of orders.
22 Q. Let me ask you this question: Your essay uses as its
23 central premise the concept of encryption. What is encryption?
24 A. Well, the more common term is codes and ciphers, and I know
25 a substantial about -- amount about the history of codes and
567
1 cypher -- well, ciphers. The oldest ciphers were literally
2 three -- two or three thousands years ago. One called, I think,
3 Caesar's cipher involved wrapping a tape of paper around a
4 cylinder and writing on it and then pulling it off and then
5 putting it in a bag, and only if you had another cylinder
6 exactly the same size and you could wrap it back on there could
7 you read the message, "Hello, there. This is Caesar. Attack it
8 in May," or something, that kind of thing.
9 As technology progressed, more sophisticated codes and
10 ciphers were developed. They were called the cull substitution
11 of ciphers. For example, everywhere in the message you see a T
12 why don't you put a Z. Everywhere in the message you want a C
13 -- a Q, put an M. That's called a substitution cipher.
14 There's also what are called transposition ciphers, where
15 you take your message and you, with some pattern, you move
16 letters to different places so you end with a jumble of text.
17 The result is, of course, that I know -- assuming you and I know
18 how we want to do the cipher ahead of time, we can talk about
19 it. When we eventually get far away, I can send you a message
20 that was developed using this code system, and yet you can, in
21 effect, undo what I did, and you could see, when you undo what I
22 did, the message that I originally intended to send.
23 Q. What's the purpose of this cipher?
24 A. Well, cipher -- actually, traditionally, the first uses of
25 ciphers, I believe, were commercial. People had to -- they
568
1 didn't have telephones, they didn't have telegraphs. They
2 didn't have regular mail or reliable mail delivery. If you
3 wanted to send something from London to Paris 200 years ago, it
4 might go by mail, but you don't -- literally, anybody could read
5 it, as they can today, to some extent. And a businessman in
6 London might want to say to a businessman in Paris, I want to
7 buy your something or another, here's what I want to offer for a
8 price. And so literally codes probably go back almost as long
9 as writing, a thousand or two thousand years. But they've
10 gotten -- they got somewhat more sophisticated in the late
11 1800s, and they became extremely sophisticated, particularly
12 publicly, in about 1975.
13 Q. What's the significance of encryption when it comes to the
14 use of computers?
15 A. The old encryption systems, codes and ciphers, like I
16 mentioned before, the substitution or transposition are easily
17 cracked. You can -- if you have enough message or volume, you
18 can look at things and figure out -- an intelligent person can
19 look through, figure out patterns, figure out whether or not
20 letters are being substituted or transposed. And with enough
21 volume, they can go back and they could figure out what the
22 message was, even if they don't know how you encrypted it.
23 Computers, starting about 1975, a new system of encryption
24 was developed called public key, and interestingly enough, it
25 was developed partly at MIT where I was in about 1976. And the
569
1 concept in general was a very sophisticated mathematical
2 algorithm.
3 Q. What's an algorithm?
4 A. Well, a formula, a procedure for dealing with a number. An
5 algorithm, I call -- let's say call plus three is to simply take
6 a number and add three to it. So if I take three and I add
7 three to it, it's six. If I take four and add three to it, it's
8 seven. An algorithm is simply a mathematical series of
9 instructions.
10 It's like instructing how to bake a cake. You know what the
11 ingredients are, eggs and mix and milk and whatever. A recipe
12 is sort of like a list of ingredients, an algorithm, an
13 instruction manual, and it tells you to mix it up in certain
14 order, it tells you to put it in the oven at a certain
15 temperature, and you take it out at a certain time, and the
16 result you get is a cake. It's a -- it's an algorithm for a
17 cake, you might say, plus a materials list. That's called a
18 recipe.
19 Q. Can you tell us about al- -- tell us about encryption,
20 though, on the computers. I interrupted you. I apologize.
21 A. Yes. Thank you.
22 A very substantial breakthrough was made in encryption in
23 about the 1976-'77 time frame. Unlike older systems that did --
24 that used very simple modifications, the public key systems that
25 were invented during that time frame were -- involved large --
570
1 huge numbers of thousands of digits, and it's hard to imagine
2 what a thousand digit number looks like. I mean, it's there,
3 but you don't use them for anything in real life. I mean, you
4 know about billions and trillions and maybe even quadrillions,
5 but you don't think of a ten -- or a thousand digit number. But
6 in fact in this encryption, text is turned into numbers and it's
7 operated on using thousand digits -- or thousand bit keys. A
8 bit is like a zero one, a computer digit, you might say.
9 A computer can take a piece of text, anything you want, not
10 just text, but any file, any file in your computer, modify it
11 using a complicated algorithm, and turn it into what's called a
12 cipher text, a cryptic version. Now, it's very complicated.
13 Nobody in this room, including me, really understands the math
14 that involved -- the mathematics involved. I have a degree in
15 chemistry and electronics and so forth. I don't do the higher
16 mathematics that, generally speaking, that was involved in the
17 '75, '76.
18 I will mention one thing. In -- well, about January 31st or
19 so of 1977, I was returning to MIT from -- after my first
20 semester break and I saw something posted on the mathematics
21 department bulletin board that at the time I didn't realize the
22 significance of, but I later realized, I later found out what it
23 was. If you've been at colleges, they have bulletin boards,
24 things that people walk by and they post things. Test results,
25 problem sets, and that kind of thing. What I saw about that
571
1 time, January 31st, '77 -- and the reason I remember that so
2 clearly is because of the significance later developed. What I
3 saw was a very complicated instruction for dealing with numbers
4 using what's called exponentiation, taking to the power,
5 multiplication, and what's called modulo addition, which is --
6 or division, which is very complex, and I won't attempt to
7 explain it here. I barely understand it myself, which is why I
8 don't want to -- I don't want to embarrass myself trying to
9 explain that.
10 This was a multi-page document, I would say probably 20
11 pages. It turns out what this document was, it was the first
12 public revelation, exposure to the public of a particular system
13 called RSA. RSA stands for Revest, Chimar, and Adelman.
14 There's a person named Ron Rivest, who was MIT; Adi Shamir, who
15 I believe is Israeli; and I think it was Leonard Adelman, and he
16 might have been in California at the time, I don't really know.
17 They developed a system of an actual implementation of what's
18 called public key encryption, which was very, very sophisticated
19 and solved an extraordinarily important problem that had been
20 plaguing the cryptography ever since its invention thousands of
21 years before. And let me explain what that serious problem is.
22 If I want to send secret messages to you, for whatever
23 reason -- maybe because I'm a businessman, I want to sell
24 something to you and you're far away -- we can agree on a method
25 -- we can agree on a method of encryption, but we have to get
572
1 together. I have to get up to you and I have to say, well,
2 here's the way I'm going to scramble my text and here's the way
3 you're going to scramble your text, so we know when we get back
4 here, when we get away from each other, maybe ten miles, a
5 hundred miles, a thousand miles, we have to know when we get a
6 message in, we have to know how to deal with it and turn it in
7 to unencrypted, plain text, they call it. The problem is, we
8 have to get together, and we might not be able to get together.
9 And particularly in the modern world.
10 Suppose I want to communicate which a guy in Sidney,
11 Australia. I have never gone to Sidney, Australia. That guy in
12 Sidney, Australia, has never been to America. Let's say I pick
13 up the phone, and I say to him, let's communicate in writing by
14 encryption, and I will say, well, my key is, you know, one five
15 seven two A Q B F, whatever. Well, what the problem with that
16 is, what if that line was bugged? Somebody was listening to
17 that line and they know, awe, that's his key, and they can
18 decrypt at that point literally everything that he and I send.
19 We would have to physically get together and we would have to
20 exchange keys to come back to actually have a system that was
21 secure.
22 There's a problem with that, though. My luggage could be
23 rifled, could be tampered with. Once that key is exposed, I
24 can't be assured that my communication is secured.
25 So, since I -- or encryption has had its problem ever since
573
1 -- or a thousand, two thousand years ago. Ultimately you have
2 to get together and agree on an encryption method, and if you
3 don't, the system simply doesn't work.
4 In 1975, there was a concept about what's called public key
5 encryption, and the way I like to explain it, an analogy is,
6 imagine a lock box, a metal box, let's say, with a key on it,
7 and you open it up with a key and you can put something in and
8 you can close it and send it to somebody else. Encryption is
9 sort of like a locked box.
10 Well, what if there were two keys on it? Not like ordinary
11 keys you and I know, keys to open your door, keys to open a
12 safe, keys to do -- to start a car. What if there were two
13 keys? One key did nothing else but lock the box closed, and the
14 other key did nothing else than open the box. Okay. Two keys,
15 they're different keys. They have no relationship with each
16 other, other than the fact one closes the box and locks it and
17 the other key opens the box and opens it.
18 Well, if I send that box to somebody and if he has an open
19 key but he doesn't have a close key, I can send him a valuable
20 paper or a diamond or a piece of gold or something or
21 information, close it up in a box, and use my close key to close
22 that box, seal it up nice and tight. I'm the only one who has
23 that close key, let's say. I send it to him, let's say. He
24 gets it. He has an open key, and he can open it up.
25 Q. So is this the principle of public key encryption?
574
1 A. Effectively, yes. It's based on the concept that you could
2 have what's called a private key, which only you know, and you
3 use it to encrypt things, and everybody else in the world knows
4 it. That's called your public key. Your public key is the
5 thing that opens up that box. And so you can send something --
6 well, somebody can send something to you, close it with the
7 close key. When you receive it, you open it up with the open
8 key. And you might be the only one that has the open key and
9 everybody else has the close key.
10 The system can be reversed, and it's something called
11 authentication of messages, to verify that the message was from
12 me as opposed to somebody else.
13 Q. I think we're getting a little too deep now.
14 A. I understand.
15 Q. But as I understand it, the principle has revolutionized the
16 idea of encryption?
17 A. Yes, that's right, because it made it possible for you to
18 communicate with your best friend in Moscow or Sidney or
19 Thailand or France. Without ever having met him, you can tell
20 him your open key over the telephone, you might say,
21 mathematically, and he can tell you, and nobody else knows what
22 the close key is. So you can send him messages and he can send
23 you messages, and despite the fact that everybody knows both of
24 your and his public key, nobody else can decrypt the message
25 because nobody else has the private key.
575
1 Q. Well, how does this work -- why is this interesting, or why
2 is it relevant to Assassination Politics?
3 A. Excuse me.
4 The relevance has to do with -- let me explain it.
5 An article that appeared in June of 1993, I believe, in the
6 magazine Scientific American, it discussed a concept of what are
7 called blind signatures, which dealt with -- I realize it's
8 rather sophisticated, but it basically means ways of verifying
9 electronically that I'm me and that you're you and that when I
10 send you things, I'm not accidently sending them to somebody who
11 doesn't -- who isn't supposed to get it, and when you send it to
12 me, you know that I am who I am.
13 This particular kind of encryption system with public key
14 principles is sufficient -- or can be sufficiently sophisticated
15 that literally the most important, or most powerful code
16 breakers with the biggest computer systems in the world cannot
17 break it for thousands of years, given the fact that the key
18 length is sufficiently long. That's very important, and that is
19 why -- and it is a -- it is probably an essential element in the
20 actual implementation of a system based on my essay.
21 The reason my, my essay had been frequently discussed on an
22 area, again, called Cypherpunks, or Cyphco, where they were
23 primarily talking about codes, ciphers, electronic technology
24 and such, is because the people who could understand the concept
25 of my essay had -- generally speaking, would help do the three
576
1 things. Computers, of course, and how to use them. That's one
2 thing. Computers; hard disks, key boards, screens. But also,
3 networking. That is, me talk to you or my computer talk to your
4 computer.
5 The third thing that it had to have is encryption, good
6 encryption that literally nobody in the world can break. That's
7 essential, because otherwise, people would figure out what's
8 going on and the system simply wouldn't work. So, you know, you
9 have to know -- well, you don't have to. It helps if you know
10 computers, networking, and encryption.
11 Q. Well, Mr. Bell, let me ask you this. Isn't it true that
12 taking this premise that you had, using public key encryption,
13 you used it in an essay, a political essay, to say that this
14 could be used and directed so that it would be -- while it's not
15 legal to kill anyone else, this is a way that you could
16 literally get away with murder?
17 A. Generally speaking, that's the concept, put in a nutshell.
18 Now, again, it's a concept, an idea, a what if. It was intended
19 for debate and discussion, and large amounts of debate and
20 discussion have already occurred, in fact, as early as the
21 middle of 1995 and since then.
22 Q. Did you ever try to kill anybody using this?
23 A. No. Again, it's -- it would require tens or hundreds of
24 thousands of hours of programing time. Lots of people would
25 have to -- to implement this system would require a lot more
577
1 than just one person, I can assure you of that. It would be
2 like -- the total amount of work would be roughly the same
3 amount of work that Microsoft -- well -- puts into a program
4 called Words for Windows.
5 Q. But they made Words for Windows, so aren't you saying that
6 you have a plan here, that you have written a blueprint so that
7 if people wanted to kill people, they could do it?
8 A. No. You use the term "blueprint," and let me point out.
9 Blueprint is a plan of a building. It has walls and a floor and
10 so forth. It tells you, the builder, exactly every step to take
11 to build the building.
12 What I wrote is not a blueprint. My -- what I wrote, put in
13 architectural terms, like Mr. Leen has put it in --
14 Q. Let me ask you this --
15 A. Excuse me, Mr. Leen.
16 Q. Let me ask you this, sir. In 1930, I think, or maybe even
17 earlier, in the late 1800s, H.G. Wells talked about a flight to
18 the moon. Seventy or eighty years later they actually flew to
19 the moon. Are you saying that's the difference between what you
20 have written and the implementation?
21 A. I think H. G. Wells actually wrote this material much
22 earlier than 1930, but pardon me.
23 Yes. There were in fact stories about getting to the moon
24 back in 1900. In fact, one of the earliest movies ever made
25 shows people in Victorian costumes getting into a shell that
578
1 goes into a cannon and gets shot into the moon. That was 1910
2 or '20. It was an idea. It eventually turned into real
3 technology, but at that time it was sort of like a what if?
4 Could we go to moon? And, of course, at the time, 99.9 percent
5 of the public would have said, awe, that's science fiction, or
6 whatever they called it. I think the term was called fantasy
7 back then. It was --
8 Q. Are you saying that what you wrote is as far removed from
9 implementation as The Cannon Ball, which was written in 1910,
10 was going to the moon, as when we actually landed on the moon in
11 1969?
12 A. In terms of years -- well, in terms of years, of course, the
13 time period between H. G. Wells and the 1969 landing on the moon
14 -- which I observed in a house in California, interesting
15 enough -- that was about 70 years, I think. Things go a lot
16 faster in the computer arena, but I didn't expect things to
17 happen for -- well, five or ten years at minimum, probably
18 fifteen to twenty years at -- possible.
19 Q. Let's move on. I think we -- I think that you have
20 discussed that.
21 Did you -- did you post this anonymously or did you actual
22 use your name? Did you accept authorship of what you had
23 written?
24 A. I put my name on every page. It says Jim Bell. I
25 intentionally did that. I wasn't hiding anything. I -- I was
579
1 willing and anxious to debate it with all comers, people who
2 wanted to talk, people who wanted -- mostly over the Internet,
3 but up close, in various political meetings, that kind of
4 thing. Just in general. People who understood enough about the
5 technology to understand the computers and the networking and
6 encryption. And, yeah, I did engage in a large number of
7 discussions over the Internet subsequent to the writing of the
8 essay. And there were very interesting and fascinating
9 discussions.
10 Q. Now let's get back to the Multnomah County Common Law
11 Court.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. There is some email evidence that's been introduced. And
14 also we saw a video excerpt where you are telling the Multnomah
15 County Common Law Court, I think I have a solution to your
16 enforcement policies. And I believe that, from what we saw, the
17 Multnomah County Common Law Court, at least when you were there,
18 was trying in absentia certain IRS agents by disgruntled
19 individuals who felt that the IRS had either illegally acted or
20 had confiscated their property improperly. And you at that
21 meeting said, "I think I have an enforcement mechanism and I
22 would like you to read my essay now."
23 Would you comment on that?
24 A. Well, like I said, it would have taken ten years to
25 implement. It was not like a -- it wasn't -- I wasn't saying,
580
1 do this and you can start tomorrow. I was wanting to increase
2 the size of the debate on the subject. I was there because it
3 was an organization of people who might be receptive to the
4 theory, the concept, the -- well, again, I hesitate to use the
5 word fantasy. It's a -- it's a -- it's a sketch, you might
6 say. It's the difference between a blueprint of a house and a
7 sketch. I can draw a sketch with a house or roof, you know, a
8 chimney or something. That's a sketch. It doesn't show you how
9 you build the house, it just shows you what it looks like. A
10 person who has never seen a house might even be able to sketch a
11 house.
12 I wasn't trying to propose that this system was operational
13 or would be in the near future. I was trying to make it topical
14 for this organization. To explain why I thought that they
15 should take the time to read what at the time was a ten-part
16 essay that, I don't know, had 20,000 words, or I'm not even sure
17 what the count is.
18 Q. Weren't you trying to proselytize a political ideas which
19 would lead to the overthrow of the government as we know it now?
20 A. Well, I was -- I was talking about a political idea, and
21 that was the fundamental concept. I wouldn't exactly say it
22 overthrows the government. That has undercurrents and so forth,
23 overtones. I would say that it replaces the current system.
24 Not -- and again, I emphasize, we're not talking about America
25 specifically. Potentially we're talking -- we're not -- we're
581
1 talking about the entire world. Replacement of all the
2 countries that have systems which -- which many people, most
3 people will agree, many of them are dramatically worse, even,
4 than our own.
5 Q. But all government is structured, isn't it? It's
6 hierachical, as you said.
7 A. Yes, that's exactly right. I believe that there are genuine
8 reasons that that's been the way things have been developed over
9 hundreds of thousands of years. I think that absent a
10 breakthrough in the way societies are structured, that is the
11 way society has to -- or societies have to form, and that's why
12 every society virtually we have on the face of the earth is
13 based on that concept.
14 Q. Well, why, why were you mentioning specifically -- and I'm
15 not going to say the word "targeting" because I think that might
16 be a misperception of your writings -- but why were you
17 mentioning tax collectors as a, perhaps, someone, some group
18 that this theory, in theory, if it was applied, would be the
19 focus of?
20 A. Well, I needed to explain it to the person who reads it in a
21 way that he can understand. The average person who read it
22 might wonder, well, who are we talking about here? How do you
23 change society? What changes have to be made?
24 Reference to tax collectors, of course, is in reference to
25 the fact that, well, quite literally, tax collectors have been
582
1 mentioned since, including the Bible, as being a not
2 particularly well-loved set of people, for reasons which I think
3 are rather clear under the circumstances. But fundamentally, if
4 you change society in any substantial way, a lot of changing of
5 society has to do with how the society governs itself, and a lot
6 of that has to do with how that governing costs money. Any
7 society that governs -- or a society that governs itself has to
8 raise a certain amount of money for the kinds of services, of
9 public services that it provides. A society that provides
10 virtually no public services doesn't have to raise hardly any
11 money. A society that either produces huge amount of public
12 services or spends money on people who really don't produce, but
13 just are upon the public payroll, they have to provide a large
14 amount of money.
15 Q. Let me ask you this question. To paraphrase or to steal a
16 phrase from Bill Gates, were you trying to cut off their air?
17 A. I was -- I wasn't actively trying to cut off their air. I
18 was -- you might say, I was -- I was describing the idea that,
19 were it to be implemented at some point in the mid to -- mid
20 future, years down the road, would in fact cut off their air.
21 Q. Did it surprise you that an IRS agent might find this
22 something alarming?
23 A. In a certain sense they will find it alarming. In the sense
24 that if they want to -- if they are, let's say, 25 years old and
25 their job is with the IRS, if they want -- if they want to have
583
1 a job for the next 40 years and a pension for 20 or 30 years
2 after that, they might be very concerned about the possibility
3 that somebody would replace that system of governing with
4 something totally different that makes their job totally
5 unnecessary and their pension totally unavailable.
6 Now, to the people -- people are, of course, for good
7 reason, self-interested. Everybody is interested in their own
8 well-being and the well-being of people that they love. A
9 person who learns of a system to make something -- to make their
10 ability to make money in the future impossible might be scared.
11 Suppose I somehow invented a method to make cars for ten
12 dollars. Well, anybody who worked for Ford or GM or Chrysler
13 would be terrified. They would lose their job, you know.
14 Computers used to cost five to ten thousand dollars each.
15 If suddenly they could start making computers for $500 each, a
16 very large amount of the people that are employed making $10,000
17 computers, frankly, would have to be fired if computers got down
18 to 500. Fortunately, that drop in price has occurred over a
19 period of 20 years, so things adjust over time.
20 But a change in the way things are done to -- to make
21 commodities dramatically cheaper puts people out of work, quite
22 literally. If I could make good steak for ten cents a pound, I
23 would -- I would be shake -- the farmers of America would be
24 shaking in their boots. They -- they have very fixed, high
25 fixed costs. Is the very fact that I propose -- let's say I
584
1 propose a concept that allows me to make steaks at ten cents a
2 pound, anybody who -- any farmer who reads about that would be
3 scared.
4 Q. Well, but this was not an economic fear, this was
5 potentially a life-threatening fear that your article was
6 directed to. Would you comment on that?
7 A. I think it was -- I think, in general terms, it was an
8 economic fear, not directly life threatening. What I mean is
9 this:
10 Anybody who has a job now, they can quit and get another
11 job. They don't have to worry about that if they are willing to
12 quit their job. Even -- again, we're talking ten to twenty
13 years in the future, probably. You know, earliest. So it isn't
14 like they can't change jobs or get out of the system. It was a
15 provocative essay, and it does mention, frankly, death and
16 killing and so forth.
17 But that wasn't the fundamental issue involved. The
18 fundamental issue was to make it unnecessary to have that kind
19 of system that raises huge amounts of money that governments
20 don't really have to have.
21 We do not have to spend 300 billion dollars a year, this
22 country doesn't, on our military. Military people just --
23 excuse me; I'm sorry -- that's not necessary, I don't believe.
24 Q. Well, this was your political philosophy, is that correct?
25 A. Well, my political philosophy, of course, is
585
1 libertarianism. This was a political concept, an idea, a
2 proposal. Well, not really. A proposal in the same way that
3 the, as you pointed out, the Jules Verne or the H. G. Wells for
4 going to the moon idea was to space craft.
5 Q. But my original question was, do you -- it certainly
6 shouldn't have surprised you that governmental officials, and
7 particularly IRS officials, would -- might find some threat in
8 these -- in this essay.
9 A. I would say they had reason to, to worry, just simply in the
10 sense that their way of life would eventually end.
11 Q. Did there come a time that you believed you began to be put
12 under surveillance?
13 A. I know the particular time that I was put under
14 surveillance.
15 Q. Let's fix the time you believe this surveillance began, as
16 best you can. Either in terms of events or dates.
17 A. What I will say to you in a moment is not the time I believe
18 the surveillance first occurred. It is the time that I first
19 learned of surveillance that already -- or that existed. I hope
20 to make that distinction pretty clear.
21 Q. When did you first become aware that you were under
22 surveillance?
23 A. Not myself personally at the time did I know, but one of the
24 things that I took to that Multnomah County Common Law Court
25 meeting was a small device, electronic device, I made called a
586
1 field strength meter.
2 Q. What is that, sir, briefly?
3 A. An analogy, a sound strength meter is to sound like a radio
4 signal or a field strength meter is to radio. It is a little
5 device that if you bring your transmitter, like a cell phone or
6 a walkie-talkie or something like that, if it detects
7 emanations, radio signals, it could do whatever you want, buzz
8 or vibrate or beep or whatever, warning you that there is
9 something nearby. It's what -- it's a way of just finding out
10 if a transmitter is nearby.
11 Q. All right. And is that -- you brought one of these to the
12 meeting with you?
13 A. Yes. I made one -- actually, I have made several over many
14 years. I -- again, I have an extensive electronic background.
15 I built this device a few years back, or before that. And I was
16 concerned that maybe this organization was going to be
17 infiltrated, and I figured as long as I've showed up, I would
18 try to figure out if there was any surreptitious recording or
19 monitoring going on.
20 The concept would be basically this. If I have this in my
21 pocket, and I walk up to somebody who has a hidden microphone,
22 let's say, or, for that matter, a cell phone they have out
23 openly, if that device is transmitting at the time, it will --
24 it will activate. The activation could be a beep or a buzz or a
25 vibration, if I don't want it to make a noise. But basically I
587
1 made mine vibrate a little bit. It had a little bit of monitor
2 with an offset cam, and the idea was if I walked up to somebody
3 who was wearing a bug, I would know.
4 Q. Did you find someone with such a bug at one of these
5 meetings?
6 A. Yes, I did. I -- I must say, I do not recall the specific
7 date of the meeting, but the person I shortly, within minutes
8 after, I determined the guy's name was -- well, he was going
9 under the name of Steve Wilson. We heard in this case he was
10 actually IRS Agent Steve Walsh.
11 Q. Is that the man who was testifying as one of the first or
12 second government witnesses in the case?
13 A. Yes, that was him.
14 Q. And did you subsequently have communications with him
15 outside the Multnomah County Common Law Court?
16 A. Well, both in and outside the -- the meeting itself. The
17 meeting for the Multnomah County Common Law Court at the time
18 occurred in a place called Stark Street Pizza. Again, another
19 pizza joint. It was in a room that was specifically dedicated
20 for third-party organizations to come and have their meetings,
21 and it was some -- I don't know if you know, some places have
22 that kind of thing. They want to attract customers, and one of
23 the things they like to do is attract meetings of dozens of
24 people who buy pizza and beer and so forth. And that was where
25 the thing was occurring.
588
1 Q. Did he subsequently contact you over the Internet?
2 A. Yes. In fact, he did.
3 Q. I would like the clerk to show you A-1 through A-4. She
4 will bring it to you.
5 A. Yes, I see it.
6 Q. The first, A-1, what is it dated?
7 A. It's dated January 31st, 1997.
8 Q. From?
9 A. It's from me, Jim Bell, and it has my email address,
10 jimbell@pacifier.com.
11 Q. And who is it to?
12 A. This is email address swils@cybernw.com. I recognize the
13 cyber northwest dot com as the site cybernw.
14 Q. Is that the address, as you knew it at the time, for Steve
15 Wilson?
16 A. Yes. At the time.
17 Q. And what was that communication -- what was that email
18 about? Would you read from it?
19 A. Excuse me. I have looked at the title so far. I have to
20 read the whole thing.
21 Q. Yes.
22 A. I apologize.
23 Okay, the --
24 Q. Read the relevant portions, sir.
25 A. I was quoting in this message a message that Mr. Wilson had
589
1 sent to me previously. He says, quote, "I didn't get a chance
2 last night to say thanks for the disk, because I was busy being
3 a juror."
4 Q. What disk is he talking about?
5 A. I had filled out, or I had -- I had made many copies of my
6 essay and put it on floppy disks.
7 Q. So AP, or Assassination Politics, was on floppy disk?
8 A. That's right. I made a number of copies, five or ten or
9 something, and I had taken them with me to the meeting and I had
10 handed them out to people, and Mr. Wilson was one of the people
11 that I handed it to.
12 Q. What was the date of this email, by the way?
13 A. January 31st, 1997.
14 Q. So when he says the other night, so sometime in late January
15 of 1997 is when this meeting that he is talking about took
16 place?
17 A. Excuse me, let me read this again.
18 Well, it refers to "last night" in the quotation I quoted
19 from him. And he said that on 1/31/97, so, yeah, it was
20 probably a meeting on 1/30/97, I believe.
21 Q. So he says -- I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just
22 wanted to set the context -- he was serving as a juror. Had you
23 ever served as a juror on the Multnomah County Common Law Court?
24 A. Once. I happened to show up, and these people select jurors
25 from the people who come in. Just ordinary meeting members. Of
590
1 course, I -- I was happy to serve as a juror.
2 Q. Did he serve as a juror also?
3 A. Well, there were 12 other jurors on the jury that I served
4 on. I think that -- I think he was one of those.
5 Q. So read the email, the relevant email message that he wrote
6 to you.
7 A. Okay. I already -- let me read the whole thing. The part
8 that I quote from his previous message is the following:
9 Q. Did it have carets?
10 A. Yes, it has those -- well, I will turn it around. Those
11 carets indicate this is a quoted portion of the message. This
12 is the portion of the message that Mr. Wilson -- or I don't know
13 whether to refer to him as Mr. Wilson or Mr. Walsh. We now know
14 his name actually is Walsh. I'm going to call him Wilson
15 because that's the way he addressed himself to me.
16 He said, quote, "I didn't get a chance last night to say
17 thanks for the disk, because I was busy being a juror. I only
18 took a quick look at 'Assassination Politics' today -- it looks
19 interesting -- When I get some time, I'll read it carefully.
20 Maybe we can discuss it at the next meeting."
21 Q. Now, what did you say? Did you write back to him?
22 A. My response to him, in this message, is this:
23 "It's an essay that I've been circulating on USEnet and
24 various Internet lists and FIDOnet echoes for more than the last
25 year. While it wasn't originally intended to be used as an
591
1 enforcement device for commonlaw verdicts, it would be
2 relatively straightforward to fund rewards based on jury
3 verdicts. This would allow totally-anonymous enforcement,
4 avoiding most clashes with the status-quo legal system.
5 "Keep in mind that in a smoothly-functioning
6 commonlaw-court system, the vast majority of offenses will be
7 dealt with purely with fines; very few people would actually get
8 killed, and those people would be the ones who were really
9 serious offenders or repeat offenders, and didn't pay their
10 fines, etc."
11 Q. All right. So in this particular variation of your theory,
12 you were going to let common law courts decide who should be
13 targeted for killing?
14 A. With the proviso that we're talking ten years into the
15 future at least. That was the idea. Instead of -- or allowing
16 courts -- I don't -- I'm not specifically referring to common
17 law courts. I mean, I don't subscribe to most of those beliefs,
18 or I don't know most of their beliefs, but basically that was
19 the concept, and I wanted to interest the people in the area in
20 just reading my essay, and to do that I have to make topic.
21 When you want someone to read something, one of the things you
22 do is you say, hey, it fits into what you already discussed and
23 what you are interested in. I wanted to make it topical to this
24 group of people.
25 Q. So he initiated a communication to you, or did you start the
592
1 communications with him, do you recall?
2 A. I'm virtually certain that he started communicating with
3 me. I believe I had put my email address on the disks that I
4 was handing out because I wanted to participate in discussions.
5 Q. And that is jbell@pacifiercom?
6 A. Actually, jimbell@pacifier.com, with no space between the
7 Jim and the Bell.
8 MR. LEEN: I offer A-1.
9 MR. LONDON: No objection.
10 THE COURT: A-1 is admitted.
11 (Exhibit No. A-1 was admitted.)
12 Q. (By Mr. Leen) Now let's go to the next email. What is it
13 dated? Just put it down.
14 A. Put it under the stack here.
15 The next one is dated the 3rd of February. Monday, the 3rd
16 of February 1997.
17 Q. So this is three days later?
18 A. Yes, that's right.
19 Q. And what is the -- who is this particular email from and who
20 is it to?
21 A. It's from me, jimbell@pacifier.com, and it's to
22 swils@cybernw.com. From me to Steve Wilson.
23 Q. Are you replying to one of his emails in this or are you
24 initiating the email?
25 A. No, I'm definitely replying. There's a quoted section here
593
1 that -- that I'm referring to here.
2 Q. Did it have the carets?
3 A. Yes, it has those carets.
4 Q. What has he said to you in that email?
5 A. It says, one line, it says "Jim." Two lines down it says,
6 "I had a little more time to look over AP. I had a couple
7 questions/comments to throw out to you.
8 "My biggest question has to do with the organization that
9 oversees the system."
10 And then I respond to that with about a -- well, I guess --
11 hold on.
12 This is a one-page note. It continues on until it seems to
13 stop in the middle, and it says page 1 of 3. And I --
14 Q. Look at the next one then. Is the next one the same email
15 series?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. A-3.
18 A. A-3 seems to have the first page -- excuse me. And it --
19 yes, it includes the first page. And it goes on to the second
20 page.
21 Q. All right. So you respond to that, and you explain how it
22 will be implemented or overseen.
23 A. Yes. I wrote approximately two pages here.
24 Q. Is there any response to that by --
25 MR. LEEN: I would offer A-3, then.
594
1 THE COURT: A-3 is admitted.
2 (Exhibit No. A-3 was admitted.)
3 MR. LONDON: This one I haven't seen. I don't have a
4 copy.
5 MR. LEEN: I will show it in a minute. Let's just wait
6 on that.
7 Q. (By Mr. Leen) What about A-4; what does A-4 say? And
8 what's the date of A-4?
9 A. The date of A-4 is the 15th of February 1997.
10 Q. So now this is about two weeks after you first met -- first
11 started corresponding with email?
12 A. Assuming I had -- I -- I don't recall that we did correspond
13 before approximately the 31st of January, but as far as I know,
14 this was the beginning.
15 Q. All right.
16 A. You wanted to know the date here.
17 Q. Yes. You said February 15th?
18 A. February 15th.
19 Q. And this is from you, again, to Mr. Wilson, his email
20 address.
21 A. Yes. Both mine and his email addresses are here.
22 Q. What is Mr. Wilson saying in his portion of the email?
23 A. He says -- well, the quotation from his material is, "Jim.
24 Thanks for the info. Personally, I think the Government," in
25 parens, it says, "(such as it is)" close parens, "has gotten
595
1 away with way too much for way too long. But it's like that old
2 saying, 'everyone talks about weather, but no one does anything
3 about it.' Everyone knows the government is dysfunctional,
4 corrupt, and abusing the citizens -- there is a solid majority
5 in this country that distrusts and dislikes our Government," in
6 parens, it says, "(although not much of an agreement on a
7 solution)." Out of parens.
8 That's the first paragraph of what Mr. Wilson wrote to me.
9 Q. All right. Did you respond to that?
10 A. There is a second quoted portion.
11 Q. Just a second.
12 A. He continues.
13 Q. Read the second part.
14 A. He continues in the second paragraph. "That's why I was
15 interested in the Common Law Court. It seemed to me that
16 finally there was an avenue for those of us who wanted to do
17 something! Louis Whispell is an obvious example of someone who
18 was blatantly terrorized by the IRS. But in listening to Chuck
19 Stuart and Jeff Weakley, they say that enforcement of the
20 verdicts is up to Louis. While I hope he succeeds, I think
21 you're right, the de-facto system will just view us as
22 irrelevant."
23 That was the second paragraph Mr. Steve Wilson wrote to me.
24 Q. Was that the end of the message from him?
25 A. That's the end of the -- that's the end of the portion of
596
1 the message that I quoted when I responded to him.
2 Q. And what did you respond? How long did your response --
3 does it run?
4 A. Rather substantially. About two pages here.
5 Q. Could you summarize briefly what you told him in response?
6 A. Well, I -- I have to read it first, and that will take a
7 minute. Believe me, this is a --
8 THE COURT: Let's take a 15-minute recess.
9 The jury is cautioned, please do not discuss the case among
10 yourself or with anyone else over the recess. Please go to the
11 jury room.
12 (Jury excused at 2:40 p.m.)
13 THE COURT: Mr. Leen, the defendant is charged with
14 five counts.
15 MR. LEEN: I understand, Your Honor.
16 THE COURT: It doesn't include any worldwide
17 conspiracy.
18 MR. LEEN: Your Honor, the defense in the case --
19 THE COURT: Never mind.
20 MR. LEEN: I will move along.
21 THE COURT: I call it to your attention.
22 Let's have questions and answers.
23 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
24 THE COURT: Instead of narratives.
25 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
597
1 THE COURT: Okay?
2 Fifteen minutes.
3 (Recessed at 2:45 p.m.)
4 (Jury not present; 3:10 p.m.)
5 THE COURT: Are we ready?
6 THE CLERK: Yes, Your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Call the jury.
8 THE WITNESS: What exhibit are we on?
9 MR. LEEN: You were looking at A-4, I think. I'm just
10 going to ask you some brief questions about those two exhibits.
11 (Jury present; 3:12 p.m.)
12 THE COURT: The jury has returned. Continue direct
13 examination.
14 MR. LEEN: Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.
15 Q. (By Mr. Leen) Mr. Bell, at the -- when we recessed, you
16 were looking at A-4.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Is that an email correspondence exchange between you and Mr.
19 Wilson?
20 A. Yes. That is apparently my response to Mr. Wilson's email.
21 Q. And what date is that, sir?
22 A. My response appears to be dated 15th of February '97. And
23 according to the quotation, the date of the original quotation
24 on my message, or the portion of the message that was sent --
25 that was -- quotes his message, Mr. Wilson -- I'm sorry if I'm
598
1 destroying that. He apparently responded or sent a message to
2 me on the 5th of February. My response was on the 15th of
3 February.
4 MR. LEEN: I offer A-4.
5 MR. LONDON: No objection.
6 THE COURT: It's admitted.
7 (Exhibit No. A-4 was admitted.)
8 Q. (By Mr. Leen) Now A-5, look at that for a second, please.
9 What's the date that -- is that the other email exchange
10 between the two of you?
11 A. Yes. Jimbell@pacifier.com and to Steve Wilson.
12 Q. And what's the date of your response to this email from Mr.
13 Wilson?
14 A. 28th of April 1997.
15 Q. So we have some emails --
16 MR. LEEN: I offer A-5.
17 THE COURT: A-5 is admitted.
18 (Exhibit No. A-5 was admitted.)
19 Q. (By Mr. Leen) So the two of you were exchanging emails at
20 least from January 31st to April 28th, is that correct, sir?
21 A. That's right.
22 Q. Were there other contacts that you had with Mr. Wilson other
23 than through email and other than through the common law court?
24 A. Yes. I believe -- well, he did talk to me outside the Stark
25 Street Pizza a few times.
599
1 Q. Did he talk to you on the phone at all?
2 A. Yes, he did. I think -- I don't recall how many times, but
3 a few times.
4 Q. Did he ever ask you to do anything illegal?
5 A. Yes. Outside --
6 Q. What did he ask you to do that was illegal?
7 A. He apparently knew I was a ham radio operator, and he asked
8 me if he knew how I could get ahold of a transmitter for an FM
9 pirate radio station that he was considering building.
10 Q. Did you agree to do that or not?
11 A. Oh, no. That's illegal.
12 Q. Now, other than -- after Mr. Wilson, sometime in 1997, your
13 house was searched, is that correct?
14 A. Yes. On April 1st, 1997.
15 Q. So this was before the last of the email exchanges, is that
16 correct?
17 A. Yes. The search was before, was about a month before the
18 last -- well, I don't know whether it's the last email
19 exchange. It's the last one here.
20 Q. You were exchanging email with him after the search.
21 A. That's right.
22 Q. When did you -- other than Mr. Wilson, who we've talk about,
23 who is really Special Agent Walsh, was there any other
24 surveillance that you felt was taking place against you during
25 -- from '97 through 1998?
600
1 A. I later -- well, excuse me.
2 Q. Yes or no?
3 A. I now believe that there was indeed surveillance at the
4 time. It wasn't clear from where it came.
5 Q. But you believed you were under surveillance?
6 A. Well, given --
7 Q. Yes or no?
8 A. Yes, I did.
9 Q. And subsequent to 1998, did you believe that you were under
10 surveillance?
11 A. I wouldn't say subsequent. During 1998, I was --
12 particularly on a particular day I was definitely under
13 surveillance.
14 Q. Did you believe that there was surveillance from houses
15 adjacent to where you were living?
16 A. I strongly suspected that as of late '97, and I continue to
17 suspect that to today.
18 Q. Did you tell -- did you tell anybody in the media about
19 this?
20 A. In July of 1998, very shortly after I had been rearrested on
21 a probation revocation violation, I called John Branton, of the
22 Columbian, and I made very specific accusations of government
23 spying against me.
24 Q. And was that the James Branton who testified here the other
25 day?
601
1 A. John Branton. Yes, that was him. The reporter from the
2 Vancouver Columbian newspaper.
3 Q. Did you outline for him why you believed you were under
4 surveillance and from what sources?
5 A. Not in a great -- the why, not a great deal of detail as to
6 why, because my communications with him were limited to
7 15-minute phone calls. But I told him what I thought and where
8 I thought the surveillance was occurring from.
9 Q. Now, in 1997, you entered a guilty plea. Is that right?
10 A. That's right.
11 Q. And that was -- what was it specifically that you had done
12 to the IRS office in Portland?
13 A. Are you referring to the plea, or are you referring to what
14 I actually did?
15 Q. What did you actually do?
16 A. Okay. It was actually Vancouver.
17 Q. I'm sorry, Vancouver. I apologize.
18 A. In -- I don't recall the exact date. It may have been March
19 17th or 18th.
20 Q. Of 1997?
21 A. About two months after I discovered that Steve Wilson was --
22 almost two months after -- was infiltrating the Multnomah County
23 Common Law Court, and approximately a month after they had
24 seized my car, I injected a small amount of nontoxic but smelly
25 material into the federal building in Vancouver, Washington,
602
1 late at night.
2 Q. And did you admit that you did that in the guilty plea?
3 A. Yes, I did.
4 Q. And were you punished for that?
5 A. Well, I was -- I was definitely punished for that.
6 Q. And were you also prosecuted for using false IDs -- excuse
7 me -- false social security numbers?
8 A. Yes, I was -- well, that was part of the charges.
9 Q. And what was -- what did you specifically do with social
10 security numbers?
11 A. It turns out I didn't really do what I said I did on the
12 plea agreement. Let me explain.
13 I have never believed, or haven't believed -- for 15 years
14 or more, I haven't believed in the use of social security
15 numbers as a general means of identification. During
16 particularly the '80s and the early '90s, organizations would
17 ask people -- of course, me, being a person -- for a social
18 security number as an identifier, as a way of tracking data, and
19 my response has been, for 20 years, I've said, well, I really
20 don't feel comfortable using that. Could you -- do you really
21 have to have a social security number or could you just have an
22 identifier for me that's unique to your organization and mine?
23 And almost always when I've talked to these people they say,
24 well, we just need a number to put -- to type into the machine
25 that the software says we have to type it in. So I said, okay.
603
1 I'm going to give you a number. This is not my social security
2 number. It is what I call my ID number. You can use this to
3 communicate with me and store records. I don't tell them it's
4 my social security number because it isn't. But in the plea
5 agreement that I signed three-and-a-half years ago, they charge
6 me with using false social security numbers.
7 Q. Were you working back in 1996, 1997?
8 A. Yes. I had gotten a job with a company called Control Tech
9 in Vancouver, Washington, which is an electronics design and
10 manufacturing company with about -- well, I don't know what it
11 had; it has now about 30 employees, 30, 40 employees.
12 Q. Did you use your correct social security number when -- for
13 purposes of payroll?
14 A. As it turned -- I found out I -- I had swapped two digits.
15 I don't recall which particular two digits were swapped, but I
16 used my social security number so infrequently that I, I -- I
17 had gotten the number wrong. Two digits were reversed.
18 Q. Did it cause -- was money withheld? Did you pay taxes?
19 A. Money was withheld. I claimed the standard deduction, as I
20 recall. That's all I -- I think.
21 Q. Did you file a tax return during those years?
22 A. Well, I, I had not been filing tax returns for a few years,
23 just again associated with my phobia about dealing with this
24 problem. But I eventually did file the tax return for
25 '97. Or '90 -- excuse me, '96.
604
1 Q. All right. In 1998 your house was searched again, is that
2 correct?
3 A. Yes, that's right.
4 Q. And as a result of that, your supervised -- your supervised
5 release was violated, is that correct?
6 A. That's the term they used. Basically they are saying that
7 in my probationary period they -- I did -- I did something, they
8 say, that I shouldn't have done.
9 Q. And you went back to jail.
10 A. That's right.
11 Q. For how long?
12 A. Well, waiting for --
13 Q. Altogether, how long did you serve?
14 A. Approximately 22 months.
15 Q. Now, is that -- now, how long did you serve as a result of
16 your '97 conviction?
17 A. The original conviction, I served 11 months.
18 Q. And the supervised release violation?
19 A. That was, again, 22 months all tolled, I believe.
20 Q. So approximately another 11 months, is that what you're
21 saying? Or 11 and 22?
22 A. Eleven months first, and then twenty-two months afterwards.
23 Q. So when were you finally released completely from supervised
24 release and from prison?
25 A. It was in April of 19 -- or excuse me, of 2000.
605
1 Q. All right. Now, at this point, there has been introduced
2 evidence that you had communications while in prison with
3 reporters where you expressed great anger at the IRS and
4 expressed that you were going to not let the matter drop. Is
5 that -- is that a fair summary of what your attitude was?
6 A. Basically, yes, for a lot of reasons which haven't yet been
7 discussed here.
8 Q. I understand. Now, why, why did you feel this way?
9 A. Well, for one thing, I -- the plea agreement was coerced in
10 a phony -- it did include a couple -- well, a couple things that
11 I had done. It may have been a mistake, but they didn't fulfill
12 the terms of the agreement, and apparently didn't intend to, and
13 in fact specific portions of this agreement were violated
14 intentionally repeatedly by various government people.
15 Q. And what specific government officials violated the
16 agreement?
17 A. Well, one of them is present in this courtroom. His name is
18 Jeff Gordon, and he's sitting at the prosecution's table on the
19 right.
20 Q. All right. Anyone else?
21 A. Well, I believe a probation person named Leslie Spier. I
22 believe it's spelled S-p-i-e-r, but I'm not absolutely certain
23 about that.
24 Q. All right. Anyone else?
25 A. The prosecutor Robb London, who is to the left of Mr. --
606
1 well, my left of Mr. Gordon, sitting at the prosecution table.
2 Q. Now, was Mr. London involved in your 1997 prosecution?
3 A. He eventually was. The initial prosecutor in that charge
4 was named Annmarie Levins, who I heard later on went to work for
5 Microsoft in defending against their antitrust case.
6 Q. Did she -- so she wasn't involved in your '98 case?
7 A. No. I believe -- well, I don't know when she left service,
8 but she wasn't then there.
9 Q. Mr. London was involved in your '98 case?
10 A. Yes, sir.
11 Q. '98 violation.
12 A. Yes, that's right.
13 Q. So do you feel that Mr. London had violated any -- done
14 anything improper?
15 A. Oh, very much so. Very much so.
16 Q. So, Mr. London, Ms. Levins, Ms. Spier.
17 A. Um-hmm.
18 Q. And Mr. Gordon. Now --
19 A. Basically, yeah.
20 Q. -- anyone else that you had felt who worked for the
21 government, either the U.S. Attorney's office, the judiciary,
22 probation office, or federal law enforcement, did you feel had
23 done anything improper, other than those people?
24 A. Well --
25 Q. As of your release on -- in April of 2000?
607
1 A. Well, I have to think about this for a moment. That covers
2 a lot of territory.
3 I think there was probably a substantial amount of violation
4 beyond what I was aware of, but I'm not aware of the names of
5 the people responsible for all of the violations. Those are the
6 main names of the responsible parties, that I'm aware of.
7 Q. In particular, is there -- we've heard mention of a man
8 named Ryan Thomas Lund.
9 A. That's right.
10 Q. Now, did you have a -- when you were incarcerated in 1997,
11 was there an altercation between you and he?
12 A. Yes, there was.
13 Q. Could you briefly explain to the jury what that altercation
14 was?
15 A. Well, there was -- I should -- I should mention the -- well,
16 okay, I will answer your question.
17 On November 25th, 1997, Mr. Ryan Thomas Lund assaulted me, I
18 believe for purposes of extorting my agreement to go through
19 with the plea agreement that had been previously signed.
20 Q. Now, when you say assaulted you, you mean beat you up?
21 A. It wasn't as serious as that. He was actually trying to
22 fake a fight, to make it look like a fight had occurred.
23 To explain that, I need to explain that the policy of SeaTac
24 FDC, Federal Detention Center, is, when there appears to be a
25 fight or an altercation or an assault, they put everybody in a
608
1 place called shoe. Think of it as solitary confinement, you
2 know. They call it the hole, basically. The reason they put
3 everybody in, not just the perpetrator, but the victim, is
4 because at the time they don't necessarily know who the person
5 guilty is, you know. The victim may be a victim, and they don't
6 know, the perpetrator could be -- they don't know that. In
7 addition, of course, even if they knew, the person who did the
8 assault might actually have friends, other inmates, who would
9 victimize the victim further if he wasn't put in the hole
10 immediately. So they have this policy that says whenever they
11 appear to have an altercation of any kind, they put people in
12 the hole.
13 Q. Why would this altercation and having you put in the hole in
14 some manner make your guilty plea, where you told Judge Burgess
15 it was voluntary, why -- why would that affect the voluntariness
16 of that agreement?
17 A. Because of -- well, I had become aware -- excuse me. I had
18 previously signed this plea agreement. I had become aware of
19 violations before the date of my original intended sentencing.
20 Q. So are you saying the procedure is that you enter your
21 guilty plea and enter into a plea agreement, and then some
22 period of time elapses and then you're supposed to be sentenced?
23 A. Yes. The plea agreement -- again, I do not recall the exact
24 date.
25 Q. That's all right. But that's the chronology of events. So
609
1 are you saying that between the time that you entered into the
2 plea agreement, where you told the judge that you were doing it
3 voluntarily, and the time that you were sentenced, this
4 situation happened with Ryan Lund?
5 A. That's true. But I should add that the original scheduled
6 sentencing date passed, and I was actually sentenced at least --
7 about a month and a half after I was originally scheduled to be
8 sentenced.
9 Q. Now, at any time did you indicate to anyone that you wanted
10 to withdraw your guilty plea before your sentencing?
11 A. Oh, yes.
12 Q. Who did you indicate that to?
13 A. Well, my attorney at the time. His name is Peter Avenia.
14 It's spelled A-v-e-n-i-a. I told him that I wanted to
15 withdraw.
16 Q. Did he file a motion to withdraw your guilty plea?
17 A. No, not that I recall.
18 Q. Did you notify the court or anyone else other than Mr.
19 Avenia that you wanted to withdraw your guilty plea?
20 A. Well, I think I told many other inmates. I probably told my
21 parents over a telephone that was monitored by the jail. I
22 believe my attorney, Avenia, at that point had maybe a
23 paralegal -- I don't know whether I talked to -- I can't even
24 recall her name. Maybe I talked to her as well. Those people.
25 Q. Did you tell the judge at the time of sentencing that you
610
1 wanted to withdraw your guilty plea?
2 A. Well, my eventual sentencing was November -- or December
3 12th, 1997, and, no, I didn't tell him.
4 Q. Well, did you feel -- at the time that you were sentenced,
5 did you feel that the altercation with Ryan Lund had anything to
6 do with your decision not to seek to withdraw your guilty plea?
7 A. Well, yes. I had told Avenia the last week of October that
8 I wanted to withdraw my guilty plea, and the assault by Lund
9 occurred November 25th, about six o'clock in the afternoon. And
10 that is what made me accept, or not withdraw from this
11 agreement.
12 Q. And why is that, sir?
13 A. Well, I was scared, actually. I -- I felt absolutely,
14 totally, positively certain that Mr. Lund had been put up to it
15 by someone in the government.
16 Q. Why?
17 A. That's an involved question, and I will try to answer.
18 The incident itself occurred. I was in a TV room on the
19 second floor of an area in the SeaTac. Lund was coming down the
20 hall. I was inside of two other inmates. I had not made any
21 contact with Lund for the four days since I had first met him,
22 and he hadn't tried to contact me.
23 He was looking in the other TV room for somebody, I didn't
24 know who, and then he opened the door and he walked over to the
25 TV. And at that point he asked people what we wanted to watch,
611
1 and I said, I just very passively -- he asked one person, and I
2 very passively answered another thing, I want to watch the news,
3 and so forth. At which point he started turning everything that
4 I said into an argument. I mean, I thought it was theatrical.
5 I -- I -- it looked like he was picking a fight, literally. I
6 didn't really care what we watched, but he looked like he was on
7 a mission.
8 Q. Mr. Bell, let's assume he was picking a fight with you
9 because he just didn't like you. Why did you conclude that this
10 was an act or something that was directed by some government
11 agent?
12 A. Well, in the midst of the assault that followed, as he
13 knocked me out of the door of the TV room, he said something
14 about, you had better take the deal they're offering you.
15 Q. All right. Did you -- so that's the basis -- that's the
16 germination of where you felt it was from the government?
17 A. No, actually it wasn't.
18 Q. Well, where did you begin to think that Mr. Lund was put up
19 to this by whom you eventually put in you writings, the case
20 agent on Ryan Lund's case, Mike McNall?
21 A. Okay. Let me explain. I first met Ryan Thomas Lund in the
22 basement, literally, of this very building on the morning of
23 November 21st, 1997. He -- I was put into his cell. People
24 down there wait to come up here in cells. I was put into his
25 cell and he had some paper with him, and he was an inmate --
612
1 well, he was dressed in street clothes, not -- the jail gives me
2 this. He was in street clothes, and they put me into a cell,
3 and he had a fax copy of his, what's called information. Think
4 of it like a charge. A claim --
5 Q. A criminal complaint?
6 A. Well, at the time I think it was an infor- -- well, I don't
7 want to be too technical since you're laymen. Basically a
8 complaint, yeah.
9 Q. Okay.
10 A. I don't recall if it was an information or a complaint. But
11 there are two things they are called. I don't know the
12 technical details.
13 Q. All right. So why was the possession of this and the fact
14 that he was in street clothes, why did that make you feel that
15 something was unusual?
16 A. Well, the first thing that was unusual was the fact that he
17 had a copy, a fax copy of his complaint with him. I had
18 substantial experience at the time going to and from SeaTac
19 facility, and one thing the policy was, the marshals who were
20 responsible for this -- and you see a few of them around here
21 doing their job -- they virtually never allow anybody to have
22 paper in those cells downstairs. You might ask what's wrong
23 with that. Well, I will tell you why in general terms.
24 Sometimes inmates want to keep their paper secret from other
25 inmates. They may be an informant or they may have done
613
1 something they are embarrassed by. They have -- the marshals
2 have a general policy that says that you do not get paper when
3 you are waiting in the cell, particularly if you have -- if you
4 are in with another inmate. They don't let you do that. Even a
5 single piece of paper like that, they do not allow that.
6 The only time I have ever seen it done otherwise is
7 literally a few days ago, when they were kind enough to let me
8 take a paper in a cell that I was alone in, absolutely alone,
9 for preparation of trial work. Nobody was there. Most of the
10 time having paper might not be a problem. These people are
11 ultra cautious and they wouldn't allow anybody to have paper in
12 a cell with somebody else. They wouldn't have allowed that.
13 Q. So that struck you as unusual?
14 A. Oh, immediately.
15 Q. And then he had this fight with you, and you heard him say,
16 "You should take the deal."
17 A. Well, there was a lot more that made me very suspicious of
18 him.
19 Q. But what made you feel that particularly it was Mike McNall
20 that was behind it all?
21 A. That's two years later. I had already established in many
22 different ways over the next few days that Mr. Lund was a
23 government informant, but I did not know at that time who he was
24 working with on the government. That is to say, I saw his
25 paper, but I didn't necessarily see who he had been associated
614
1 with, the person who prosecuted him or the investigator.
2 Two years later, however, when I was released from prison
3 the last time, on April of 2000, I went into a substantial
4 amount of research to try to find out about the Ryan Lund
5 incident, and one of the things I -- among the things I did was
6 I literally purchased his court paperwork. You may not be aware
7 that court paperwork is legally purchasable. I can get copies
8 of it. I bought two court case files, one from the Tacoma court
9 and one from the Seattle court, of two cases that Lund was
10 involved in. One was criminal --
11 Q. Did you do this legally?
12 A. Oh, yes. It's available to anybody. I think I wrote a
13 check or something like that, and anybody can do it. You can do
14 it, he can do it. Anybody who walks in or mails a letter can.
15 Q. So you bought his entire criminal file?
16 A. For that particular charge, yes, and also a civil case that
17 was assoc- -- I thought associated with it.
18 Q. And in this civil case, was he a plaintiff or defendant?
19 A. He was a plaintiff. Ryan Lund had sued SeaTac,
20 interestingly enough, for a slip and fall accident that
21 occurred, I believe, on December 15th, 1997, three days after I
22 eventually pled guilty to -- to the charge that I -- I had
23 signed the plea agreement to.
24 Q. So what were your -- what were your conclusions after you
25 read these two files?
615
1 A. Well, after -- after I read the files, I was at that point
2 absolutely certain, if I wasn't before -- and for many reasons
3 that haven't been mentioned up till now, I was absolutely
4 certain before. But I verified in the file that, yes, Mr. Lund
5 virtually had to be an informant and that he had been doing
6 something for the government at that time.
7 Q. So one of the things in your email is a discussion of his
8 points and his range, his sentence range should have been around
9 ten years and he got a sentence of maybe 27 months. Is that
10 what caused you to believe that he was an informant?
11 A. Well, no, no. I -- I -- I knew he was -- well, I knew he
12 was an informant from probably five minutes after I met him in
13 the basement here on this November 21st, 1997. But with respect
14 to the documents I got, there was a substantial discrepancy
15 between the time that he should have gotten as a four-time
16 violent felon with two drug convictions, a sawed-off shotgun
17 conviction, I think a car theft. He had previous convictions
18 for assaulting or intimidating witnesses, or in a certain
19 cases. He had a long criminal history. Four felonies, four
20 serious felonies.
21 Q. So you felt that the sentence he ultimately got was some
22 kind of quid pro quo for something?
23 A. Oh, yes, absolutely.
24 Q. Now, this civil suit. What was the result of this civil
25 suit and what did you conclude?
616
1 A. Well, I purchased the case file in about September of 2000,
2 and it didn't really say what the answer I wanted -- or it said
3 the two parties, the government and Ryan Lund, motioned to have
4 the case dismissed because of a settlement, which means they
5 agreed to solve it. But it didn't say the amount of money that
6 they agreed to pay or, if any, to Ryan Lund. He had asked
7 originally for a million dollars. The settlement, or the
8 answer, the last pages I got simply said, case dismissed because
9 of a settlement with the right to reopen it if the parties do
10 not actually carry through with the settlement.
11 Q. Well, do you know whether he got either a million dollars or
12 maybe a penny or nothing?
13 A. I have no idea.
14 Q. Why -- okay. So what else did you do to investigate Ryan
15 Lund other than look at the two files?
16 A. I did a great deal of investigation on this.
17 Ryan Lund had told me a number of things and showed me a
18 number of things in the paperwork and about his case that
19 made -- well, that -- I had already known, five minutes after I
20 met him I knew he was a foreman in a plan of some kind. But he
21 also told me a lot of things about his criminal record in front
22 of cameras and microphones down there. He told me he was guilty
23 of the crime of which he was being charged at that point in
24 front of cameras, a camera and a microphone. He told me things
25 about how he had been arrested and how he had been moved from a
617
1 place -- Eugene, Oregon, which is substantially south of
2 Portland, all the way to this courthouse.
3 Q. Well, rather than going into all of the things that you --
4 that he told you, how many hours did you spend after you were
5 released from prison investigating Ryan Lund and seeing who
6 might have been the person who had made the deal with him?
7 A. Oh, on Lund alone, many dozens of hours spread over a period
8 of months. Buying the court file, for example. Lund was a
9 Vancouver, Washington, local. I'm from Vancouver, Washington.
10 I went to the Clark County Courthouse and I bought certain
11 copies of criminal case files for Ryan Lund that they had
12 there. I called up a place called Clackamas County, Oregon,
13 Courthouse, which is just south of Portland, and I bought -- or
14 -- and I asked the clerk about various convictions he had in
15 the past. I called Multnomah County, that's Or- -- or Portland,
16 Multnomah County Court, and I asked them about things there. I
17 found in some of my paperwork that he had a parole officer with
18 a Hispanic name in Portland, and I tried calling him a few times
19 but I never got an answer. I was just going to ask him about
20 Ryan Lund's criminal history, his convictions and so forth.
21 Q. Did you look up Ryan Lund through databases with tags and
22 addresses? We've seen a lot of that type of stuff introduced
23 into evidence.
24 A. Oh, yes, definitely. First off, one thing is I filed a
25 Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Marshal's
618
1 Service in Washington, D.C., because I was told that I could do
2 that. I asked to find out whenever Ryan Lund had been moved
3 back and forth by the marshals, and the marshals do that job.
4 And I figured -- I was told that information is publicly
5 available. You can get it on anybody. You can get it on me, if
6 you want. So I did.
7 Q. What's the purpose of this research?
8 A. There was a discrepancy, a very serious discrepancy, in Mr.
9 Lund's appearance, and I don't mean physical appearance. I mean
10 the fact that he appeared at the -- Tacoma here, this
11 courthouse, on November 21st, 1997, when I first met him, when I
12 was put in his cell.
13 Q. I'm saying, but why? Let's just say that you're right, he
14 was an informant and he did get a quid pro quo for doing
15 something for the government. In 2000, in April of 2000, why
16 did you want to know this information? What were you going to
17 do with it?
18 A. I was going to expose it all. I was talking to two
19 newspaper reporters, a guy named John Branton of the Vancouver
20 Columbian newspaper, and another guy named John Painter of the
21 Portland Oregonian. In addition, I was talking to an Internet
22 journalist named Declan McCullagh.
23 Q. Is that the gentleman who testified the other day?
24 A. Yes, that's right. And he is in the audience, in fact.
25 Q. And what were you going to expose?
619
1 A. An assault on me for the purpose of forcing me to accept a
2 phony crooked plea agreement that was broken probably within
3 days of the date it was signed by me.
4 Q. And why would you -- why did you think that the government
5 would go through such elaborate, difficult, and illegal methods
6 to get you to plead guilty to something or to maintain your
7 guilty plea?
8 A. Well, the guilty plea -- or the guilty -- when the plea
9 agreement was originally offered to me, in approximately late
10 June of '97, I was told by my attorney then, Mr. Avenia, that it
11 was offered by the prosecution but the government investigators
12 did not like it at all. They hated what it was giving me. It
13 was giving me 11 months. They hated that. They really were --
14 they were very opposed to that.
15 Q. Why was that? Did they want more time?
16 A. Oh, yes. Very much more time.
17 Q. Who was the case agent on your prosecution in '97?
18 A. I believe Jeff Gordon was. I don't know if there was any
19 others that were associated with it, but it's been a long time.
20 Excuse me.
21 Q. So you wanted to expose this illegal conspiracy.
22 A. That's right. Well, I don't tend to use the word conspiracy
23 very often, but under the circumstances, I -- well, okay. I
24 think it would apply in this case.
25 Q. Did you want revenge?
620
1 A. Generally speaking, I find I never wanted revenge on
2 anything in my entire life. I wanted the exposure in the news
3 media as to what happened to me. Excuse me. I wanted it
4 exposed, what happened to me.
5 Q. And why would you think that anyone would think that was
6 newsworthy?
7 A. Most people would assume that prisoners aren't normally
8 assaulted to get them to continue to agree to a plea agreement.
9 Most of you wouldn't believe that if you heard it, I don't
10 think.
11 Q. Did you find that most people didn't believe your
12 accusations?
13 A. Let me see how to explain this. This is not a thing of
14 believe or disbelieve. They didn't disbelieve it, but they --
15 they agreed with me. I was the first one to say it. My amount
16 of proof at that time was very inadequate. There was a lot of
17 research that had to be done, a lot of investigation. And I was
18 apparently the one who was going to have to do it because in my
19 phone calls with John Branton of the Columbian in 1998, many of
20 them in July, I believe, shortly after I was rearrested, it was,
21 ho hum, you know, we're not interested. We don't want to bother
22 with it. Or he listened to my complaints, and he hardly did
23 anything to check them out. And under the circumstances, I
24 guess that was reasonable because he was just a crime reporter
25 and all he did was he goes -- he goes to the courthouse locally
621
1 and he writes some stories. He wasn't an investigative
2 reporter.
3 Q. So did you eventually figure out Mike McNall was the case
4 agent for the Ryan Lund prosecution?
5 A. Oh, yes. The criminal case file that I had purchased -- the
6 criminal case file was from the Tacoma court. I purchased it,
7 and I looked through it very carefully, and, yes, Mike McNall
8 was listed as the -- well, the person who participated in the
9 search warrant of Lund's case and the person who wrote up the
10 application, I believe, for the search warrant.
11 Q. Well, other than the fact that the Bureau of Alcohol,
12 Tobacco, and Firearms is a Treasury law enforcement agency and
13 IRS is a Treasury law enforcement agency, why would you think
14 that there would be any connection between Mike McNall, who was
15 in charge of the prosecution, from law enforcement standpoint,
16 of Ryan Lund, and Jeff Gordon, who was handling your prosecution
17 back in 1997 when you wanted to withdraw the plea agreement?
18 Why would you feel there was any connection between the two?
19 A. Well, in the original search of my residence, April 1st,
20 1997, was attended by about 30 -- well, I don't know -- maybe 30
21 federal agents from IRS, DEA, FBI, even the Environmental
22 Protection Agency, and U.S. Marshals. I, I may have forgotten
23 one or two, but there were about 30 federal agents, and the ATF
24 was one of those agencies that showed up. Since they're both
25 Treasury, it's reasonable to assume that there's a connection.
622
1 But again, I -- that was based on all the people that had
2 shown up on April 1st. I remembered that, and it was obviously
3 some suspected connection.
4 Q. Well, you felt there was a connection.
5 A. Oh, yes, very much so.
6 Q. So what did you do to try to prove that there was a
7 connection?
8 A. Well, I -- like I said, I investigated Lund dramatically. I
9 did a lot of the research to get his court file to find out who
10 he --
11 Q. Other than -- you've told us about Ryan Lund. What did you
12 do regarding Mike McNall and what did you do regarding Jeff
13 Gordon to find out if there was a connection at -- to connect
14 the dots between those two?
15 A. Well, unfortunately, it's so hard in this case to connect
16 the dots. I felt that there was probably an association, but it
17 might have been something that didn't have a paper trail, you
18 understand. One person called on another person on the phone
19 and say, you know, "Can you do this?" and it might not have left
20 a record. So it wasn't like I felt that there was a clear
21 provable connection at the moment because I'm an individual.
22 I'm not a -- I investigate as an individual, not as a government
23 agency. I knew I couldn't immediately prove the connection, but
24 I believed that there was a connection.
25 I did a lot of other research in the summer of 2000 on
623
1 various issues.
2 Q. Well, you're a trained scientist, is that correct?
3 A. Most of my training is in the scientific field and
4 engineering.
5 Q. And you know what a hypothesis is.
6 A. That's right.
7 Q. What was your hypothesis about all of this?
8 A. Well, about -- with respect to Ryan Lund, I believe that he
9 had been moved up to meet me on that particular day in the cell
10 in this building for the purposes of getting him to know me,
11 connecting me, the government informant with the other guy. I
12 believe that nothing was done for four days. And I believe that
13 at some point Ryan Lund got a phone call or letter, probably a
14 phone call -- actually made a phone call outside to his -- I
15 don't know what they call that? -- a handler, a government
16 connection between an informant and a --
17 Q. The case agent who is responsible for him?
18 A. It might have -- it might have been. Not being really
19 familiar with how the agents do their job, I would assume that
20 he would have been the person to contact, Ryan Lund. But, of
21 course, I know that government's a big organization. They have
22 thousands and thousands of people.
23 Q. So you felt that he had contacted someone, and you didn't
24 know who at that point, but now you're telling me that you think
25 it was Mike McNall.
624
1 A. Yeah.
2 Q. Okay. So tell us the rest -- let me hear, for the jury's
3 sake, the rest of your hypothesis that you are trying to prove.
4 A. Well, I had a -- again, I had a theory that on November
5 25th, Ryan Lund had made a call based on prearrangement -- an
6 informant, of course, is probably given a way of contacting his
7 -- the people who are running him, and I think he did make the
8 call and I think he talked to somebody. And that somebody, I
9 believe, even though this recording was almost certainly not
10 recorded, I believe that person said something like, there's a
11 felon inmate there and we would like you to have him -- or we
12 would like -- we would like this guy put in the hole. Okay? In
13 solitary confinement. That will make us very happy, Mr. Lund.
14 Understood? And, of course, Lund would say, sure. And Lund, of
15 course, knowing the policy of SeaTac Federal Detention Center,
16 he knew that if there was any kind of, well, altercation, fight,
17 assault, whatever, he knew that were he to start that, both he
18 and I would immediately be directed straight to the hole, which
19 in fact is what happened.
20 Q. You testified to that aspect of it, but what is the rest of
21 the hypothesis? Where does the connection between Gordon and
22 McNall fit in?
23 A. Well, since they are both Department of Treasury, the ATF
24 and the IRS, or whatever the organization currently is, I
25 figured that they were working together. Jeff Gordon had a task
625
1 to do and Mike McNall had an informant that he -- or the BATF
2 had an informant they were running. And informants are at least
3 fairly numerous, but if a government person wants something to
4 happen in a prison or something, they have to find, I guess, an
5 inmate that is positioned, you might say, to do that job. And
6 it's possible that the IRS did not have somebody, per se, in
7 SeaTac FDC ready, willing, and able to do that, but BATF had a
8 guy who was just ready to be -- or who could be arrested at a
9 moment's notice down in -- near Eugene, Oregon, and brought up
10 to handle a task that they wanted to accomplish.
11 Q. Now, are you saying that Jeff Gordon had somehow or another
12 asked Mike McNall to have his informant do this? Is that the
13 theory?
14 A. Whether it was -- I mean, whether it was Jeff Gordon
15 personally or one of many other of his associates -- well,
16 frankly, again, I was in jail at the time. I don't have
17 personal knowledge of their communication 150 miles away in
18 Portland, Oregon. But I believe that in general it was those
19 organizations which were interested in having me put in the hole
20 for purposes of keeping me away from the telephone, my attorney,
21 calling home, that kind of thing, because there's virtually no
22 phones in the hole you can get except once a week. In regular
23 population in this jail you can call almost any time you want.
24 Except, of course, at nighttime or when you are locked down.
25 Q. Mr. Bell, if the government, if the government agent, Mr.
626
1 Gordon, was distressed, because apparently, according to you,
2 the government had offered you a better deal than he wanted you
3 to receive, what would be his interest in having you go through
4 with the plea agreement when, if you just revoked it, then you
5 would get more time?
6 A. That's a good question. I hope -- I think I have a
7 satisfactory answer for that, I hope.
8 The deal they offered was apparently all they could get, and
9 based on what I believe subsequently, or I have learned
10 subsequently, I believe that they couldn't afford to have a
11 trial in this case because they were using undercover evidence
12 that they didn't want to expose.
13 You see, let me explain. Sometimes you might learn
14 something that you might be able to use but you don't want to
15 admit having gotten the information in the first place. For
16 example, you know, 40 years ago Martin Luther King's bedroom was
17 bugged by the FBI or something. Well, what if they heard that a
18 murder occurred in the bedroom by two totally unrelated people?
19 Are they going to admit that they bugged Martin Luther Kings'
20 bedroom and expose their entire bugging operation to thousands
21 of Americans or hundreds of Americans at the time just to
22 prosecute a murder? Probably not. And my theory here is that
23 they couldn't -- at the time they couldn't -- they couldn't
24 afford prosecution because they had surreptitious evidence taken
25 and they knew that all they could do is have a deal, and they
627
1 didn't want to go back and have a trial.
2 Q. So you felt that you were the subject of illegal
3 surveillance because of what reason?
4 A. Well, that's certainly a different -- okay. The first --
5 well, the first -- well, I thought it was illegal surveillance
6 when Steve Wilson was bugging me and the common law court. The
7 next, and, frankly, outrageous example of surveillance was in
8 the days between, I think, the third Thursday of June -- excuse
9 me -- June 1998 and Fathers' -- or Fathers' Day Sunday, which is
10 June 22nd, 1998.
11 Q. All right.
12 A. This was two-and-a-half months after I had first -- had
13 gotten out of prison on the original charge. I was on
14 probation.
15 Q. Why were they -- why were they expending res- -- what was
16 your theory as to why they were expending these resources on
17 you, or did you feel that this was just something that the
18 government did as a matter of course?
19 A. At the time I, I really didn't know. At the moment it
20 happened, I didn't know why they were doing what they were
21 doing. They were -- they were following me and some of my
22 family members around Vancouver, Washington. There was an
23 instance where I had gone to a very small libertarian group
24 meeting at a place called Smokey's Pizza in a place called
25 Orchards, Washington, which is a little bit northeast of
628
1 Vancouver. It was the third Thursday of June. It was seven
2 o'clock, and I was at the meeting with other people, and --
3 yeah. And I had gone there by way of bus. I didn't have a car,
4 of course. And during the last leg of the bus trip, there was
5 this bald man who was on the trip as well. He was -- he looked
6 rather interesting. I mean, in terms of what I thought he was.
7 About four or five hundred yards before the bus even got
8 where -- to Smokey's Pizza in Orchards, he stood up from
9 across -- diagonally across, and he walked over to the bus
10 driver, and I was sitting right beside the bus driver, and he
11 said to the bus driver, "Where -- can you tell me where Smokey's
12 Pizza is?"
13 Okay. We were on a bus, on the last leg of the journey.
14 Why was he going to Smokey's Pizza? And he was 400 yards away
15 and he didn't know where Smokey's Pizza was. Most people have
16 cars, I didn't. Most people don't go to places by bus if they
17 don't know where they are, you understand? You know, you do not
18 take a bus to a place you don't know where it is. This guy was
19 standing up in front of me asking the guy, where is Smokey's
20 Pizza, my destination.
21 Q. So you felt he was some kind -- this was some kind of effort
22 to alert you to something or to -- or the man had inadvertently
23 said something he shouldn't, or what did you think?
24 A. No, I don't think he in- -- he didn't do it for purposes of
25 alerting me. I -- or -- I don't think it was inadvertently
629
1 said. I think the purpose of this was this. Let me explain.
2 He, of course, if he was who I eventually believe he was, he
3 doesn't want to make it look like he was following me. Do you
4 understand? If you're going in a relatively rural area with a
5 bus and one person gets off and the other -- another person
6 follows, guess what happens? The person who goes off first
7 thinks, or I'm thinking, I'm being followed. Well, he obviously
8 wanted to get off, or eventually at the time he got off at the
9 same stop I did. But he probably wanted to be able to sort of
10 show me that he knew he wanted to get off at Smokey's Pizza
11 before I demonstrated I wanted to get off at Smokey's Pizza.
12 Q. How would he have known that you were going to Smokey's
13 Pizza?
14 A. Well, if he was a government agent who was assigned to
15 follow me, the reason he knew was because this was a group of
16 libertarians, that we had literally been meeting together for
17 ten years. Very small, close -- I shouldn't say close knit.
18 With respect to this meeting, was very close knit. We rarely
19 got anybody other than those four or five people, or families
20 of people. Sometimes, but very rarely.
21 So when -- excuse me. So we just didn't often get that. An
22 extra person.
23 Q. Is this before or after Steve Wilson met you at that
24 location?
25 A. Oh, that was a year. The incident I just described is a
630
1 year -- about a year after Steve Wilson met me at -- I believe
2 we haven't mentioned the Steve Wilson --
3 Q. Didn't you say that he did -- at one point did you say that
4 he met you at Smokey's Pizza?
5 A. Well, the common law court meeting was at a place called
6 Stark Street Pizza in Portland.
7 Q. Okay.
8 A. The Smoke -- the Smokey's Pizza was in Orchards, Oregon --
9 or Orchards, Washington, and he -- and Steve Wilson also met me
10 at Orchards, Washington --
11 Q. My question to you is, is this before or after he had met
12 you there?
13 A. The -- the -- the man following me on the bus was June of
14 '98. The Steve Wilson thing there was a year earlier. More
15 than a year earlier, actually. May of '97.
16 Q. So you felt that this man was conducting surveillance of
17 you.
18 A. I believe so, because if he was following me, he had to have
19 been following me for a reason, and presumably he's not just
20 there to look at me. He was there to do something in addition
21 to that. But at the time, when -- when he and I left the bus, I
22 didn't know for sure -- I felt fairly confident that he was
23 following me at that point. The very fact that he would say,
24 "Where is Smokey's Pizza?" immediately --
25 Q. Okay.
631
1 A. -- said this guy doesn't know where he's going. I said,
2 that's weird.
3 Q. Now, let's move ahead a little bit. You have this theory
4 that you believe -- you truly believe this. You truly believe
5 the government has been engaged in a pattern of illegal behavior
6 towards you for several years at this point, by the time you are
7 released from prison in April of 2000.
8 A. Oh, well --
9 Q. You firmly -- you firmly believe that to be true?
10 A. They are probably arguing --
11 Q. I'm not asking you what they believe.
12 A. Okay.
13 Q. I'm asking you what you believe.
14 A. There has been a substantial amount, I believe, of illegal
15 activity, illegal surveillance, including the Ryan Lund assault,
16 some threats previous to the Ryan Lund assault at Pierce County
17 Jail and Kitsap County Jail in '97, and surveillance, illegal
18 surveillance in other ways.
19 Q. And you believed that your home was under surveillance from
20 next door neighbors.
21 A. As odd as it may sound, I believe that.
22 Q. You believed that your -- that when you were driving with
23 John Copp, he testified that your -- that his car was being
24 watched, followed by an airplane.
25 A. Yes. And, in fact, I have a -- an exhibit here that I have
632
1 drawn up over lunch that describes -- which I can describe the
2 route we took and what we saw, and so forth and so on. But,
3 yes.
4 Q. And John Copp testified to why he thought that the two of
5 you were under surveillance, also, didn't he?
6 A. Yes, that's right. That's what he said. He was convinced
7 that we were under surveillance. He was the person, actually,
8 who first spotted the airplane that night. The sky was black,
9 the airplane had lights on.
10 Q. What I'm saying is, but when you were released in April of
11 2000 from prison, you, personally, Jim Bell, were convinced that
12 the government had engaged in a pattern of illegal activity and
13 illegal surveillance -- maybe legal, also -- of you, but that
14 they were watching you and that there was a coordinated effort
15 to cover up the fact that you had been assaulted at the
16 directions of a government agent.
17 A. I was and am absolutely convinced of it, totally and
18 completely.
19 Q. Now, if you believe that to be so, what was your reason for
20 trying to personally contact Jeff Gordon at his home rather than
21 anyplace else?
22 A. Well, I was actually threatened with arrest through another
23 attorney, a Mr. Solovy who represents -- who represented me.
24 Q. Is that the same Mr. Solovy who we saw that fax where you
25 wrote that note on it?
633
1 A. I don't think it was a fax, but, yes, I wrote -- it was a
2 letter to Mr. Solovy, my attorney, and I had written the letter,
3 and I believe I had faxed it to him and I kept the original.
4 Yes, that Mr. Solovy.
5 Q. Okay. So -- okay. So my question to you is, why were you
6 wanting to contact Jeff -- first of all, why were you trying to
7 find out where Jeff Gordon lived, and then why were you trying
8 to contact him at his home?
9 A. Well, I believe that this illegal activity has been going on
10 since -- again, certainly since Steve Wilson infiltrated the
11 Multnomah County Common Law Court, and many other instances. I
12 thought that Jeff Gordon either was personally responsible for
13 this or in fact was one of many government agents who were a
14 part of this activity, that he certainly should have -- would
15 have or should have known about this, and I wanted to talk to
16 him. And I also wanted to talk to Mike McNall, who appeared to
17 me to be the case agent for Ryan Lund, because he was the one
18 who participated in the search of Ryan Lund's house on July 2nd,
19 1997. He was the one who wrote up the application for the
20 search warrant a couple days earlier. He was the one -- well,
21 he -- the paperwork in the case showed that he was the main
22 federal agent associated with that case and Mike McNall.
23 Q. Well, why would speaking to him at his home be any more
24 effective than either talking to him on the phone or talking to
25 him at his office?
634
1 A. I believed that it's conceivable -- more than conceivable --
2 that the communication between Mike -- or between Ryan Lund and
3 whoever asked him to put me in the hole, occurred -- one person
4 talking to another person over a phone that might not have been
5 monitored or recorded. In other words, quite literally there
6 would be no evidence of the fact that somebody called Ryan Lund
7 -- or excuse me -- Ryan Lund called somebody. You can't call
8 into the jail. And I thought that -- I thought that Mike McNall
9 would know who it is or he would know who contacted -- who was
10 contacted by Ryan Lund.
11 Why I wanted to go to him personally at his residence?
12 Well, if there was illegal activity going on, that I suspected
13 for a number of -- for a few years, it's possible that it was
14 either a rogue operation or a few people who just sort of got
15 together and did things. And if I were to have visited him at
16 the official office, everybody else around him would be alerted
17 that Jim Bell was talking to Mike McNall, and Mike McNall might
18 not be willing to tell me something that he might be, well,
19 willing to tell me if nobody else was around. And if I were to
20 call into the agency and say, "My name is Jim Bell. I would
21 like to talk to Mike McNall," that, of course, would be a red
22 flag. And if Mike McNall wasn't the person who was responsible
23 for Lund's activities, calling in for him would be literally
24 pointless.
25 Q. Did you ever try?
635
1 A. No, I didn't.
2 Q. So how do you know it would have been pointless?
3 A. My assessment of the situation, I concluded that. I knew
4 that if I tried, the moment I tried it would wave a red flag,
5 and once you have waved a red flag, you can't unwave the flag.
6 I didn't --
7 Q. Could you call from a pay phone and use a phony name?
8 A. Could I? Well, in hindsight, I suppose I could, but it
9 could be -- it could be that those lines are monitored at his
10 organization, and it's possible that I would -- that in asking
11 him the question, somebody else in his organization would also
12 find out that -- and, well, that he was being contacted about
13 Ryan Lund. And, in addition, even if I said, I asked about Ryan
14 Lund, that itself would raise some warning flag, particularly if
15 Ryan Lund was in fact what I thought, a government informer.
16 They get very touchy about their own informers, I suspect. And
17 they're not going to ask -- answer questions about their
18 informers.
19 He may have been an informant -- correction. He might be an
20 informant doing something for the government and he just
21 assaulted me as an extra little thing that he did one day. He
22 was -- may have had a bigger fish to fry somewhere else. But
23 somebody who said, oh, we need -- or somebody said, we need Bell
24 in the hole. Lund is convenient, let's ask him.
25 Q. So are you saying that the real purpose of all of this was
636
1 to show that Ryan Lund had done this at the direction of someone
2 else; that was really what you were trying to prove?
3 A. That's true. And also potentially to identify, if possible,
4 the person responsible.
5 Q. Okay. But when you went to -- now, turning to Scott
6 Mueller. Scott Mueller was a name that you -- you knew it as a
7 different name originally. It came to you from John Young, is
8 that correct?
9 A. Yes. Let me explain. The Mueller thing has literally
10 nothing to do with the -- any of the other stuff in this case.
11 I subscribe to an area called Crypherpunks, which I believe has
12 been discussed. It's an Internet mailing list. Messages come
13 in and I can respond. We do favors for each other. We will ask
14 questions, ask for information, check out information,
15 whatever. One day a message appeared on the Cypherpunks list
16 from a person named John Young, a person who I had never
17 physically met. I had never called him up.
18 Q. Did you know of him?
19 A. Oh, yes, I knew, because he was another person who posted or
20 was interested in the Cypherpunks list. I knew him as a
21 subscriber, of course.
22 Q. Did you know what his -- did you know that he had this
23 philosophy that there should be no such thing as government
24 secrets?
25 A. I really -- generally speaking, yes. He ran a site which
637
1 clearly indicated that -- that he wouldn't have run if he didn't
2 believe what you just said.
3 Q. And that he also believed that the names of government
4 operatives and their personal addresses should be posted on the
5 Internet?
6 A. Yes. In fact, I seem to recall, one of the things that was
7 posted on his site was something that came from a -- I don't
8 know -- a Japanese secret service or Japanese version of the
9 CIA, a list of a hundred of their alleged operatives. It was
10 posted on his site. I don't recall where he got it. Basically
11 it was like outing a hundred members of the Japanese version of
12 the CIA. That's all in a day's work for, I guess, for people
13 like Mr. Young.
14 Q. Did you assist him in this, in this belief he had by going
15 to Mr. Mueller's residence and putting where he lived, the
16 vehicles that he had, the friends that he had, the license
17 plates and his telephone number? Weren't you assisting him in
18 doing that?
19 A. Well, he didn't request assistance, and I -- and frankly, I
20 didn't even offer assistance. I simply took the information
21 that he had posted, a single page, which I believe has been
22 entered into evidence in the prosecution, and I took that
23 information, and I happened to have an Oregon DMV database --
24 actually a number of them -- and I looked through that Oregon
25 DMV database for the name that, according to the file that Mr.
638
1 -- I guess Mr. Young -- understand, when something appears on
2 the list that says, let's say, John Young, I can't know who
3 actually sent it. Although the first, first approximation, I
4 would assume it's John Young.
5 Excuse me.
6 I took that name and I ran it through. I looked through the
7 Oregon DMV list. The first search I did is, the name was
8 Deforest X. Mueller. That's all it said, Deforest X. Mueller.
9 I said, well, gee, Deforest is a rare name, so -- relatively, so
10 I searched the Oregon DMV database for every Deforest that
11 appeared in -- as a registered owner of a vehicle or as a
12 license plate owner, you know, registered -- a registered driver
13 or registered vehicle owner.
14 Q. For the sake of time, Mr. Bell, let's skip by all of the
15 exhausting things you did. What was your ultimate conclusion by
16 running all of these different databases, spending hours and
17 hours and hours of researching?
18 A. Well, it wasn't all --
19 Q. What was your --
20 A. The Mueller thing was simply to verify the truth or the
21 falsity, not to vari -- to gather information as to the truth or
22 falsity of the theory that maybe this guy had something to do
23 with the CIA. I found a few things which made it rather
24 substantially more interesting than it started out being.
25 Q. Okay. So there were anomalies and curiosities that made you
639
1 think, maybe in fact he is a CIA operative?
2 A. Possibly. I thought he might have been possibly a very
3 low-level CIA employee. I don't mean somebody who's a spy or
4 anything. I just mean a local guy who just --
5 Q. Well, you didn't know. He could have been, for that matter,
6 the deputy director of the CIA, for all you knew.
7 A. Well, I wouldn't think they would put him in Bend, Oregon,
8 but --
9 Q. But you really didn't know.
10 A. That's true. I had -- and, of course, I'm fully aware, and
11 I have been for years, of course, that literally anything can be
12 typed into a computer. You could put a message that says Jim
13 Bell, CIA Director. Insert whatever name you wanted. People
14 can type anything they want. The existence of that name on --
15 in that database is by no means proof of the truth of the
16 allegation. The only thing I recall hearing or reading in the
17 message was that the database came from a governmental
18 organization, I believe called ISTAC -- I-S-T-A-C. It's an
19 acronym that I don't know, or don't know what it stands for. So
20 it was a government database that listed this guy, the name.
21 Q. Did you confirm that?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Did you rely on the fact that John Young had typed it on the
24 Internet?
25 A. Well, it didn't -- I didn't know whether a person
640
1 specifically named John Young typed it. The message simply
2 appeared in a name that sounded familiar -- or was familiar,
3 John Young.
4 Q. And you accepted it as true?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Well, you --
7 A. I asked a whole lot -- let me explain. Let me be completely
8 accurate here.
9 For the purposes -- I accepted that, the assertion that this
10 information was collected from the government, open -- perfectly
11 open database, and that it said what it was printed out to say.
12 As for whether or not the information of that printout was
13 actually correct, no, I didn't accept it as being true. I -- it
14 was, as far as I was concerned, it was a mystery. At that point
15 it was a mystery.
16 I don't know if any of you have ever gone to Bend? Maybe
17 you haven't, but I -- I went to Bend many times in the mid '80s
18 for caving purposes, for spelunking. I hadn't been to Bend for
19 ten years. And Bend is not the kind of place that I would
20 suspect them to put a federal government agency.
21 Now, John Young wouldn't have known what Bend, Oregon, was.
22 I knew it as, ten years ago, as a small town. So it was a
23 mystery why anybody would be listed with a little initial cia
24 and a name and an address in Bend, Oregon. It didn't make
25 sense.
641
1 Q. So ultimately you went to Bend, Oregon, and took photographs
2 of this house.
3 A. Yes. But the reason -- the reason I actually went, as
4 opposed to what I had initially done, go through the database,
5 is I found very interesting and curious inconsistencies and
6 problems, well, with the data that came through. Let me give
7 you an example. The name --
8 Q. Let me just ask you, did the databases that you were
9 accessing in the Internet, you were accessing, were you hacking
10 into computers or was this publicly accessible information?
11 A. Oh, absolutely publicly accessible. I did access a number
12 of sites that drew maps. If any of you know the Internet, you
13 know there are various sites that will allow you to type in an
14 address, and it will print out a map for you, full color with
15 roads and everything. Well, they are publicly available, free.
16 Anyone of you can access it. It's just like -- it's like being
17 able to have a map of the entire United States, just by typing
18 it in the computer. It's publicly accessible.
19 I didn't -- you know, despite the fact that I'm somewhat of
20 a -- I'm sort of a computer nerd, I have never even attempted to
21 try to get into any computer system illegally in my entire
22 life. And the only time I inadvertently got into somebody's
23 account, about 23 years ago at MIT, the only reason I got in
24 inadvertently is because the system had been mistakenly
25 programmed, so when the guy hung up without logging off, the
642
1 next guy, who I was, called in, I got logged in under his name.
2 I found that out, and I immediately logged out. That was an
3 inadvertent thing, 23 years ago, I guess, probably.
4 Q. So you're not a hacker?
5 A. Well, you're raising a -- I'm sorry, you sort of hit a hot
6 bud here.
7 When I went to MIT, the term "hacker" referred to anybody
8 who is expert in anything. That's because --
9 Q. As the term is used today.
10 A. Well, as the term is misused today, tends to use -- to refer
11 pejoratively to somebody who likes to break into computer
12 systems and erase data and modify things, do bad things. The
13 term "cracker" is, because they crack the system, they break
14 into it, that's sort of the preferred term on the Internet now.
15 Those are -- crackers are the people who like to do illegal
16 things. Hacker, I would like to think -- unfortunately, because
17 of its abuse, its hard to say -- is sort of just simply a
18 general purpose term for a person who is familiar with the
19 concept and the technology.
20 Q. Have you -- in your search of Mr. Mueller or any of these
21 searches that you did in connection with the matters that you
22 are on trial on, did you go into any computers that required
23 passwords and log ons which weren't appropriate for you to do
24 so?
25 A. Oh, I've never done anything like that.
643
1 Q. So this is all publicly accessible information?
2 A. Yes, it is, publicly available.
3 Q. So as a result of all of your searches, maps, checking, DMV,
4 you ultimately determined, or at least felt, that this gentleman
5 was actually a CIA operative?
6 A. No. Because all -- well, what I had determined through the
7 database search was there are inconsistencies in the name, the
8 domain Deforest X. Mueller, which is as it appeared in the
9 message claiming to be from ISTAC. And I found a -- the name in
10 the database, the DMV, was Scott Deforest Mueller, not Deforest
11 X. Mueller; Scott Deforest. In other words, the guy had sort of
12 slightly modified -- or I assumed he had -- sort of slightly
13 modified the name. A different first name, of course, and
14 shifted the -- or the middle name was shifted to the first, and
15 the X was added. And so -- and that seemed rather odd to me.
16 It seemed vaguely like you might expect a very low-level CIA
17 person to do.
18 In addition, I found a car registered in the database for a
19 Deforest Scott Mueller. Not Scott Deforest Mueller. And that
20 reversal of the first and the second names looked odd, again.
21 In addition, in the same -- at the same address that Mr.
22 Mueller was at, there was a guy -- listed a person, John Ashe
23 and, I believe, an Anna Ashe. And they were at the same
24 address -- same address during, I guess, the same year, but it
25 wasn't clear if they were the same or different people. And at
644
1 one point I thought, well, maybe that's an alias or something.
2 Q. Would it be fair to say that you spent tens, if not
3 hundreds, of hours on this project, including traveling to Bend
4 to check out your various suspicions?
5 A. No. On the computer, probably only about two to three
6 hours.
7 Q. Okay.
8 A. As to driving to Bend, that -- that was a -- that was mostly
9 a sight-seeing trip, and I could -- I would have done that
10 anyway. I mean, I have a long history with John Copp of just
11 driving out in the wilderness, in the boonies. We've done that
12 for years. Literally drive 50 or 100 miles and camp or -- on
13 forest roads, if you have driven on forest roads. We do that.
14 That's one of the things we do. And driving to Bend, I guess,
15 is a hundred miles away or -- that's, to him, he likes to
16 drive. He's been a cab driver in the past and he's been a cop
17 in the past, and he drives for fun, really. So going to Bend --
18 Q. As a result of all that, though, there was an email where
19 you sent back to John Young that you have "outed" Scott Mueller,
20 or Deforest X. Mueller, or whatever various names he has, and
21 sent back all of this personal information about him which was
22 then posted on a website.
23 A. Well, I concluded from all the different discrepancies, and
24 there were a number of different discrepancies, that made it
25 look like a genuine -- like a genuine name, Scott Deforest
645
1 Mueller, had been changed in so many different ways and adjusted
2 and -- and the name of the Anna Ashe and John Ashe, I concluded
3 that some very low-level government person was making these word
4 games or name games in his business or his life, and that it
5 probably was somebody who wanted a certain level of security or
6 privacy, and it may have been a very -- a very, very low-level
7 employee of some agency, possibly the CIA. I -- that was one
8 possibility. I didn't know for sure. And that's what -- it was
9 the discrepancies that got me curious enough to want me -- to
10 want to go to Bend, Oregon. In addition, I wanted to sightsee
11 Bend, Oregon, as I hadn't been there for ten years, and I wanted
12 to see how Bend, Oregon, had built up over the years.
13 Q. You heard him testify he doesn't work for the CIA and he's a
14 real estate broker. So at this --
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. -- point do you think that he's lying or do you think he
17 works for the CIA?
18 A. I think he's probably telling the truth.
19 Q. So you were wrong.
20 A. Well, in saying -- well --
21 Q. You were mistaken?
22 A. The one thing that I said, of all the email exchanges
23 saying, quote, something like I "outed" the CIA guy, that
24 conclusion, which at that point was really only preliminary,
25 appears to be wrong. But if you look at the way I worded all of
646
1 my searching, I didn't conclude the truth of the original
2 assertion, I merely tried to collect data to verify and to show
3 the inconsistencies and to basically figure out what really went
4 on, why -- or what's going on, who's there, what's happening.
5 Q. Do you feel you acted irresponsible?
6 THE COURT: That's enough, counsel. The jury is going
7 to go home.
8 Please do not discuss the case over the weekend among
9 yourselves or with anyone else. 9:30 Monday morning.
10 (Jury excused; 4:30 p.m.)
11 THE COURT: Nobody is to leave the courtroom until the
12 jury has cleared the corridor.
13 Anything to take up?
14 MR. LEEN: No, Your Honor.
15 MR. LONDON: No, Your Honor.
16 MR. LEEN: Oh, Your Honor, one matter.
17 THE WITNESS: Discovery notes.
18 MR. LEEN: There is one matter.
19 Your Honor, we would need, for Mr. Bell to be able to have
20 his discovery notes, which are in the counselor's office at FDC
21 pursuant to the court's order, we would need another court order
22 allowing Mr. -- allowing his counselor to give the notes to the
23 marshal so that he can bring them to court.
24 THE COURT: What notes?
25 MR. LEEN: Mr. Bell's notes of the discovery that he
647
1 reviewed in the counselor's office. The court entered an order
2 saying that Mr. Bell could review discovery in the counselor's
3 office at FDC and could take notes when he was in the
4 counselor's office, but he was not allowed to bring the
5 discovery or his notes back to the cell with him. And when he
6 wanted to bring them to court, he was told by his counselor
7 there needed to be a court order authorizing her to release
8 those to the marshals so they could be brought to court for his
9 review.
10 THE COURT: There is not going to be a court order.
11 MR. LEEN: The defendant does need those notes, Your
12 Honor, to assist in his testimony.
13 THE COURT: There will not be a court order.
14 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
15 MR. LONDON: Does he -- may I ask for clarification?
16 Does he have access to his notes when he's at SeaTac?
17 THE DEFENDANT: No.
18 MR. LONDON: When he's at SeaTac, at the FDC, can he go
19 in that room --
20 MR. LEEN: When he's in the counselor's office he has
21 access to his notes.
22 THE DEFENDANT: No. No, I actually don't.
23 MR. LEEN: Okay.
24 THE DEFENDANT: They're else -- I sealed them in an
25 envelope with the discovery that I looked at to generate the
648
1 notes, but I do not have access to that material, and I haven't
2 since I last looked at that discovery material approximately a
3 week ago.
4 MR. LEEN: Mr. Bell, if you ask the counselor to see
5 your notes when you went to the room, would she let you see
6 them?
7 THE DEFENDANT: The counselor is not frequently there.
8 I couldn't -- most of the time I couldn't even ask her for it
9 anyway. It is very unlikely -- she probably is not going to be
10 there on the weekend.
11 MR. LEEN: She doesn't work there on the weekend, I
12 would indicate, Your Honor. She works Monday through Friday. I
13 just was clarifying that point.
14 THE COURT: I will tell you one more time, there will
15 not be a court order. At this time.
16 MR. LEEN: Yes, sir.
17 Have a nice weekend, Your Honor.
18 THE COURT: Anything else to take up?
19 MR. LONDON: No, Your Honor. It is late. I don't know
20 if this is a time for Mr. Leen and I to do an instructions
21 conference with the court, but we could do that Monday morning
22 as easily.
23 THE COURT: Well, the instructions, if we ever finish
24 the testimony, other than the one that says he has a
25 constitutional right not to testify, will stand as they are.
649
1 MR. LONDON: Well, Mr. Leen has a couple of objections.
2 THE COURT: I haven't heard anything to the contrary.
3 MR. LONDON: Well, pretrial Mr. Leen filed some
4 objections to two of our instructions. I have since looked at
5 those instructions and am prepared and willing to make some
6 modifications in them that I think are acceptable.
7 THE COURT: Well, bring them up when you -- does the
8 court have them?
9 MR. LONDON: Not yet. I will -- you know, now that
10 we're going over the weekend, I can alter them myself. I will
11 bring them Monday.
12 THE COURT: That's all.
13 MR. LEEN: Your Honor, I -- nothing more. 9:30 Monday
14 morning?
15 THE COURT: That's when we will be here.
16 Court's in recess.
17 (Recessed at 4:35 p.m.)
18
19 C E R T I F I C A T E
20 I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from
21 the record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter.
22
23
24 ________________________________ October 22, 2001
JULAINE V. RYEN Date
25
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