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James Dalton Bell (born 1958) is an American crypto-anarchist who created the idea of arranging for anonymously-sponsored assassination payments via the Internet, which he called "assassination politics". Bell attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a degree in chemistry and lived in Vancouver, Washington until his arrest and imprisonment by the United States federal government. Bell, an electronic engineer was arrested in 1989 for illegally manufacturing methamphetamine, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of failing to report receiving a controlled chemical. Bell later involved himself with a common law court in Portland which put government officials on trial in absentia and awarded judgements.

Bell had been involved in a tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (who adjudged that he owed $30,000), and came up with the idea of using digital signatures on electronic mail to create a dead pool game, "predicting" the deaths of IRS agents and other government employees. In effect, the idea would create an incentive for assassination of these agents, creating a "prize" that could be "won" by someone willing to submit an entry "predicting" a given agent's death at a particular time. The person could then kill the agent at about that time, thus winning the pool money. The purpose was to intimidate the IRS agents and others into no longer enforcing tax rulings and tax and other laws.

Bell published his idea in a ten-part essay on the alt.anarchism USENET newsgroup; most responses were negative. The IRS raided Bell's parents home on April Fool's Day, 1997 and seized three semi-automatic assault rifles, a handgun, several computers containing indecipherable encrypted data, as well as dangerous chemicals including sodium cyanide and an alleged [[nerve-gas precursor (Bell had previously boasted of producing sarin of the type used in the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway ). He was subsequently arrested in May of that year, and in July pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction of IRS agents, collecting the names and home addresses of IRS employees, use of a false Social Security number, and also admitted responsibility for conducting a stinkbomb attack in the Vancouver IRS office, and for the assassination market scheme. During the trial, the government's lead investigator compared Bell with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and anarcho-primitivist bomber Theodore Kaczynski. He was sentenced to eleven months in prison followed by three years of probation. After release, he was rearrested and sent back to prison for violations of terms of his probation.

Citations

1. ^ Painter Jr., John. " IRS says suspect discussed sabotage". The Oregonian, 1997-05-20, Metro Section P-1.
2. McCullagh, Declan (2000-11-11). "Crypto-Convict Won't Recant". Politics : Law. Wired. Retrieved 2007-11-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
3. ^ Kaplan, David E. "Terrorism's next wave", U.S. News Online, November 17, 1997
4. ^ "Judge Delays Bell's Sentencing", The Columbian, 1997-11-21, Section A
5. "Activist Bell Faces Sentencing Friday", The Columbian, 1997-11-20, Section B.
6. McCullagh, Declan (2000-11-11). "IRS Raids Cypherpunk's House" (news report). Politics : Law. Wired. Retrieved 2007-11-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

• Jim Bell Files - archive of news articles, essays, and other information on Jim Bell and his essays

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