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Communiques Ted Kaczynski sent when he was at large as "F.C." or "Freedom Club." "Letter to Scientific American" was published in Ted Kaczynski's 2010 book Technological Slavery.
1. Letter to San Francisco Examiner (1985)
To the San Francisco Examiner:
The bomb that crippled the right arm of a graduate student in electrical engineering and damaged a computer lab at U. of Cal. Berkeley last May was planted by a terrorist group called Freedom Club. We are also responsible for some earlier bombing attempts; among others, the bomb that injured a professor in the computer science building at U. of Cal., the mail bomb that injured the secretary of computer expert Patrick Fischer at Vanderbilt University 3 1/2 years ago, and the fire bomb planted at the Business School at the U. of Utah, which never went off. We have nothing against academics as such. We could have attacked businessmen or scientists working for private corporations. But academics are easy targets because anyone can walk into college buildings without being questioned, and academics are less likely to be suspicious of a package received in the mail than someone in the business world would be.
We have waited until now to announce ourselves because our earlier bombs were embarrassingly ineffectual. The injuries they inflicted were relatively minor. In order to influence people, a terrorist group must show a certain amount of success. When we finally realized that the amount of smokeless powder needed to blow up anyone or anything was too large to be practical, we decided to take a couple of years off to learn something about explosive and develop an effective bomb.
First, we had to learn some basic physics, chemistry and mathematics, since none of us had any scientific background to start with. Then we had to go through some time-consuming experiments. That we now have an effective bomb is shown by what we did to that electrical engineer's arm with less than two ounces of explosive. He would have been killed if he had been standing so as to take the fragments in the body instead of the arm. You can imagine what we will be able to do when we have worked out ways to use this explosive in larger quantities, say ten, twenty five or fifty pounds. We hope those computer freaks over at the university like fireworks, cause they are going to see some good ones.
To prove that we are the ones who planted to bomb at U. of Cal. last May, we will mention a few details that could be known only to us and the FBI men who investigated the incident. The explosive was contained in an iron pipe of nominal ¾ inch (actually about 13/16 inch) inside diameter. The ends of the pipe were closed with iron plugs secured with iron pins, of 5/16 inch diameter. One of the plugs had the letters FC (for Freedom Club) marked on it. (There was a metal disc attached to the plug to help assure a good seal. If this was not blown off it would be necessary to remove it in order to see the letters FC.) The bomb was ignited by electricity passing through a fine steel filament. The load-wires passing through the plug to the filament were 18 gauge with green insulation. The rest of the wiring was 16 gauge with flesh covered insulation. Six Duracell size D batteries were used. This should be enough to prove that we planted the bomb.
We enclose a brief statement partly explaining our aims. We hereby give the San Francisco Examiner permission to print in full any and all of the material contained in this envelope. We give anyonepermission to print it. We want the material to be in the public domain so that anyone can print it. [Handwritten: Here should read "We don't know if"] this note is legally adecate [sic] to put our statement in the public domain, especially since we are not going to sign our names [crossed out: to this letter], but you can be sure we are not going to sue anyone for infringement of copyright for printing this material, so you might as well go ahead and print it.
–The Freedom Club
- The aim of the Freedom Club is the complete and permanent destruction of modern industrial society in every part of the world. This means no more airplanes, no more radios, no more miracle drugs, no more paved roads, and so forth. Today a large and growing number of people are coming to recognize the industrial-technological system as the greatest enemy of freedom. Many evidences of these changing attitudes could be cited. For the moment we content ourselves with mentioning one statistic. "According to a January 1980 poll, only 33 percent of the citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany] still believe that technological development will lead to greater freedom; 56 percent think it is more likely to make us less free." This is from "1984: Decade of the Experts?"–an article by Johanno Strasser in 1934 revisited: Totalitarianism in our century, edited by Irving Howe and published by Harper and Row, 1983. (This article as a whole helps to show the extent to which technology is becoming a target of social rebellion.)
- The hollowness of the old revolutionary ideologies centering on socialism has become clear. Now and in the future the thrust of rebellion will be against the industrial-technological system itself and not for or against any political ideology that is supposed to govern the administration of that system. All ideologies and political systems are fakes. They only result in power for special groups who just push the rest of us around. There is only one way to escape from being pushed around, and that is to smash the whole system and get along without it. It is better to be poor and free than to be a slave and get pushed around all your life.
- No ideology or political system can get around the hard facts of life in industrial society. Because any form of industrial society requires a high level of organization, all decisions have to be made by a small elite of leaders and experts who necessarily wield all the power, regardless of any political fictions that may be maintained. Even if the motives of this elite were completely unselfish, they would still have to exploit and manipulate us simply to keep the system running. Thus the evil is in the nature of technology itself.
- Man is a social animal, meant to live in groups. But only in small groups, say up to 100 people, in which all members know one another intimately. Man is not meant to live as an insignificant atom in a vast organization, which is the only way he can live in any form of industrialized society.
- The Freedom Club is strictly anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-leftist. One reason for this is that the left has a consistent record of unintentionally (when not intentionally) subverting rebel movements of any kind and turning them into leftist movements. Until now, leftism has had an image as the ideology of rebellion, so that many persons who join any rebel movement are likely to be left-leaning. When enough leftists have joined such a movement it acquires a leftish aroma which attracts still more leftists until the movement becomes just another socialist sect. Therefore the Freedom Club must completely disassociate itself from any form of leftism. This does not imply that we are in any sense a right-wing movement. We are apolitical. Politics only distracts attention from the real issue.
- Don't think that we are sadists or thrill-seekers or that we have adopted terrorism lightly. Though we are young we are not hot-heads. We have become terrorists only after the most earnest consideration.
The foregoing statement gives only a very incomplete indication of our goals and motives. We will explain ourselves more fully in later communications.
2. Material Sent to LWOD
2.1. Letter to LWOD
To LWOD [Live Wild or Die]: This is a message from FC Anarchist Terror Group. We are the people who have been blowing up computer scientists, biotech specialists, public relations experts and so forth. The FBI calls us "Unabom." About the time you receive this letter you should hear through the media about another bombing, if everything works OK. Notice that this letter was postmarked either before or about the same time as the bombing hit the news, which proves that the letter is authentic. As a means of proving the authenticity of any further communications we may send to you, we give you an identifying number: 14962. Keep this number secret, so that when you receive a letter bearing it you will know that the letter comes from us. This is different from the identifying number that we gave to the New York Times.
We have a manuscript of between 29,000 and 37,000 words that we want to have published. We are writing to the New York Times to try to make a deal over it. We are telling the Times that if they will publish the manuscript serialized in their newspaper, or if they can get it published in book form, we will agree to stop blowing up scientists and corporate execs. For the moment we are more interested in propagating anti-industrial ideas than in killing another exec or biotech nerd.
However, we may find it useful to blow up more biotechnicians and the like at some time in the future, so we would prefer not to be bound by a promise to stop bombing. If we made such a promise we wouldn't want to break it. So we are looking for some way to get our material published without having to make any promises or deals.
Would LWOD be willing to publish our manuscript in serial form? Or, better, could you get it published in book form and widely distributed to the general public? If you published it in serial form, how long would it take you to publish the whole thing? If you could get it published in book form, how widely would you distribute it and how long would it take you to get it published once we have sent you the manuscript? You'd be welcome to keep any profit you might make on the book and use it to propagate anti-industrial ideas.
The manuscript contains: (1) an analysis of what is wrong with the industrial system; (2) a demonstration that the industrial system cannot be successfully reformed but must be destroyed; (2) appropriate strategy for revolutionaries seeking to destroy the industrial system.
Please give us your answer by placing a classified ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, preferably on May 1, 1995. The ad should begin with the words "Personal to MCHVP." We ask you to answer in SF Chronicle instead of LWOD because we know of only one place where we can get to LWOD, and if the FBI gets hold of this letter they will be able to watch the few places where it is possible to get LWOD and maybe catch us that way.
We enclose a copy of our letter to the NY Times.
Best Regards,
2.2. Confidential note to LWOD
Enclosed is a letter that presumably will require general discussion by the LWOD staff. But this confidential note contains material that should be known to as few people as possible. So whichever LWOD person opens this envelope, he or she should hide this note and reveal its existence to no one, except when absolutely necessary. Read the other material in this envelope before reading the rest of this confidential note.
The material in this envelope constitutes evidence in a felony case, so LWOD might get in trouble if it doesn't turn this stuff over to the FBI. It is always possible that your group may contain an FBI infiltrator who will report our letter to his bosses. And if you do publish our manuscript the FBI will know about it. So LWOD may want to give these documents to the FBI (except this confidential note, which can safely be kept secret).
This creates a possible problem, because the FBI will be able to confuse you or us by sending LWOD a fake manuscript or placing a fake ad in the SF Chronicle or some such COINTELPRO trick. Or the FBI may ask the Chronicle not to print your ad on the grounds that it would contribute to "criminal" activity. To get around that, we should have some completely confidential way of communicating. This can be established as follows.
Place an ad in the classified section of the Los Angeles Times, classification #1660, "Personal messages." The ad should preferably appear on May 9, 1995, but in any case leave a few days between the time when the Chronicle ad appears and the time when the LA Times ad appears. This ad should begin, "Dear Stargazer, the mystic numbers that control your fate are…" and it should be signed "Numerologist." In between there will be a sequences of numbers conveying a coded message.
The code works this way. It will be random number code and therefore unbreakable. Use the series of random numbers that we have given on another sheet. Begin by encoding your message according to the following system: For A put 1, for B put 2, for C put 3, etc. up to 26 for Z. For space between two words put 27, for period put 28, for comma put 29, for question mark put 30. When you have your message coded by this system you will have a series of numbers that we can call the basic sequence. You then change the basic sequence by adding to it the numbers of the random sequence. To the first number of the basic sequence add the first number of the random sequence, to the second number of the basic sequence add the second number of the random sequence and so forth. Whenever the sum is greater that 30, subtract 30 from it. The resulting sequence of numbers is what you publish in the LA Times. See example on other sheet.
Your coded ad probably won't use up all the numbers of the random sequence. Have the rest of the sequence in case we want it for future use. Never use any part of the random sequence twice. To do so would enable the FBI to decode the message.
We give a separate, confidential identifying number for verification of any messages we may send you: 82771
Legally the FBI can't open first class mail without a warrant, but there's always a chance they might have opened the present envelope anyway, so this system of passing confidential messages isn't 100% secure.
3. Unsent letter to LWOD
Letter to the editors of LWOD. We urge you to print this in LWOD.
Many of the people who want to destroy the industrial form of society are concerned about the population problem and therefore refrain from having children. We believe this is a serious mistake. Scientific studies have shown that social attitudes tend to be inherited. No one suggests that a person's social attitudes are directly determined by his or her genetic constitution, but there is good reason to believe that children inherit personality traits that make them likely, in the context of the present society, to develop one or another set of social attitudes. Some scientists question this conclusion, but their arguments are rather flimsy and are ideologically motivated. Anyway, if social attitudes are not inherited then they are passed on through childhood training, because it is certain that a person's attitudes tend, on the average, to resemble those of his parents; allowing of course for frequent individual exceptions and for changes in the social situation that occur between one generation and another. Unlike us, earlier generations of rebels tended to attack particular social evils rather than industrial society as a whole, because in their day it had not yet become evident that evil was inherent in industrialism itself. But the general tendency to a rebellious attitude toward modern society is commonly passed from parents to children, whether genetically or through training.
By refraining from having children, rebels against the industrial system may be handing the world over to the growtHs. ("GrowtH" is our word for anyone who favors economic growth and all that crap.) Because the growtHs have as many children as they like, while many radicals refrain from having children from concern over the population problem, there is danger that with each successive generation the proportion of growtHs in the population will increase and the proportion of rebels will decrease.
We too are disgusted at the present grossly overpopulated state of the world and we agree that it is necessary to reduce the earth's population as much as possible. But the best way to reach a goal is not always to head directly toward it.
What the earth's population will be 50 or 100 years from now depends mainly on the form of society that will then exist. The present economically oriented form of society, based on industrialism, tends inexorably to grow to the limit of the available resources. By creating new genetically altered plants, or maybe through some type of artificial photosynthesis, this form of society will greatly increase the world's food producing capacity and will allow or encourage its population to grow to the limit of that capacity. Or, even if the population does no grow to the limit, the demands of the ever expanding industrial system will stress the earth's resources to the maximum. So if the present form of society survives, the world that it creates will be a horrible one.
Therefore the important goal is to destroy the present form of society and its industrial base.
If anti-industrial rebels give a reproductive advantage to the growtHs by refraining from having children, they will be slowing present population growth only slightly and they will be increasing the likelihood that the growtHs will win out, that the present form of society will survive and that the world of the future will be a horror.
If rebels have as many children as they can, they will be accelerating present population growth only slightly and they will be increasing the number of anti-industrial rebels, hence the probability that the present form of society can be eliminated, and consequently the likelihood that the world's population can be greatly reduced in the future.
So it would be best for those who hate industrialism to outbreed the growtHs until the present form of society has been done away with.
FC Anarchist Terror Group
4. Letter to Warren Hoge of the New York Times (1993)
We are an anarchist group calling ourselves FC. Notice that the postmark on this envelope precedes a newsworthy event that will happen about the time you receive this letter, if nothing goes wrong. This will prove that we knew about the event in advance, so our claim of responsibility is truthful. Ask the FBI about FC. They have heard of us. We will give information about our goals at some future time. Right now we only want to establish our identity and provide an identifying number that will ensure the authenticity of any future communications from us. Keep this number secret so that no one else can pretend to speak in our name.
5. Letter to Warren Hoge of the New York Times (1995)
This is a message from the terrorist group FC. To prove its [sic.] authentic we give our identifying number (to be kept secret): 553-25-4394.
We blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive. Among other misdeeds, Burston-Marsteller [sic.] helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdes incident. But we attacked Burston-Marsteller less for its specific misdeed than on general principles. Burston-Marsteller is about the biggest organization in the public relations field. This means that its business is the development of techniques for manipulating people's attitudes. It was for this more than for its actions in specific cases that we sent a bomb to an executive of this company.
Some news reports have made the misleading statement that we have been attacking universities or scholars. We have nothing against universities or scholars as such. All the university people whom we have attacked have been specialists in technical fields. (We consider certain areas of applied psychology, such as behavior modification, to be technical fields.) We would not want anyone to think that we have any desire to hurt professors who study archaeology, history, literature or harmless stuff like that. The people we are out to get are the scientists and engineers, especially in critical fields like computers and genetics. As for the bomb planted in the Business School at the U. of Utah, that was a botched operation. We won't say how or why it was botched because we don't want to give the FBI any clues. No one was hurt by that bomb.
In our previous letter to you we called ourselves anarchists. Since "anarchist" is a vague word that has been applied to a variety of attitudes, further explanation is needed. We call ourselves anarchists because we would like, ideally, to break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units. Regrettably, we don't see any clear road to this goal, so we leave it to the indefinite future. Our more immediate goal, which we think may be attainable at some time during the next several decades, is the destruction of the worldwide industrial system. Through our bombings we hope to promote social instability in industrial society, propagate anti-industrial ideas and give encouragement to those who hate the industrial system.
The FBI has tried to portray these bombings as the work of an isolated nut. We won't waste our time arguing about whether we are nuts, but we certainly are not isolated. For security reasons we won't reveal the number of members of our group, but anyone who will read the anarchist and radical environmentalist journals will see that opposition to the industrial-technological system is widespread and growing.
Why do we announce our goals only now, through we made our first bomb some seventeen years ago? Our early bombs were too ineffectual to attract much public attention or give encouragement to those who hate the system. We found by experience that gunpowder bombs, if small enough to be carried inconspicuously, were too feeble to do much damage, so we took a couple of years off to do some experimenting. We learned how to make pipe bombs that were powerful enough, and we used these in a couple of successful bombings as well as in some unsuccessful ones. Unfortunately we discovered that these bombs would not detonate consistently when made with three-quarter inch steel water pipe. They did seem to detonate consistently when made with massively reinforced one inch steel water pipe, but a bomb of this type made a long, heavy package, too conspicuous and suspicious looking for our liking.
So we went back to work, and after a long period of experimentation we developed a type of bomb that does not require a pipe, but is set off by a detonating cap that consists of chlorate explosive packed into a piece of small diameter copper tubing. (The detonating cap is a miniature pipe bomb.) We used bombs of this type to blow up the genetic engineer Charles Epstein and the computer specialist David Gelernter. We did use a chlorate pipe bomb to blow up Thomas Mosser because we happened to have a piece of light-weight aluminum pipe that was just right for the job. The Gelernter and Epstein bombings were not fatal, but the Mosser bombing was fatal even though a smaller amount of explosive was used. We think this was because the type of fragmentation material that we used in the Mosser bombing is more effective than what we've used previously.
Since we no longer have to confine the explosive in a pipe, we are now free of limitations on the size and shape of our bombs. We are pretty sure we know how to increase the power of our explosives and reduce the number of batteries needed to set them off. And, as we've just indicated, we think we now have more effective fragmentation material. So we expect to be able to pack deadly bombs into ever smaller, lighter and more harmless looking packages. On the other hand, we believe we will be able to make bombs much bigger than any we've made before. With a briefcase-full or a suitcase-full of explosives we should be able to blow out the walls of substantial buildings.
Clearly we are in a position to do a great deal of damage. And it doesn't appear that the FBI is going to catch us any time soon. The FBI is a joke.
The people who are pushing all this growth and progress garbage deserve to be severely punished. But our goal is less to punish them than to propagate ideas. Anyhow we are getting tired of making bombs. It's no fun having to spend all your evenings and weekends preparing dangerous mixtures, filing trigger mechanisms out of scraps of metal or searching the sierras for a place isolated enough to test a bomb. So we offer a bargain.
We have a long article, between 29,000 and 37,000 words, that we want to have published. If you can get it published according to our requirements we will permanently desist from terrorist activities. It must be published in the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, or in some other widely read, nationally distributed periodical. Because of its length we suppose it will have to be serialized. Alternatively, it can be published as a small book, but the book must be well publicized and made available at a moderate price in bookstores nationwide and in at least some places abroad. Whoever agrees to publish the material will have exclusive rights to reproduce it for a period of six months and will be welcome to any profits they may make from it. After six months from the first appearance of the article or book it must become public property, so that anyone can reproduce or publish it. (If material is serialized, first instalment becomes public property six months after appearance of first instalment, second instalment, etc.) We must have the right to publish in the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, each year for three years after the appearance of our article or book, three thousand words expanding or clarifying our material or rebutting criticisms of it.
The article will not explicitly advocate violence. There will be an unavoidable implication that we favor violence to the extent that it may be necessary, since we advocate eliminating industrial society and we ourselves have been using violence to that end. But the article will not advocate violence explicitly, nor will it propose the overthrow of the United States Government, nor will it contain obscenity or anything else that you would be likely to regard as unacceptable for publication.
How do you know that we will keep our promise to desist from terrorism if our conditions are met? It will be to our advantage to keep our promise. We want to win acceptance for certain ideas. If we break our promise people will lose respect for us and so will be less likely to accept the ideas.
Our offer to desist from terrorism is subject to three qualifications. First: Our promise to desist will not take effect until all parts of our article or book have appeared in print. Second: If the authorities should succeed in tracking us down and an attempt is made to arrest any of us, or even to question us in connection with the bombings, we reserve the right to use violence. Third: We distinguish between terrorism and sabotage. By terrorism we mean actions motivated by a desire to influence the development of a society and intended to cause injury or death to human beings. By sabotage we mean similarly motivated actions intended to destroy property without injuring human beings. The promise we offer is to desist from terrorism. We reserve the right to engage in sabotage.
It may be just as well that failure of our early bombs discouraged us from making any public statements at that time. We were very young then and our thinking was crude. Over the years we have given as much attention to the development of our ideas as to the development of bombs, and we now have something serious to say. And we feel that just now the time is ripe for the presentation of anti-industrial ideas.
Please see to it that the answer to our offer is well publicized in the media so that we won't miss it. Be sure to tell us where and how our material will be published and how long it will take to appear in print once we have sent in the manuscript. If the answer is satisfactory, we will finish typing the manuscript and send it to you. If the answer is unsatisfactory, we will start building our next bomb.
We encourage you to print this letter.
P.S. Mr. Hoge, at this time we are sending letters to David Gelernter, Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp, the last two being recent Nobel Prize winners. We are not putting our identifying number on these letters, because we want to keep it secret. Instead, we are advising Gelernter, Roberts and Sharp to contact you for confirmation that the letters do come from FC.
6. Letter to Scientific American
We write in reference to a piece by Russel Ruthen, "Strange Matters: Can Advanced Accelerators Initiate Runaway Reactions?" Science and the Citizen, Scientific American, August, 1993.
It seems that physicists have long kept behind closed doors their concern that experiments with particle accelerators might lead to a world-swallowing catastrophe. This is a good example of the arrogance of scientists, who routinely take risks affecting the public. The public commonly is not aware that risks are being taken, and often the scientists do not even admit to themselves that there are risks. Most scientists have a deep emotional commitment to their work and are not in a position to be objective about its negative aspects.
We are not so much concerned about the danger of experiments with accelerated particles. Since the physicists are not fools, we assume that the risk is small (though probably not as small as the physicists claim). But scientists and engineers constantly gamble with human welfare, and we see today the effects of some of their lost gambles: ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, cancer-causing chemicals to which we cannot avoid exposure, accumulating nuclear waste for which a sure method of disposal has not yet been found, the crowding, noise and pollution that have followed industrialization, massive extinction of species and so forth. For the future, what will be the consequences of genetic engineering? Of the development of super-intelligent computers (if this occurs)? Of understanding of the human brain and the resulting inevitable temptation to "improve" it? No one knows.
We emphasize that negative physical consequences of scientific advances often are completely unforeseeable. (It probably never occurred to the chemists who developed early pesticides that they might be causing many cases of disease in humans.) But far more difficult to foresee are the negative social consequences of technological progress. The engineers who began the industrial revolution never dreamed that their work would result in the creation of an industrial proletariat or the economic boom and bust cycle. The wiser ones may have guessed that contact with industrial society would disrupt other cultures around the world, but they probably never imagined the extent of the damage that these other cultures would suffer. Nor did it occur to them that in the West itself technological progress would lead to a society tormented by a variety of social and psychological problems.
Every major technological advance is also a social experiment. These experiments are performed on the public by the scientists and by the corporations and government agencies that pay for their research. The elite groups get fulfilment, the exhilaration, the sense of power involved in bringing about technological progress while the average man gets only the consequences of their social experiments. It could be argued that in a purely physical sense the consequences are positive, since life-expectancy has increased. But the acceptability of risks cannot be assessed in purely actuarial terms. "(P)eople also rank risks based on … how equitably the danger is distributed, how well individuals can control their exposure and whether risk is assumed voluntarily." (M. Granger Morgan, "Risk Analysis and Management." Scientific American, July, 1993, page 35.) The elite groups who create technological progress share in control of the process and assume the risks voluntarily, whereas the role of the average individual is necessarily passive and involuntary. Moreover, it is possible that at some time in the future the population explosion, environmental disaster of the breakdown of an increasingly troubled society may lead to a sudden drastic lowering of life expectancy.
However it may be with the physical risks, there are good reasons to consider the social consequences of technological progress as highly negative. This matter is discussed at length in a manuscript that we are sending to the New York Times.
The engineers who initiated the industrial revolution can be forgiven for not having anticipated its negative consequences. But the harm caused by technological progress is by this time sufficiently apparent so that to continue to promote it is grossly irresponsible.
7. Letter to the New York Times (June, 1995)
New York Times:
This is a message from FC, 553-25-4394.
If the enclosed manuscript is published reasonably soon and receives wide public exposure, we will permanently desist from terrorism in accord with the agreement that we proposed in our last letter to you.
In that letter we stated that whoever agreed to publish the manuscript was to have exclusive rights to it for six months, after which the material was to become public property. We are willing to be flexible about the six month limit. The reason we offered exclusive rights (temporarily) was to provide an incentive for publication of the manuscript. Presumably, whoever published it would hope to profit by doing so. We assume that the six month limit should be ample if the material is published in a periodical, but if it is published in book form we don't know how long the publisher would need exclusive rights in order to have a reasonable expectation of making a profit. So if the NY Times arranges for publication in book form, we leave the period of exclusive rights to your discretion. But if should be no longer than necessary and in any case must not exceed one year, unless you publish in the Times good and convincing reasons for making it longer than that. We don't want our material to remain locked up by a copyright, especially if it is published in the form of a book and the book doesn't sell.
Contrary to what the FBI has suggested, our bombing at the California Forestry Association was in no way inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing. We strongly deplore the kind of indiscriminate slaughter that occurred in the Oklahoma City event. We have no regret about the fact that our bomb blew up the "wrong" man, Gilbert Murray, instead of William N. Dennison, to whom it was addressed. Though Murray did not have Dennison's inflammatory style he was pursuing the same goals, and he was probably pursuing them more effectively because of the very fact that he was not inflammatory.
A letter from an anarchist to the editors of the NY Times made us realize that we owe an apology to the radical environmentalist and nonviolent anarchist movements. Statements we made in our letters to the NY Times would lead to associate us with anarchism and radical environmentalism and therefore might make the public think of anarchists and radical environmentalists as terrorists. So we want to make it clear that there is a nonviolent anarchists movement that probably includes most people in America today who would describe themselves as anarchists. It is a safe bet that practically all of them strongly disapprove of our bombings. Many radical environmentalists do engage in sabotage, but the overwhelming majority of them are opposed to violence against human beings. We know of no case in which a radical environmentalist has intentionally injured a human being. (There was one injury due to a tree spiking incident, but the spiking was probably intended only to damage the equipment, not injure people.)
We decided to call ourselves anarchists not in order to associate ourselves with any particular anarchist group or movement but only because we felt we needed some label to apply to ourselves and "anarchist" was the only one that seemed to fit. The term "anarchist" has been applied to a wide variety of attitudes and about the only thing these attitudes have in common is opposition to the power of governments and other large organizations. That certainly fits us.
For an organization that pretends to be the world's greatest law enforcement agency, the FBI seems surprisingly incompetent. They can't even keep elementary facts straight. Many news reports based on information provided by the FBI are incorrect and even contradict each other. Maybe some of these errors and contradictions are the result of journalists' mistakes, but it appear that most are the fault of the FBI.
Example: It was reported that the bomb that killed Gilbert Murray was a pipe bomb. It was not a pipe bomb but was set off by a home made detonation cap. (The FBI's so-called experts should have been able to determine this quickly and easily, especially since we indicated in an unpublished part of our last letter to the NY Times that the majority of our bombs are no longer pipe bombs.) It was also reported that the address label on this same bomb gave the name of the California Forestry Association incorrectly. This is false. The name was given correctly.
The FBI's theory that we have some kind of a fascination with wood is about as silly as it can get. They apparently base this theory mainly on the fact that we've used a lot of wood in the construction of bomb packages, and several of our targets have lived on streets that are named after trees or have names that include words like "wood," etc. As for our use of wood in construction, what other material is so light, so easy to work and so readily available in large chunks (such as a 2×4) from which suitable pieces can be cut? One FBI agent mentioned in support of the wood theory that we had used wood to make parts that could have been made out of metal. But why use metal where wood can be used? Wood is much lighter, and must easier to work. One of the reasons why we use wooden rather than cardboard boxes for mail bombs is that cardboard boxes crush easily and rough handling in the mail could cause damage to trigger mechanisms, possibly resulting in premature detonation. As for our use of "exotic" woods, we've used hickory from old tool handles, and we recognized redwood from its color, but apart from that we usually don't even know what kind of wood we are working with since we just use pieces of scrap lumber that we pick up here and there. As for the "polished" wood, it was only sanded. We sanded the outside of the wooden boxes to remove saw marks so that the packages would have a smooth, factory-made appearance, less likely to arouse suspicion. Some inside parts were sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Since wood is porous, sweat from the fingers probably penetrates the surface a short distance, so we assume that merely wiping wood does not reliably remove fingerprints. Some metal parts also were scrubbed with sandpaper or emery paper for a similar reason. It is well known that old fingerprints on metal can sometimes be brought out by treating with acid, so presumably the sweat effects the surface of the metal chemically and merely wiping is probably not a reliable method of removing prints. As for the streets named after trees, wood etc., that's only chance. Just check a street map of any suburban area and see how many of the street names include as a component either the name of some species of tree or a word such as "wood," "forest," "arbor," "grove" etc. The FBI must really be getting desperate if they resort to theories as ridiculous as this one about the supposed fascination with wood.
What about the morality of revolutionary violence? To the extent that the word "morality" refers to a code of behavior laid down by society, it is senseless to apply moral criteria to the action of revolutionaries. Each society prescribes a system of morality that is designed to preserve the existence and facilitate the functioning of that society. Since revolutionaries work to overthrow the society in which they live, they have no reason to abide by its moral code. Of course, those who want to preserve the society always regard the revolutionaries as immoral.
But the word "morality" might also refer to consideration for others as motivated by sympathy or compassion (which exist independently of any socially prescribed code). In this sense one can ask about the morality of revolutionary violence. Do revolutionaries' goals outweigh the harm they cause to others/ Do the people they hurt "deserve" it?
Such questions can be answered only on a subjective basis, and we don't think it is necessary for us to do any public soul-searching in this letter. But we will say that we are not insensitive to the pain caused by our bombings.
A bomb package that we mailed to computer scientists Patrick Fischer injured his secretary when she opened it. We certainly regret that. And when we were young and comparatively reckless we were much more careless in selecting targets than we are now. For instance, in one case we attempted unsuccessfully to blow up an airliner. The idea was to kill a lot of business people who we assumed would constitute the majority of the passengers. But of course some of the passengers likely would have been innocent people—maybe kids, or some working stiff going to see his sick grandmother. We're glad now that that attempt failed.
But even though we would undo some of the things we did in earlier days, or do them differently, we are convinced that our enterprise is basically right. The industrial-technological system has got to be eliminated, and to us almost any means that may be necessary for that purpose are justified, even if they involve risk to innocent people. As for the people who wilfully and knowingly promote economic growth and technical progress, in our eyes they are criminals, and if they get blown up they deserve it.
Of course, people don't kill others and risk their own lives just from a detached conviction that a certain change should be made in society. They have to be motivated by some strong emotional force. What is the motivating force in our case? The answer is simply: Anger. You'll ask why we are so angry. You would do better to ask why there is so much anger and frustration in modern society generally. We think that our manuscript gives the answer to that question, or at least an important part of the answer.
We encourage you to print this letter, but we don't require it as part of the condition for our promise to desist from terrorism.
P.S. We want to add a qualification to our (temporary) grant of exclusive rights to whoever published our manuscript. We are sending copies of the manuscript to several other parties besides the NY Times. We want everyone to whom we have sent a copy to have the right to make a small number (say 5) of copies of their copy, for personal use or for private circulation.
Note: Since the public has a short memory we decided to play one last prank to remind them who we are. But no, we haven't tried to plant a bomb or an airliner (recently).
8. Letter to Richard J. Roberts
Dr. Roberts: It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics. This is a warning from FC.
Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this note does come from FC.
9. Letter to Phillip A. Sharp
Dr. Sharp: It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics. This is a warning from FC.
Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this note does come from FC.
10. Letter to James V. McConnell
Dear Dr. McConnell:
I am a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Utah. My field of interest is the history of science, and I am writing my dissertation on the development of the behavioral sciences during the twentieth century.
This dissertation aspires to be more than a mere collection of facts. In it I am attempting to analyse the factors in society at large that tend to promote vigorous development in a given area of science, and especially I am attempting to shed light on the way in which progress in a particular field of research influences the public attitudes toward the field in such a manner as to further accelerate its development, as through research grants, increased interest on the part of the students, and because I believe that they illustrate particularly well my hypotheses concerning the interaction of science and society.
I have now prepared an initial version of the dissertation, but expect to revise it heavily before putting it into final form. Before completing the revisions, I am asking several distinguished researchers in behavioral sciences for their comments on the paper. It is for this purpose that I am sending you herewith a copy of my dissertation on its preliminary form.
Since this dissertation is very long and detailed, I realize that you may not have time to read it in its entirety, but I would appreciate it very much if you could at least look over Chapters 11 and 12, the chapters most closely related to your own field of research, and give me your comments and any corrections you may have. Particularly I would like to know your reaction to the idea outlined in the last three paragraphs of Chapter 12. Of course, any comments that you might care to make on any other part of the dissertation would also be most welcome.
I thank you in advance for your kind assistance.
Very truly yours,
Ralph C. Kloppenburg
11. Letter to Earth First! Journal
Earth First!:
This is a message from FC. The FBI calls us "unabom." We are the people who recently assassinated the president of the California Forestry Association. We know that most radical environmentalists are non-violent and strongly disapprove of our bombings. But we have some things to say that should be of special interest to radical environmentalists. Even if you disagree with our conclusions you can hardly deny that the issues we raise are important ones that radical environmentalists should think about and discuss.
We are enclosing a copy of a manuscript that we are sending to the New York Times, also a copy of the letter that we are sending to the Times with the manuscript. We have reason to hope that the NY Times will either publish the manuscript or arrange for its publication elsewhere. However, if neither the NY Times nor any other major periodical has published the manuscript, or begun to publish it in serialized form, or had it published elsewhere, or announced a definite date for its publication, within 5 months of the day this letter is postmarked, then the Earth First! Journal can publish the manuscript. You can publish it either serialized or in the form of a small book, and you will be welcome to keep any profit you may make from it. Contact NY Times for information concerning what is being done about publication of the manuscript.
We offered the NY Times a promise to desist from terrorism in exchange for publication of our manuscript in a widely read, nationally distributed periodical. Earth First! does not qualify as widely read, so we offer no such promise in exchange for publication in Earth First! However, if Earth First! is willing and able to get the manuscript published in book form, and if the book is distributed nationally and well publicized, then we will abide by the promise to desist from terrorism. Contact the NY Times for information concerning conditions that we laid down in our letters to that newspaper.
Whoever may first publish the manuscript, after a period of 6 months has elapsed since that first publication, anyone (including Earth First!) will have the right to publish the material freely. However, the period might possibly be extended beyond 6 months. See enclosed letter to NY Times.
In any case, you can immediately make up to 5 copies of the manuscript for your own use. If you wear gloves while making the copies you won't mess up any fingerprints or anything, so the FBI won't be able to claim you have damaged any evidence.
How do you know this letter really comes from FC? Some part of the letter we are sending to the NY Times will probably be published in the newspaper, and you can compare it with the copy we are sending you. The authenticity of the material that we are sending to the NY Times will be confirmed by means of our secret identifying number.
12. Unsent Materials to Earth First! Journal
12.1. Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC
Earth First! wants to eliminate the industrial form of society. This is clearly a revolutionary goal. Yet it seems that many or most Earth First!ers still think and act like reformers, not like revolutionaries.
This is illustrated by Darryl Cherney's response to the bombing in which we assassinated the president of the California Forestry Association. According to newspaper reports Cherney was upset by the bombing because he was afraid that there would be retaliatory attacks on Earth First!ers. Now we respect (with certain qualifications) the nonviolent principles of Earth First! (even though we don't think it would be practical for everyone to abide by them) and if any Earth First!ers get beaten up in retaliation for our bombings we certainly sympathize with them. But Cherney's reaction shows that his mentality is that of a reformer, not a revolutionary.
To a revolutionary, what is important is not the short-term goal of saving this or that bit of wilderness or securing some grudging tolerance from the timber industry sympathizers. What is important is the long-term goal of weakening and destabilizing industrial society so that a revolution against it may become possible. From this point of view it is desirable that timber industry sympathizers should make physical attacks on Earth First!ers, because such behavior tends to increase the social stresses in industrial society and helps to turn people against the system.
It is important to distinguish between what the industrial system "wants" and what certain people who claim to represent the system may want or may do. By what the system "wants" we mean that which helps to assure the survival and growth of the industrial system. This corresponds approximately with what is desired by the most rational, self-restrained and "responsible" members of the systems [sic.] controlling elite. But people who believe themselves to be supporters of the system often behave in ways that are harmful to the system and thus serve as unwitting allies of those who want to overthrow the system.
Take police brutality as an example. The most rational and "responsible" members of the system's elite are against police brutality. They want the police to use just enough force (and no more than just enough) to insure [sic.] public order and obedience to the system's rules, because they know that police brutality increases social stresses and tends to break down respect for the system. Bad cops (or timber industry goons) who beat people up regard themselves as pro-system and hate those who are against the system, but the behavior of such cops actually helps to undermine the system. Thus police brutality is not really a part of the system, but is a kind of disease of the system.
Similarly, the irresponsible politicians who are currently repealing environmental laws may be acting as unwitting allies of revolutionaries. If their actions lead to a few more cases like Love Canal and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, they will be helping to destroy respect for the system. Moreover the actions of these politicians help to weaken the standards of decent, "responsible" political behavior on which the stability of the system depends.footnote[In their own way, Rush Limbaugh, reckless right wing politicians and their like are rebels against the industrial system even though they do not regard themselves as such. They want the technology and "prosperity" that the system provides but they reject the restraint and social discipline that are required for the long-term health and stability of the system. These peoplethink they are for social discipline, but their concept of social discipline is primitive: pile more homework on the kids and make everybody click their heels and salute the flag. The kind of social discipline the system needs would include temperance in the expression of political opinions, and realization that what is good for the long-term health of the system is not always what brings the biggest profits right now, and that psychological techniques are more sophisticated than just "getting tough" are needed to make children behave in conformity with the needs of the system. Through their irrational antics and lack of self-restraint Rush Limbaugh & Co. are helping to weaken the system. Our most dangerous enemies are not reckless right-wingers but those leaders who take a rational and balanced approach to promoting the growth and power of the system. That is why we of FC always make it our policy to vote for those politicians are are most corrupt, incompetent or irrational. They are the ones who will help us break down the system. Pete Wilson said we deserve to die for blowing up the president of the California Forestry Association. He shouldn't be so ungrateful. We voted for him.] What the rational, self-controlled, "responsible" members of the system's elite want is not reckless repeal of environmental legislation; they want enough environmental legislation to preserve the system's image of benevolence but not enough to interfere very seriously with economic growth and the increase of the system's power. They want exploitation of natural resources that is rationally planned for long-term economic growth and stability, and that takes into consideration social needs (e.g. health, esthetics) as well as economic ones. Like police brutality, environmental recklessness is not really a part of the system, but is a disease of the system.
Needless to say, police brutality and environmental recklessness make us sick at the stomach, and we know that Earth First!ers react the same way. And of course we have to stand against these things. But at the same time it has to be recognized that ending police brutality and environmental recklessness are goals of reformers. The goal of revolutionaries is to undermine the system as a whole, and to this end police brutality and the grosser forms of environmental recklessness are actually helpful.
The trouble with Earth First!ers is that, like reformers, they devote their attention almost exclusively to fighting evils that are peripheral outgrowths of the system rather than fighting those institutions, structures and attitudes that are central to the system and on which the system most depends. We've only read about 6 or 8 issues of Earth First!, but if these can be taken as a fair sample then EF! articles are devoted almost exclusively to wilderness and environmental questions. These are extremely important matters, but if you devote your attention exclusively to them you will never overthrow the industrial system, and as long as the system survives the most you can hope to do is slow, not stop, the taming or destruction of wilderness. Therefore we argue that the Earth First! journal should devote at least half of its content to questions that have central relevance to the development of the industrial-technological system. How about some articles on genetic enigineering and its probably consequences for life on earth? How about some articles concerning the tremendous powers that computer technology is putting in the hands of the system? What will be the consequences if the computer scientists ever succeed in developing machines that are more intelligent than human beings? How about some articles on propaganda and other psychological tools that help to induce behavior that conforms to the needs of the system?
Most importantly, you need to develop a coherent ideology that opposes technology and industrialism and is based on analysis and understanding of the industrial system, and you need to develop plans and methods for weakening, undermining and destabilizing industrial society.
As for action, with only one exception all the actions we've seen reported in Earth First! have been focussed on environmental and wilderness issues. But as long as you fight only on environmental and wilderness issues you are fighting defensively. The best defense is a good offense, and to fight offensively you've got to get out of the woods and attack the structures that make the system run. For example, instead of demonstrating (or monkeywrenching) at a logging site, you might demonstrate (or monkeywrench) at a chemical plant. And the issue that you demonstrate about should not be a particular case of environmental destructiveness but the very existence of the chemical industry itself. You have to use your ingenuity to devise some forms of action that will weaken the system as a whole, not just slow its destruction of the environment.
Another indictaion of Earth First!'s essentially reformist mentality is your attitude about the paper industry. You want to stop the cutting of trees for paper by finding alternative sources of fiber, such as hemp. This is a reformist attitude. The revolutionary attitude would be: Stop cutting trees for paper, and if that means that the system comes grinding to a halt for lack of paper, so much the better. To hell with the system.
You will answer that if your program implied an end to the mass production of paper, then you would have no chance of putting that program into effect, because few people would support a program incompatible with the continued existence of industrial society.
But of course! That is the difference between the reformer and the revolutionary. The reformer seeks to bring about some improvement in conditions NCW, by means that are compatible with the survival of an existing system of society. The revolutionary advocates measures that are incompatible with the existing system, knowing that those measures cannot be put into effect now. But by advocating such measures he plants in people's minds the idea that doing away with the existing system is a conceivable alternative. In this manner he helps to prepare the way for a future revolution that may occur when the time is ripe.
Some Earth First!ers think they can change the system just by providing, through their own actions, examples of noble, nonviolent, passive, environmentally nondestructive behavior. But it won't work. Look at history! It's been tried before, repeatedly. The earliest Christians, the Quakers, certain Hindus and Buddhists relied on passive, nonviolent loving-kindness, but they had little or no lasting effect on the behavior of the human race in general. people of the saintly type may have an important role to play in a revolutionary movement, but their kind of action by itself cannot bring down the industrial system. For that, revolutionaries of a tough, practical type are needed.
It is a big mistake to complain about "capitalism." To do so gives the impression that industrial society would be OK if it were run according to some other ideology, such as socialism. Actually socialism in Eastern Europe did more damage to the environment than any capitalism did in the West. Our enemy is not capitalism, socialism, or any other ideology that may pretend to guide the system. Our enemy is the industrial-technological system itself.
The Earth First! journal should have a section in which successful monkeywrenching operations are reported. Reading about successful operations will encourage and stimulate other monkeywrenchers. Those who have carried out successful operations should report their action to the journal in an anonymous letter. Such letters will constitute evidence in "criminal" cases, so the journal will have to turn them over to the police to avoid prosecution for obstruction of justice. Therefore senders of the letters should make sure they bear no evidence such as fingerprints or handwriting.
Also, after every major successful monkeywrenching operation, the saboteurs should send anonymous letters to the mainstream media explaining both the reasons for that particular monkeywrenching attack and the long-term goals of the radical environmental movement.
The effectiveness of monkeywrenching operations will be greatly increased if they are systematic and coordinated rather than random and sporadic. Each monkeywrenching group should plan not just oneoperation but a campaign of operations lasting several months. Such a campaign is best designed not to attack a lot of unrelated targets, but to concentrate pressure on some particular class of targets. For example, the monkeywrenching group might select a particular logging or mining company, or a chemical or electronics firm, and attack a series of targets belonging to that particular organization. It would be difficult to coordinate the efforts of different monkeywrenching groups without compromising security. But some degree of coordination might be achieved by passing the word through the grapevine that a certain week is to be a week of intense sabotage. A lot of sabotage concentrated into one week would be more effective than the same amount of sabotage spread out over an extended period.
12.2. Letter from Fabius Maximus
I share the disgust of other Earth First!ers at the sight of somebody with four or five kids. But in refraining from having children, Earth First!ers may be making a disastrous blunder. In careful statistical studies of identical twins and adopted children, a number of investigators, working independently, have found that social and political attitudes tend to be inherited. Of course, no one suggests that there is a gene for liberalism, for conservatism, or for radical environmentalism. But it appears that children inherit personality traits that make them likely, in the context of the present society, to adopt this or that attitude or ideology. It is true that some scientists question these results, but their objections are rather flimsy and appear to be ideologically motivated.
By refraining from having children, Earth First!ers may be handing the world over to the growtHs. ("GrowtH" is my private word for anyone who favors economic growth and all that crap.) Because the growtHs have as many children as they like, while EF!ers and other environmentalists restrict their reproduction, it is likely that with each successive generation the proportion of growtHs in the population with increase.
It is vitally important to reduce the Earth's population as much as possible, but the best way to reach a goal is not always to head directly toward it.
What the Earth's population will be 50 or 100 years from now depends entirely on the form of society that will then exist. The present economically oriented form of society, based on industrialism, tends inexorably to grow to the limit of the available resources. By creating new genetically altered plants, or maybe through some type of artificial photosynthesis, this form of society will greatly increase the world's food producing capacity, and will allow or encourage its population to grow to the limit of that capacity. So if the present form of society survives, we can expect for the future an incredibly, horribly overcrowded world in which no room will be left for wild nature.
Therefore, the important goal is to eliminate the present form of society and destroy the industrial base that makes it possible to support an abnormally inflated human population.
If Earth First!ers give a reproductive advantage to the growtHs by refraining from having children, they will be slowing present population growth only slightly, and they will be increasing the likelihood that the growtHs will win out, that the present form of society will survive, and hence that the world of 50 or 100 years from now will be horrifyingly overcrowded.
If Earth First!ers have as many children as they can, they will be accelerating present population growth only slightly, and they will be increasing the number of radical environmentalists, hence the probability that the present form of society can be eliminated, and consequently the likelihood that the Earth's population can be greatly reduced in the future.
It could even be argued that rapid population growth now will be advantageous in the long run, because if population expands rapidly in the immediate future, this will increase the likelihood that economic and social problems will overwhelm the present form of society, so that it will not survive and will be replaced by something else. If population increases at only a moderate rate in the the [sic.] immediate future, the present society may have time to adjust, to develop new methods of food production and so forth, so that it will have a better chance of surviving. If it does survive, you can be sure that 100 years from now no wild nature will be left and the world will be jam-packed with people.
So it would be best for Earth First!ers to outbreed the growtHs until the present form of society has been done away with.
Fabius Maximus
13. Letter to Tom Tyler
Dr. Tyler:
This is a message from FC. The FBI calls us "unabom." We read a newspaper article in which you commented on recent bombings, including ours, as an indication of social problems. We are sending you a copy of a manuscript that we hope the New York Times will get published for us.
The trouble with psychologists is that in commenting on what people say or do they often concentrate exclusively on the non-rational motivations behind speech or behavior. But human behavior has a rational as well as an irrational component, and psychologists should not neglect the rational component. So if you take the trouble to read our manuscript and do any further thinking about the "unabom" case, we suggest that you should not only consider our actions as a symptom of some social or psychological problems; you should also give attention to the substance of the issues that we raise in the manuscript. You might ask yourself, for example, the following questions:
Do you think we are likely to be right, in a general way, about the kind of future that technology is creating for the human race?
If you think we are wrong, then why do you think so? How would you answer our arguments? Can you sketch a plausable [sic] scenario for the future technological society that does not have the negative characteristics indicated by our scenario?
If you think we are likely to be right about the future, do you consider that kind of future acceptable? If not, then what, if anything, do you think can be done about it?
Do you think our analysis of present social problems is approximately correct? If not, why not? How would you answer our arguments?
If you think we have identified some present social problems correctly, do you think anything can be done about them? Will they get better or worse with continual growth and progress?
We apologize for sending you such a poor copy of our manuscript. We can't make copies at a public copy machine because people would get suspicious if they saw us handling our copies with gloves.
14. Letter to David Gelernter
Dr. Gelernter:
People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are. If you'd had any brains you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn't have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source.
In the epilog of your book, "Mirror Worlds," you tried to justify your research by claiming that the developments you describe are inevitable, and that any college person can learn enough about computers to compete in a computer-dominated world. Apparently, people without a college degree don't count. In any case, being informed about computers won't enable anyone to prevent invasion of privacy (through computers), genetic engineering (to which computers make an important contribution), environmental degradation through excessive economic growth (computers make an important contribution to economic growth) and so forth.
As for the inevitability argument, if the developments you describe are inevitable, they are not inevitable in the way that old age and bad weather are inevitable. They are inevitable only because techno-nerds like you make them inevitable. If there were no computer scientists there would be no progress in computer science. If you claim you are justified in pursuing your research because the developments involved are inevitable, then you may as well say that theft is inevitable, therefore we shouldn't blame thieves.
But we do not believe that progress and growth are inevitable.
We'll have more to say about that later.
P.S. Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this letter does come from FC.
15. Letter to San Francisco Chronicle (1995)
Warning. The terrorist group FC, called Unabomber by the FBI, is planning to blow up an airliner out of Los Angeles International Airport sometime during the next six days. To prove that the writer of this letter knows something about FC, the first two digits of their identifying number are 55.
16. Letter to Washington Post
Washington Post:
This is a message from the terrorist group FC. The FBI calls us "unabom."
In a letter that we sent to the New York Times at the time of our bombing at the California Forestry Association, we offered to desist from terrorism if a manuscript we were preparing were published in accord with certain stated conditions. We are now sending that manuscript to the NY Times, and we are sending copies to you, to Penthouse Magazine and to a few other people.
If the NY Times is unwilling or unable to publish our manuscript (or arrange for its publication elsewhere) reasonably soon, then we offer the Washington Post the same bargain that we offered the NY Times. NY Times has first claim to the right to publish the manuscript, after that the Washington Post and after that Penthouse. If NY Times gives permission, we have no objection to simultaneous publication in NY Times and Washington Post.
By the way, to verify that this letter really comes from FC, compare the enclosed copy of our letter to the NY Times with the original we sent to the Times. The original bears our secret identifying number.
We apologize for sending you such a bad carbon copy of our manuscript. We can't make copies at a public copy machine because people would get suspicious if they saw us handling our copies with gloves.
17. Letter to the ACLU
ACLU Privacy and Technology Project:
This is a message from the terrorist group FC. The FBI calls us "unabom." We are sending the New York Times a manuscript that contains a good deal of material that is relevant to the problem of technological invasion of privacy. We think this manuscript ought to be of interest to the ACLU Privacy and Technology Project. We have reason to hope that the NY Times will arrange for publication of the manuscript, but if they do not, we imagine they would be willing to provide you with a copy of it if you asked for one.
Please forward the enclosed letter to the ACLU Privacy and Technology Project.


text:
PLATTSBURGH — In the City of Plattsburgh, property owners are required to clear the sidewalks.
But this year's ice storms have made that a challenge. The Press-Republican reported on the issue in Monday's paper and then asked Facebook readers what they thought of the winter-shoveling issue.
Here is a sampling of the nearly 70 responses we received:
Daryl Perkins: "I normally shovel my lengthy sidewalk every winter. And it's always kept up with. Except for this year!! With the amount of ice we had, it is nearly impossible to bust through it all. I have already broken a brand new shovel just making a path for the mailman. I think when we have ice storms like this, a larger machine should do it. Take into consideration all the elderly folks out there that have no one to help them and that would be too much of a task to have them out there trying to bust through 4 inches of ice."
Andy Bordeau: "I think if city cops were on foot patrol, something might be done."
Theresa Goheens: "If the city puts it on the sidewalks from plowing they need to remove it."
Chad Baker: "It's funny that in one breath people are complaining that they pay too much in taxes and in the next say that it's the city that should spend the money to clear sidewalks. Where do you think this money to pay these people and purchase the equipment to complete this task are going to come from? They aren't going to re-allocate funds from some other project or take it from where it has already been set to be used: these are against the law."
Phillip Malcomb: "Ask the mail carriers who have to traverse each and every mile of our sidewalks. I'm sure they have a laundry list of lazy property owners!"
Lise Davidson: "I think the home owners who are saying the city (should plow) are the ones who have not cleared their sidewalks. I have heard complaints about lack of salt and we got a lot of ice. Well, I had the same amount of ice and the same trouble finding salt. I put down sand. We had a few nice warm days following the ice storm. I put down what was left of my salt and then started chopping. They make tools for just this activity. They are called ice choppers. It took going out a few times a day (I got tired and sore) and about 2-3 days. I was able to get rid of all the ice both on my sidewalk and driveway. I also paid someone to do the initial cleanup. I also have a child who attends the Middle School. South Catherine St. was absolutely ridiculous! There was no way she was going to walk home from school. That street is dangerous to walk in the road and the sidewalks were impassable. ... Is it going to have to take a child being killed because they have to walk in the road to get to and from school??"
Brenna Miller: "Whoever's (responsibility it is), shame on them! In the recent weeks as ice and snow has piled, people are pushing strollers and students walking in the streets because they couldn't access the sidewalk. Terrible."
Jeremy Bleaux: "How much do you guys think the taxes are going to go up after you have the city employees clean your sidewalks. The problem with society is they are so lazy. Get off your butts and shovel your sidewalks."
Brenna Miller: "We live in an area where we have blizzards EVERY year. Shouldn't this be figured out already???"
Heather Wolfe Thibault: "When the property owner has already cleared their sidewalk, but the plow then plows up a 4-foot bank of solid ice onto the cleared sidewalk, it can be very difficult to re-clear. After going through several shovels and several bags of salt, the sidewalk is still not completely clear again. During times of ice storms and low, non-melting temps, sometimes allowances have to be made. (I greatly appreciate the plows & drivers; they do a marvelous and important job! The ice is better off on the sidewalks than in the road, and sometimes those are the only choices.)"
Vicki Moore: "Taxes are extreme here. Give someone a job and put tax money to something useful. Problem solved. No one would then have to make up excuses except for the city."
Tricia Mihal: "We use to own a home located on a corner, we always cleared it. I would have been embarrassed to not have it done. We had a such great stretch of warm weather, all sidewalks should be cleared by now. As for the seniors or disabled, maybe a program could be set up to have individuals who are required to perform court ordered community service shovel those sidewalks."
Kathy Diedrich Baumgarten: "Homeowners and landlords should do it. If they don't, the city shouldn't do it for them; that will raise taxes. They should just fine them every time and add that to their property taxes."
Craig Rock: "It is the homeowner's responsibility... always has been. It is part of living in the city. If you don't like it maybe you you move outside the city limits."
The Press-Republican takes a stand on the issue in today's Viewpoint.
Join the discussion on the Press-Republican Facebook page: facebook.com/pressrepublican.

subset: commoncrawl


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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 Battery MC-354775-05 58-000049 DR-A021
Part Number:DR-A021
Type: Li-Polymer
Voltage: 3.7V
Capacity: 1420mAh
Replace Code: MC-354775-05, 58-000049
Compatible with KindlePaperwhite 2, Kindle DP75Sdi
Amazon Kindle 3G charging kit
This Kindle 3G charging kit offers full charging and sync function for your Kindle 2, Kindle DX and Kindle 3G.
The kit includes travel charger, car charger and Micro USB cable. Whether you use AC or DC power, this kit can meet your full needs.
Besides, this charging kit can also be used for all smartphones that come with Micro USB socket.
Sony PRS-500 ebook reader battery
Some website says that Sony ebook reader PRS-500 and PRS-505 use same battery. Actually this is not correct. Contrarily they use totally two different battery.
The PRS-500's battery is thicker, its size is 4.7x38x50mm. But PRS-505 is much slim, its size is only 3.2x34x50mm. Though both batteries's length is same, their thickness is quite different, which resulting in capacity difference. Most website says PRS-505's capacity is 750mAh, actually it is impossible to do with 750mAh when its size is such small. However, interestingly, both batteries use same plug.
This is PRS-500 battery made by Sunpow
This is original PRS-505 battery from Sony. Its back states US323450


text:
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I was on Facebook this morning doing my usual daily catchup when I saw a post one of my friends shared. It was a post by Australian cancer victim Holly Butcher on the Samantha Wills Foundation website. It was the last post she wrote before her death. She was only 36 years old when cancer took her life, while I am still alive, her story is kind of like how MS radically changed mine 6 days before my 35th birthday. Similarly to how Holly's life was taken by the cancer she couldn't control, I can totally relate because of what I feel MS has done to me and my life. I really feel like my life was stolen from me more and more often lately.
I still remember the first time I heard a fellow MS sufferer use the word stolen when referring to inability to do the things she once did, but is now unable to do. It really bothered me, almost shocked me in fact. I was still new to MS at the time, and hadn't really had time to fully take a look at how different my life was yet. Now however is a totally different story as it's been almost 5 years since i've been living this new lifef of mine, where I am alone all day, every day. I really miss working, writing software, interacting with people in real life, not using a screen to FaceTime someone, probably from my family.


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