s
still questionable whether the FBI regarded Abbie Hoffman a serious
public threat--quite possibly, his file was enormous simply because
Hoffman left colorful legendry wherever he went). He was a gifted
publicist, who regarded electronic media as both playground and weapon.
He actively enjoyed manipulating network TV and other gullible,
image-hungry media, with various weird lies, mindboggling rumors,
impersonation scams, and other sinister distortions, all absolutely
guaranteed to upset cops, Presidential candidates, and federal judges.
Hoffman's most famous work was a book self-reflexively known as STEAL
THIS BOOK, which publicized a number of methods by which young,
penniless hippie agitators might live off the fat of a system supported
by humorless drones. STEAL THIS BOOK, whose title urged readers to
damage the very means of distribution which had put it into their
hands, might be described as a spiritual ancestor of a computer virus.

Hoffman, like many a later conspirator, made extensive use of
pay-phones for his agitation work--in his case, generally through the
use of cheap brass washers as coin-slugs.

During the Vietnam War, there was a federal surtax imposed on telephone
service; Hoffman and his cohorts could, and did, argue that in
systematically stealing phone service they were engaging in civil
disobedience: virtuously denying tax funds to an illegal and immoral
war.

But this thin veil of decency was soon dropped entirely. Ripping-off
the System found its own justification in deep alienation and a basic
outlaw contempt for conventional bourgeois values. Ingenious, vaguely
politicized varieties of rip-off, which might be described as "anarchy
by convenience," became very popular in Yippie circles, and because
rip-off was so useful, it was to survive the Yippie movement itself.

In the early 1970s, it required fairly limited expertise and ingenuity
to cheat payphones, to divert "free" electricity and gas service, or to
rob vending machines and parking meters for handy pocket change. It
also required a conspiracy to spread this knowledge, and the gall and
nerve actually to commit petty theft, but the Yippies had these
qualifications in plenty. In June 1971, Abbie Hoffman and a telephone
enthusiast sarcastically known as "Al Bell" began publishing a
newsletter called Youth International Party Line. This newsletter was
dedicated to collating and spreading Yippie rip-off techniques,
especially of