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Your Own Little Piece Of Infamy

Unabomber's personal effects to be auctioned
It is a collection of items mundane and mysterious: tweezers, a pocket knife, a handmade tool.
They are significant because they were among the personal items seized from the remote Montana shack of Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, and are to be sold by order of a federal judge to help pay off a $US15 million ($19.5 million) restitution order.
In 1998, Kaczynski, 64, pleaded guilty to a series of mail bombings from 1978 to 1995 that killed three people and injured 28 others, some seriously.
Among the more intriguing items to be sold are some of Kaczynski's manuscripts seized by the Government when he was captured in 1996. A former mathematics professor who developed a hatred for the modern world, Kaczynski wrote a 35,000-word anti-technology manifesto that was published, at government request, in The Washington Post seven months before his capture in 1996.
The court order comes after a legal skirmish between the Government and Kaczynski, who is in a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado. Kaczynski had argued that his property should be returned to him.
In addition to the original manuscripts, the auction list includes some telling items, among them three typewriters, two face masks and dozens of tools. There are also a blue zippered sweatshirt and blue hood for sale, two elements that were part of the famous artist's sketch of the Unabomber, printed on "most wanted" posters for years.
The online auction will not include 100 items seen as bomb-making materials, such as writings that contain diagrams and "recipes" for bombs.
"He was living a … pretty primitive way of life, so his belongings are limited," Kaczynski's former lawyer, Quin Denvir, said.
There is also an impressive library of history, philosophy and science books. Copies of Of Mice and Men, 1984 and The Merchant of Venice will also be for sale.

posted by Steve @ Monday, August 14, 2006