Future Lawsuit.
To those who wonder how things might play out in the future, rest assured that
they should be handled quite well. What I intend to eventually do is to file a
lawsuit for an injunction, enjoining law enforcement people from acting against
either Jim Bell Project researchers, or even those who might eventually
implement an AP-type system. In America, and presumably other nations as
well, people who have a reasonable belief that their actions aren't in
violation of the law, but also believe that they will be subject to improper
'legal' action, are entitled to bring legal cases in court to shut down this
action before it occurs. I anticipate that such a lawsuit will be first filed
in American courts, probably Federal. (Mostly because I learned a great detail
of Federal law while in prison.) But, I hope to get a professional attorney to
do the research for the action, and writing it.
This will be a major advantage: Cops (term used in general) no doubt want to
rush in, acting as heroes, stopping the 'villain' in action. Naturally, that
must be avoided. Instead, a lawsuit can be used to force such government
agencies into court, and make them make their best case to prove that some
hypothetical, future implementation of an AP system will necessarily be
illegal. Instead of letting them wait for the time they are waiting for, they
should be made to defend their case at the point where it will be the weakest,
rather than the strongest moment.
My AP essay anticipated, and intended, that illegality (if it is committed by
anyone at all) will only be committed by unknown people, location unknown,
acting presumably alone, not directly connected with the AP-type organization,
nor acting in coordination with others who have previously donated to the
system. Somebody will make a guess, perhaps it will come true, but nobody else
needs to know who did that. This compartmentalization is intended to protect
the rest from the knowledge of, or liability for, the actions of those unknown
guessors, the ones who eventually guess the name and date of demise of an
unpopular named person. These actions do not have to act in one specific
country; in fact, they could be spread out over the entire globe. (See
Ethereum and Augur, to see how a computer program can be distributed around the
world.)
While the 'burden of proof' to obtain an injunction will still be with the
plaintiff bringing the suit, nevertheless the defendants (Federal and possibly
state law enforcement people) will nevertheless have to make their best case
against a system they won't like, but in fact won't yet be defined in detail.
Their objections will used against them, then and later, when and where
possible, making it clear that they cannot prove that some hypothetical (or
concrete) AP-type plan would necessarily be illegal. At most, I anticipate
that they will claim that somebody might, somewhere, commit a crime. The fact
that various forms of insurance legally exist, as well as gambling (legal in
some regions) will tend to show that the organization is entitled to exist and
interact with the public.
Jim Bell
