WASHINGTON -- Ohio police are investigating alleged threats posted to the website of a journalists' collective, directed against Steven Roach, the policeman whose shooting of an unarmed black man led to riots in Cincinnati last month.
A Hamilton County, Ohio prosecutor has sent the Ohio Valley Independent Media Center (IMC) a subpoena for any records relating to a post last week titled "Steve Roach, dead man walking."
The only problem: The admitted author of the post, a self-proclaimed anarchist who uses the alias proffr@fuckmicrosoft.com, lives in rural central Victoria, Australia.
In a telephone interview, "proffr" said he is trying to further the ideas of Jim Bell, author of the controversial Assassination Politics essay who was convicted in April of two counts of threatening federal officials.
Bell's essay, written about five years ago, is a thought experiment describing a system designed to intimidate lawless police and politicians by outlining a method through which they could be assassinated. Proffr calls his version Operation Soft Drill, a term Bell also used, and says he wants to intimidate police and corporate polluters into respecting human rights.
"I'm here out in the open," proffr said. "I'm putting forth the basic James Bell dream, which is that people can put forth freedom on the Internet. This is a tool that was lying on the ground and I picked it up."
The post that drew the Ohio authorities' attention said: "Dear steve, hows life? Operation soft drill is busy raising pledges to pay for your big send off. Made out your will and all that shit? Bad luck you pulled that trigger on yourself."
Bruce Taylor, a spokesman for the county prosecutor's office, said he would have to look into the case and did not have any immediate comment.
This isn't the first time an IMC -- a loosely organized network of left-leaning collectives -- has received a subpoena relating to posts to a discussion forum. In April, the FBI handed the Seattle IMC a court order instructing them to turn over logs, which the group is currently fighting in court.
Josh Robinson, the founding coordinator of the Ohio Valley IMC, said he did not comply with the subpoena -- which instructed him to turn over logs by last Friday -- because it came from an Ohio court and he lives in Kentucky.
Robinson also said that the IMC's Internet provider keeps logs, not the IMC itself. "We don't keep logs. We don't have our own server.... The only information I have regarding that post is the information contained in that post," he said.
Proffr says he's waging a global campaign against capitalism, particularly corporations like Monsanto, and police brutality: "I'm not a personally violent person. But I'm advocating violence, mostly for effect. (An attack) on the environment requires a measured response. That's my measured response. It's not everyone's."
Bell Trial: Victim as Prosecutor
