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Monday, June 30, 2014

Woman Says DHS Forced Her to Strip Naked at Gunpoint During Terrifying Dawn Raid


"Two hours of pure hell" as SWAT team trashes home

Kari Edwards said she and her boyfriend were forced to strip naked at gunpoint during a terrifying Department of Homeland Security dawn raid on their Florida home which lasted for two hours.

The incident began on June 10 at 6:16am when numerous armed SWAT team members, accompanied by a helicopter overhead, arrived in an armored vehicle at the couple?s address before smashing in the door and deafening their pet cat with flash bang smoke grenades.

"They busted in like I was a terrorist or something," Edwards told the Tea Party News Network, adding, "[An officer] demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with before snatching it off me physically and throwing me to the ground."

Having been previously employed by the federal agency herself, Edwards noted that some of the men were DHS agents, although when quizzed as to who they were and why they were conducting the raid, the men only responded by saying that they were ?police,? while calling Edwards ?stupid? and ?retarded? for asking the question.

"While I lay naked, I was cuffed so tightly I could not feel my hands. For no reason, at gunpoint," Edwards said. "[Agents] refused to cover me, no matter how many times I asked."

According to Edwards? boyfriend, one of the agents then proceeded to ogle his naked girlfriend up and down like a piece of candy.

?They spent about 2 hours trashing my house, even smashing clear glass shower doors and a vintage statue,? writes Edwards on her YouTube channel. ?My boyfriend, who is asthmatic, started having trouble breathing due to the lingering smoke created by the flash bang grenade.?

After trashing her home for two hours, Edwards said the SWAT team eventually handed her a warrant signed by Jonathan Goodman, a federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which authorized the agents to search for computers and electronics, although Edwards claims police seemed uninterested in the couple?s electronics and did not seize any items despite raising the suspicion of child pornography.

Surveillance camera footage of the incident shows armed agents surrounding the property. Edwards says the clip is brief because the agents ripped out her surveillance DVR while claiming that they couldn?t be recorded.

Edwards summed up her experience by describing the incident as ?two hours of pure hell.? The couple have filed a complaint with the ACLU.

While the details of the incident remain unconfirmed, the story will heighten concerns that the DHS is turning into a ?standing army? emblematic of a militarized police state.

John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute recently cited numerous examples of out of control DHS activity to make the point that the federal agency is a ?beast that is accelerating our nation's transformation into a police state through its establishment of a standing army, aka national police force.?
_
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.


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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Highwaymen vs. Agents of Official Plunder: The Correct Terminology


William Norman Grigg

Police officers who stop motorists in search of cash or other assets to be stolen in the name of ?asset forfeiture? are engaged in robbery, but it is incorrect to use the expression ?Highwaymen? to describe armed agents of government plunder, explains LRC reader Timothy Paul Madden:

?I collect and read antique law dictionaries and just wanted to let you know that when the private sector does it it is called `highway robbery,? but if it is directly or indirectly sanctioned by government, then it is more correctly called `brigandage,? meaning a small lightly armed military or paramilitary force stopping traffic on the public highways for/with the purpose of raising a revenue for the government.?

Similarly, it could be considered technically incorrect to refer to plunder-lusting police as ?road pirates,? since there are, within that generic term, some very important distinctions to be made.

In his informative and hugely entertaining book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, Professor Peter T. Leeson of George Mason University distinguishes between ?pirates? and ?buccaneers? ? who were ?pure outlaws? operating without official sanction ? and seafaring bandits known as ?privateers? and ?corsairs,? who ?had government backing? and were ?commissioned ? to attack and seize enemy nations? merchant ships during war.?

The latter description makes a very comfortable fit with the behavior of police involved in the Regime?s drug war against the public, in which every motorist is perceived as the enemy, and every private or commercial vehicle as a legitimate target for seizure.


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- The Utter Uselessness of Police: Two Recent Examples from Idaho
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- Federal Court: Cops Cannot Push Drug Dog Into Open Car Door
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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Entrepreneurs Are Moral Heroes

By Hans-Hermann Hoppe

In the most fundamental sense we are all, with each of our actions, always and invariably profit-seeking entrepreneurs.

Whenever we act, we employ some physical means (things valued as goods) -- at a minimum our body and its standing room, but in most cases also various other, "external" things -- so as to divert the "natural" course of events (the course of events we expect to happen if we were to act differently) in order to reach some more highly valued anticipated future state of affairs instead. With every action we aim at substituting a more favorable future state of affairs for a less favorable one that would result if we were to act differently. In this sense, with every action we seek to increase our satisfaction and attain a psychic profit. "To make profits is invariably the aim sought by any action," as Ludwig von Mises has stated it. (Mises, 1966, p. 289)

But every action is threatened also with the possibility of loss. For every action refers to the future and the future is uncertain or at best only partially known. Every actor, in deciding on a course of action, compares the value of two anticipated states of affairs: the state he wants to effect through his action but that has not yet been realized, and another state that would result if he were to act differently but cannot come into existence, because he acts the way he does. This makes every action a risky enterprise. An actor can always fail and suffer a loss. He may not be able to effect the anticipated future state of affairs -- that is, the actor's technical knowledge, his "know how" may be deficient or it may be temporarily "superseded," due to some unforeseen external contingencies. Or else, even if he has successfully produced the desired state of physical affairs, he may still consider his action a failure and suffer a loss, if this state of affairs provides him with less satisfaction than what he could have attained had he chosen otherwise (some earlier-on rejected alternative course of action) -- that is, the actor's speculative knowledge -- his knowledge of the temporal change and fluctuation of values and valuations -- may be deficient.

Since all of our actions display entrepreneurship and are aimed at being successful and yielding the actor a profit, there can be nothing wrong with entrepreneurship and profit. Wrong, in any meaningful sense of the term, are only failure and loss, and accordingly, in all of our actions, we always try to avoid them.

The question of justice, i.e., whether or not a specific action and the profit or loss resulting from it is ethically right or wrong, arises only in connection with conflicts.

Since every action requires the employment of specific physical means -- a body, standing room, external objects -- a conflict between different actors must arise, whenever two actors try to use the same physical means for the attainment of different purposes. The source of conflict is always and invariably the same: the scarcity of physical means. Two actors cannot at the same time use the same physical means -- the same bodies, spaces and objects ? for alternative purposes. If they try to do so, they must clash. Therefore, in order to avoid conflict or resolve it if it occurs, an action-able principle and criterion of justice is required, i.e., a principle regulating the just or "proper" vs. the unjust or "improper" use and control (ownership) of scarce physical means.

Logically, what is required to avoid all conflict is clear: It is only necessary that every good be always and at all times owned privately, i.e., controlled exclusively by some specified individual (or individual partnership or association), and that it be always recognizable which good is owned and by whom, and which is not. The plans and purposes of various profit-seeking actor-entrepreneurs may then be as different as can be, and yet no conflict will arise so long as their respective actions involve only and exclusively the use of their own, private property.

Yet how can this state of affairs: the complete and unambiguously clear privatization of all goods, be practically accomplished? How can physical things become private property in the first place; and how can conflict be avoided from the beginning of mankind on?

A single ? praxeo-logical ? solution to this problem exists and has been essentially known to mankind since its beginnings ? even if it has only been slowly and gradually elaborated and logically re-constructed. To avoid conflict from the start, it is necessary that private property be founded through acts of original appropriation. Property must be established through acts (instead of mere words or declarations), because only through actions, taking place in time and space, can an objective -- inter-subjectively ascertainable -- link be established between a particular person and a particular thing. And only the first appropriator of a previously un-appropriated thing can acquire this thing as his property without conflict. For, by definition, as the first appropriator he cannot have run into conflict with anyone in appropriating the good in question, as everyone else appeared on the scene only later.

This importantly implies that while every person is the exclusive owner of its own physical body as his primary means of action, no person can ever be the owner of any other person's body. For we can use another person's body only indirectly, i.e., in using our directly appropriated and controlled own body first. Thus, direct appropriation temporally and logically precedes indirect appropriation; and accordingly, any non-consensual use of another person's body is an unjust misappropriation of something already directly appropriated by someone else.

All just property, then, goes back directly or indirectly, through a chain of mutually beneficial ? and thus likewise conflict-free ? property-title transfers, to original appropriators and acts of original appropriation. Mutatis mutandis, all claims to and uses made of things by a person who had neither appropriated or produced these things, nor acquired them through a conflict-free exchange from some previous owner, are unjust.

And by implication: All profits gained or losses suffered by an actor-entrepreneur with justly acquired means are just profits (or losses); and all profits and losses accruing to him through the use of unjustly acquired means are unjust.

II

This analysis applies in full also to the case of the entrepreneur in the term's narrower definition, as a capitalist-entrepreneur.

The capitalist entrepreneur acts with a specific goal in mind: to attain a monetary profit. He saves or borrows saved money, he hires labor, and he buys or rents raw materials, capital goods and land. He then proceeds to produce his product or service, whatever it may be, and he hopes to sell this product for a monetary profit. For the capitalist, "profit appears as a surplus of money received over money expended and loss as a surplus of money expended over money received. Profit and loss can be expressed in definite amounts of money." (Mises 1966, p. 289)

As all action, a capitalist enterprise is risky. The cost of production -- the money expended ? does not determine the revenue received. In fact, if the cost of production determined price and revenue, no capitalist would ever fail. Rather, it is anticipated prices and revenues that determine what production costs the capitalist can possibly afford.

Yet the capitalist does not know what future prices will be paid or what quantity of his product will be bought at such prices. This depends exclusively on the buyers of his product, and the capitalist has no control over them. The capitalist must speculate what the future demand will be. If he is correct and the expected future prices do correspond to the later fixed market prices, he will earn a profit. On the other hand, while no capitalist aims at making losses ? because losses imply that he must ultimately give up his function as a capitalist and become either a hired employee of another capitalist or a self-sufficient producer-consumer ? every capitalist can err with his speculation and the actually realized prices fall below his expectations and his accordingly assumed production cost, in which case he does not earn a profit but incurs a loss.

While it is possible to determine exactly how much money a capitalist has gained or lost in the course of time, his money profit or loss do not imply much if anything about the capitalist's state of happiness, i.e., about his psychic profit or loss. For the capitalist, money is rarely if ever the ultimate goal (safe, may be, for Scrooge McDuck, and only under a gold standard). In practically all cases, money is a means to further action, motivated by still more distant and ultimate goals. The capitalist may want to use it to continue or expand his role as a profit-seeking capitalist. He may use it as cash to be held for not yet determined future employments. He may want to spend it on consumer goods and personal consumption. Or he may wish to use it for philanthropic or charitable causes, etc..

What can be unambiguously stated about a capitalist's profit or loss is this: His profit or loss are the quantitative expression of the size of his contribution to the well-being of his fellow men, i.e., the buyers and consumers of his product, who have surrendered their money in exchange for his (by the buyers) more highly valued product. The capitalist's profit indicates that he has successfully transformed socially less highly valued and appraised means of action into socially more highly valued and appraised ones and thus increased and enhanced social welfare. Mutatis mutandis, the capitalist's loss indicates that he has used some more valuable inputs for the production of a less valuable output and so wasted scarce physical means and impoverished society.

Money profits are not just good for the capitalist, then, they are also good for his fellow men. The higher a capitalist's profit, the greater has been his contribution to social welfare. Likewise, money losses are bad not only for the capitalist, but they are bad also for his fellow men, whose welfare has been impaired by his error.

The question of justice: of the ethically "right" or "wrong" of the actions of a capitalist-entrepreneur, arises, as in the case of all actions, again only in connection with conflicts, i.e., with rivalrous ownership claims and disputes regarding specific physical means of action. And the answer for the capitalist here is the same as for everyone, in any one of his actions.

The capitalist's actions and profits are just, if he has originally appropriated or produced his production factors or has acquired them -- either bought or rented them ? in a mutually beneficial exchange from a previous owner, if all his employees are hired freely at mutually agreeable terms, and if he does not physically damage the property of others in the production process. Otherwise, if some or all of the capitalist's production factors are neither appropriated or produced by him, nor bought or rented by him from a previous owner (but derived instead from the ex-propriation of another person's previous property), if he employs non-consensual, "forced" labor in his production, or if he causes physical damage to others' property during production, his actions and resulting profits are unjust.

In that case, the unjustly harmed person, the slave, or any person in possession of proof of his own un-relinquished older title to some or all of the capitalist's means of production, has a just claim against him and can insist on restitution ? exactly as the matter would be judged and handled outside the business world, in all civil affairs.

III

Complications in this fundamentally clear ethical landscape arise only from the presence of a State.

The state is conventionally defined as an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making in all cases of conflict, including conflicts involving itself and its agents. That is, the state can legislate, can unilaterally make and break law; and by implication, the state has the exclusive privilege to tax, i.e., to determine unilaterally the price its subjects must pay it to perform the task of ultimate decision-making.

Logically, the institution of a state has a twofold implication. First, with a state in existence all private property becomes essentially fiat property, i.e., property granted by the state and, by the same token, also property to be taken away by it via legislation or taxation. Ultimately, all private property becomes state property. Second, none of the state's "own" land and property -- misleadingly called public property -- and none of its money income is derived from original appropriation, production, or voluntary exchange. Rather, all of the state's property and income is the result of prior expropriations of owners of private property.

The state, then, contrary to its own self-serving pronouncements, is not the originator or guarantor of private property. Rather, it is the conqueror of private property. Nor is the state the originator or guarantor of justice. To the contrary, it is the destroyer of justice and the embodiment of in-justice.

How is a capitalist-entrepreneur (or anyone, for that matter) to act justly in a fundamentally unjust, statist world, i.e., confronted and encircled by an ethically indefensible institution ? the state -- whose agents live of and sustain themselves not from production and exchange but from expropriations: from the taking, redistributing and regulating of the capitalist's and others' private property?

Since private property is just, every action in defense of one's private property is just as well ? provided only that in his defense the defender does not infringe on the private property rights of others. The capitalist is ethically entitled to use all means at his disposal to defend himself against any attack on and expropriation of his property by the state, exactly as he is entitled to do against any common criminal. On the other hand, and again exactly as in the case of any common criminal, the capitalist's defensive actions are unjust, if they involve an attack on the property of any third party, i.e., as soon as the capitalist uses his means to play a participatory role in the state's expropriations.

More specifically: For the capitalist (or anyone) in the defense and for the sake of his property, it may not be prudent or even dangerous to do so, but it is certainly just for him to avoid or evade any and all restrictions imposed on his property by the state as best he can. Thus, it is just for the capitalist to deceive and lie to state agents about his properties and income. It is just for him, to evade tax-payments on his property and income, and to ignore or circumvent all legislative or regulatory restrictions imposed on the uses he may make of his factors of production (land, labor, and capital). Correspondingly, a capitalist also acts justly, if he bribes or otherwise lobbies state agents to help him ignore, remove or evade the taxes and regulations imposed on him. He acts justly and above that becomes a promoter of justice, if he uses his means to lobby or bribe state agents to reduce taxes and property regulations generally, not only for him. And he acts justly and becomes indeed a champion of justice, if he actively lobbies to outlaw, as unjust, any and all expropriation, and hence all property and income taxes and all legislative restrictions on the use of property (beyond the requirement of not causing physical damage to others' property during production).

As well, it is just for the capitalist to buy state property at the lowest possible price -- provided only that the property in question cannot be traced back to the expropriation of some specific third party that still retains title to it. And likewise is it just for the capitalist to sell his products to the state at the highest possible price -- provided only that this product cannot be linked directly and causally to a future act of state aggression against some particular third party (as may be the case with certain weapons sales).

On the other hand, apart from any violation of the just mentioned two provisos, a capitalist acts unjustly and becomes a promoter of in-justice, if and to the extent he employs his means for the purpose of maintaining or further increasing any current level of confiscation or legislative expropriation of others' property or income by the state.

Thus, for instance, the purchase of state-government bonds and the monetary profit derived from it is unjust, because such purchase represents a lobbying effort on behalf of the continuation of the state and of on-going injustice, as interest payments and final repayment of the bond require future taxes. Likewise and more importantly, any means expended by a capitalist on lobbying efforts to maintain or increase the current level of taxes -- and hence of state-income and spending -- or of regulatory property restrictions, are unjust, and any profits derived from such efforts are corrupted.

Confronted with an unjust institution, the temptation for a capitalist to act unjustly as well is systematically increased. If he becomes an accomplice in the state's business of taxing, redistributing and legislating, new profit opportunities open up. Corruption becomes attractive, because it can offer great financial rewards.

By expending money and other means on political parties, politicians, or other state agents, a capitalist may lobby the state to subsidize his losing enterprise, or to rescue it from insolvency or bankruptcy ? and so enrich or save himself at the expense of others. Through lobbying activities and expenses, a capitalist may be granted a legal privilege or monopoly concerning the production, the sale, or the purchase of certain products or services ? and so gain monopoly profits at the expense of other money-profit seeking capitalists. Or he may get the state to pass legislation that raises his competitors' production costs relative to his own ? and so grants him a competitive advantage at others' expense.

Yet however tempting, all such lobbying activities and resulting profits are unjust. They all involve that a capitalist pays state agents for the expropriation of other, third parties, in the expectation of higher personal profit. The capitalist does not employ his means of production exclusively for the production of goods, to be sold to voluntarily paying consumers. Rather, the capitalist employs a portion of his means for the production of bads: the involuntary expropriation of others. And accordingly, the profit earned from his enterprise, whatever it may be, is no longer a correct measure of the size of his contribution to social welfare. His profits are corrupted and morally tainted. Some third parties would have a just claim against his enterprise and his profit ? a claim that may not be enforceable against the state, but that would be a just claim nonetheless.

Literature:

Hoppe, Hans-Hermann, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property. Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (Auburn, AL.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006)

Hoppe, Hans-Hermann, The Great Fiction. Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline (Baltimore, ML: Laissez Faire Books, 2012)

Mises, Ludwig von, Human Action. A Treatise on Economics (Chicago, IL.: Regnery, 1966)

Rothbard, Murray N., The Ethics of Liberty (New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, 1998)


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Friday, June 27, 2014

Sheriff John Urquhart Keeps the "Gang" Together


by William Norman Grigg

Darrion Holiwell is a self-described gang leader from Seattle who is accused of serious offenses. After learning that he was being investigated by the King County Sheriff's Office, Holiwell concealed his substantial arsenal and sent a text message containing undisguised threats of violence.

Holiwell, it would seem, is the kind of hyper-violent criminal suspect for which SWAT teams were invented. As it happens, Holiwell is a SWAT team commander and the KCSO?s chief firearms instructor. He is accused of using his estranged second wife as a prostitute, providing steroids to fellow police officers, and stealing a substantial amount of ammunition for re-sale to local gun dealers.

Prostitution and drug use are vices, rather than crimes, of course ? but it shouldn?t be forgotten that most SWAT deployments originate in efforts to treat those behaviors as if they were criminal. Holiwell, who has been a King County Deputy since 1995, was surely being paid enough to live comfortably. In addition to his tax-derived salary, Holiwell owned a firearms training company called Praetor. Yet according to Sheriff John Urquhart, his deputy pimped out his wife and started retailing steroids because he ?needed the money? following an injury that cut into his overtime pay.

In a television interview several years ago, Holiwell described the King County SWAT team as a "gang": "Bad guys, we're a gang, too"?. As soon as they unleash us, go hide; guaranteed, we're coming to get you."

The indictment describes Holiwell as a significant threat to the community:

?The defendant has been violating the law and the public trust for years?. [There are] significant concerns for the safety of the community and the many witnesses who have cooperated in the investigation and whose identities will be revealed.? The indictment also claims that ?Both [Holiwell's] current wife and former wife reported to investigators concerning acts of physical violence, assaults, and violent behavior ? that went unreported and are now outside the Statute of Limitations.?

Holiwell, who was arrested and given $1.550,000 bond, was tipped off before his colleagues took him into custody. A text message recovered from his iPhone indicates that he is planning to retaliate against his enemies:

?Sh*t storm is coming?. I got something for there [sic] asses. Hang on, it?s about to get real.?

Sheriff Urquhart admits that his SWAT team, which is deployed, on average, about twice a week, is compromised. Yet the sheriff insists that Holiwell's government-licensed gang will be "operating as normal" until the investigation is completed. If he were at all concerned about the safety of the public he is sworn to protect, Urguhart would take immediate action to disband Holiwell?s gang. But the sheriff clearly has other priorities.


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Thursday, June 26, 2014

IRS Now Says It Has Lost Emails From Six More Accounts Tied To The Investigation Of Its Targeting Of Tax-Exempt Groups


by Tim Cushing

The IRS recently blamed a "computer crash" for the disappearance of two years of email correspondence involving Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the controversy surrounding the agency's apparent targeting of certain non-profit groups (Tea Party, Occupy, open source).

Apparently, this computer crash also destroyed any backups of the email between Lerner's office and outside government agencies, along with the hard copy backups IRS employees are required to maintain as part of its public records obligations. The latter part of that hasn't been specifically denied, but it's assumed no one's rounding up email printouts at the moment. As is the new Standard Operating Procedure for Grandstanding, a Congressman has demanded the NSA hand over the metadata on the missing Lerner emails.

Now, it appears that Lois Lerner's computer crash was only part of a much larger series of well-timed computer crashes.

The Internal Revenue Service says it can't produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.

The IRS recently informed Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the targeting scandal.

The question is still: conspiracy or colossal screwup?

Certainly the fact that emails and accounts directly related to the investigation are missing data from the crucial 2009-2011 period does make it look like the agency's hiding something. But the possibility that this is can be chalked up to regular government ineptitude is never too far away.

As was noted earlier (in the IRS's own documentation no less), the agency uses Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, which would suggest that further backups exist, as does (again) the IRS's own statements. John Hinderaker at Power Line quotes the IRS on its backup processes.

For disaster recovery purposes, the IRS does a daily back-up of its email servers. ? Prior to May 2013, these backups were retained on tape for six months, and then for cost efficiency, the back-up tapes were released for re-use. In May of last year, the IRS changed its policy and began storing rather than recycling its backup tapes.
This means that older backups no longer exist, at least anything "taped over" prior to the change of policy. One wonders why the agency was allowed to recycle backups when much of what's being backed up is subject to public records laws. But to make the situation even worse, the IRS greatly restricted the number of emails each employee could retain.
Currently, the average individual employee's email box limit is 500 megabytes, which translates to approximately 6,000 emails. ? Prior to July 2011, the limit was lower, 150 megabytes or roughly 1,800 emails.
As Hinderaker points out, someone in Lerner's position could run through that allotment in just a few days, meaning she would most likely begin archiving them to her own computer, something that could actually destroy emails when it crashed.

But this doesn't excuse the missing email, although it does help explain it. As the IRS's own policies note, archiving email to local storage is not an adequate solution and does not comply with public records regulations. So, Lerner and the six others affected should have had hard copy printouts of every email that could possibly be considered a relevant public record. Apparently, they don't and it's highly unlikely that many IRS officials take this Luddic requirement seriously.

Even with this additional information, the coverup theory isn't completely dispelled. One computer crash nuking vital emails is unfortunate. Six computers all taking out relevant email from a specific time period goes far past coincidental. The fact that the IRS hid this from the investigatory committee for months before finally "revealing" it on page 15 of a 27-page letter lends more credence to those who feel there's been a concerted effort to keep information buried. It also should be noted that the IRS itself has not stepped up and explained how something like this could happen (other than saying "computer crash"). Anything pertaining to the IRS's regrettable backup "solutions" and absurdly tiny email storage has been uncovered by the research of others. So, until the agency has anything further to add, the scale remains perfectly balanced between "malice" and "stupidity."


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'Lost' e-mails my foot - Just ask the NSA for a copy ! The FBI should polygraph lerner, and have her cuffed and stuffed and
locked up.
two words...... CLOUD COMPUTING... ForfuckSake !!!!
the arrogant IRS-hole bastards are pissin in congress members ( & by extention, citizens) faces .
She saw Clapper et al get away with lying so she's hardly gonna tell the truth. And to take the 5th , hah ! I thought the constitution isn't being adhered to anymore ? certainly seems like that for the population in general.
A government rotten with corruption from the very top all the way down to the lowest gestapo member.......
Waterboard her, it's not torture I'm told ! 'she would most likely begin archiving them to her own computer, something that could actually destroy emails when it crashed.'

Yep, if the computer 'crashed' because 'someone' held a big powerful electro-magnet over it !
Here's a video of data being recovered from hard-disk drives salvaged from the rubble of the demolished Twin Towers !! :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYxYgWsMLAg

Either way, it's a totally lame and unbelievable excuse.
These e-mails are NOT her private property, they are public records and you have to be dumber than wet paint to believe there are no backups .

Imagine the IRS raids your business and asks for the last 5 years records and you answer :
Sorry, I'm to cheap to store them for more than a fortnight .
How long will that alone get you behind bars ??

PS :
Yeah, this really pisses me off big time, because it's a thing I know A LOT about . Unlike Tim Cushing, who seems to believe that data can actually disappear from the surface of a HDD due to a 'crash' .
Baloney BULLSHIT I call ...

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Saturday, June 14, 2014

The American Criminal Justice System is Dead


by Humphrey

A profoundly troubling study published by the University of Texas School of Law concludes that the American criminal justice system is dead in everything but name. The paper, entitled ?Waiving the Criminal Justice System,? describes how the adversarial process through which the state must prove the guilt of a defendant has been supplanted with a system of administrative law in which prosecutors extract plea bargains in exchange for relatively lenient sentences. This is why federal prosecutors win more than ninety percent of their cases through plea bargains, rather than jury trials.

This is a lamentable state of affairs, and to many observers a familiar story. This study, however, breaks new ground by showing that prosecutors at both the state and federal levels require defendants to waive?? due process rights that are vital for post-conviction appeals ? such as the right to effective assistance of counsel, and the right to obtain exculpatory evidence that can be used to overturn a conviction or at least obtain a new trial.

In the American tradition, the purpose of a trial was to establish the truth of an accusation against a defendant who is presumed to be innocent. The purpose of our post-constitutional criminal system is to ratify the defendant's guilt, irrespective of the facts.


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in exchange for relatively lenient sentences.?

They often have little evidence of a minor BS "crime" so they threaten to add "conspiracy" money laundering, terrorism, and other BS and threaten 30 years, unless they plead guilty and serve two years It an extortion business.

Agree they trump up the charges and add two or three extra charges and there you are facing 20 years in jail if the jury goes against you. Out of fear you accept the maximum sentence for the minor charge that they offer you a plea bargain on. You end up with the maximum sentence for a minor crime. The whole system is been on a decline for the last 100 years now it is finally dead. Now we have disorderly police who arrest people for made up offenses like a parent speaking out against a school for giving a child sexually explicit material in a English class.

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Friday, June 13, 2014

White House Propaganda Photo, Revised and Corrected


William Norman Grigg

Michelle Obama spared a moment between lavish tax-victim-funded vacations and celebrity outings to join this year?s version of the Kony campaign, which seeks military action in Nigeria to liberate 276 Christian schoolgirls who were abducted by Muslim militants.

The Twitter campaign ? in which people pose with signs reading #BringBackOurGirls ? is not directed at the terrorists and kidnappers, whose hearts will not be softened by such entreaties. The intent is to cultivate public support for a ?humanitarian? military operation conducted by the same kind-hearted folks who have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people during the past twelve years, and who are lending financial and military support to Jihadis in Syria who are committing atrocities every bit as vile as those carried out by Boko Haram.

This isn?t to say that the everyone who has enlisted in this hashtag campaign is a cynical war-monger, opportunistic politician, or trend-sucking celebrity. The heroic Malala Yousafzai, a Nobel nominee who survived being shot in the head by Taliban gunmen as punishment for promoting education for young girls, has joined the movement as well. Malala?s moral authority comes not merely from what she suffered in Pakistan, but from her willingness to confront the Nobel-winning murderer in the Oval Office over his continuing campaign of state terrorism.

During her White House visit last October, Malala expressed her concerns ?that drone attacks are fueling terrorism,? she told the Associated Press. ?Innocent victims are killed in these acts,? which she described as ?fueling terrorism.?

Mrs. Obama?s Twitter photo was revised and corrected by a revolutionary socialist group in Detroit to reflect the hideous reality behind the administration?s humanitarian posturing.


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Ha Ha!
What an incredibly stupid more of Michelle Obama to get a pic taken with a sheet of paper that can easily be edited by anyone with the most basic of photoshop skills. I predict the floodgate will open and we are going to see lots of entertaining captions pouring forth. URGENT UPDATE: The Nigerian Schoolgirls were RELEASED APRIL 17

12160.info/page/2649739:Page:1465510

Story and photos with link to "The Australian" newspaper online.

Another "yellowcake uranium" / bogus "WMD" rally the civilians for another natural resources theft-war.

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Thursday, June 12, 2014

Police Execute Dog Outside 5-Year-Old's Bedroom Window

Department stands by trooper who shot family dog before raiding wrong home
Mikael Thalen


A Pennsylvania man is accusing a state trooper of excessive force after his dog was shot and killed outside his grandson?s bedroom window late last week.

Jeff Blitz, who let his dog Ace out early Thursday morning, detailed the moment he heard gun shots while sitting inside his garage.

?They shot the dog and then came to the garage. The dog came around to me and he (the trooper) said ?you better calm down,?? Blitz told ABC 27. ?I said, ?calm down? You just killed my dog.??

Blitz?s neighbor, William Maynes, who heard the entire altercation from his home across the street, gave even greater insight into the trooper?s actions.

?There was a lady running down the road saying ?don?t shoot the dog, don?t shoot the dog,?? Maynes recalled. ?? So I got up, looked out the window and all the sudden I heard bang, bang, bang??

According to police, several local and federal law enforcement agencies were attempting to issue an arrest warrant for Blitz?s daughter when the dog was shot. When researching for the arrest, the agencies failed to discover that Blitz?s daughter had long since moved from the residence.

Even worse, Blitz?s 5-year-old grandson Dane was only feet away inside his room as the trooper wildly shot twice into the lawn before hitting the dog.

?They walked away when I pointed it out, I said ?you already took one part of my family and there?s a second one in there watching TV,?? Blitz said. ?He could of got it too.?

Despite Ace being shot in the side, which leads Blitz to believe his dog was not being a threat to officers, Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Rob Hicks defended the shooting, arguing that the offending trooper was likely keeping people safe.

?Every once in a while we get thrown into a situation where we have to protect either ourselves or somebody else and this is one of those situations,? Hicks said.

Blitz says the hardest part has been explaining the situation to his grandson, who watched Ace get buried in the backyard as police stood around in the front.

?He was just out there sitting talking to him a while ago,? Blitz explained. ?He asked me, ?Pappy, can I go talk to Ace?.??

Although an investigation has been opened into the matter, few expect the trooper to be held accountable for shooting a dog outside the wrong home.

?The investigation is going to look at the whole picture, but the biggest point of the investigation is to be looking at whether the use of force was warranted in this situation,? Hicks added.

Unfortunately, even when a dog is unjustly killed on film, law enforcement officers rarely face ramifications.

Last February, an officer in Idaho was cleared after killing a man?s service dog outside a 9-year-old?s birthday party. Dash cam footage of the incident showed the officer antagonizing the dog by kicking it several times before the fatal shots were fired.

In 2012, a police officer in Austin, Texas fatally shot a man's dog after responding to a domestic disturbance call at the wrong home. Despite the man openly playing Frisbee with his dog on his own front lawn, the officer opened fire at point blank range.

That same year, a Texas cop shot a dog on a family?s front porch, causing the bullet to enter the home. After killing the dog in the front of the house, the officer proceeded to kill a second dog that was tied up in the backyard.


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Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sober Woman Framed With 'Drunk Driving' Charges After Cop Crashes Into Her Vehicle


The victim of a horrible accident was charged with OWI to cover for a deputy's faulty driving.

MILWAUKEE, WI ? A young woman had her neck broken in four places after her vehicle was T-boned by a police officer who blew through a stop sign.? Even though she was completely sober, the police charged with drunk driving and tried to shift the blame onto her instead of the party at fault.? When evidence surfaced that showed her innocence, it was hidden and ignored.? The deputy responsible was never punished.

Terrible Crash

Tanya Helena Weyker, 25, had never been accused of a crime, nor had she even so much as had a speeding ticket.? Her life changed forever the night of February 20, 2013, when her Toyota Camry was slammed by a Milwaukee County Sheriff?s deputy and was sent spinning into a tree.

?I was just driving straight and he hit me,? remembered Weyker in an interview with WITI.? ?It was just a miracle I wasn?t paralyzed.?

Deputy Joseph Quiles had broadsided her, mangling the vehicle and causing her life-threatening injuries.? The crash was so violent that it broke her neck in four places.?? Her passenger suffered a ruptured spleen.

Ms. Weyker was in critical condition, yet the responding deputies did not miss the opportunity to manufacture reasons to ruin her life and lock her in jail.? Quiles?s colleagues used Weyker?s ?glassy? eyes as evidence of drunk driving, along with the claim of a ?light odor? of alcohol.

"I explained to him my eyes were red and glassy because I was crying," Ms. Weyker explained.? "They made me into this criminal."

On the police report filed by Deputy Scott Griffin, the alleged ?victim? was recorded as fellow deputy Joseph Quiles.? The report claimed that Weyker made conflicting statements and did its best to make her look like a criminal.

Charges and Injuries

To go with her terrible injuries, Ms. Weyker was slammed with 5 crimes:
Unreasonable and Imprudent SpeedOperating While IntoxicatedOperating with PAC >= 0.08 < 0.10Causing Injury While Operating While IntoxicatedCausing Injury While Operating with PAC alcoholWeyker miraculously survived the ordeal, but she had a tough recovery ahead of her.? A month after the crash, Weyker was in desperate shape.? She had drifted down to an incredibly low body weight of 76 pounds on her 5?6? frame.?? She was so weak that doctors said she required a feeding tube.

Her condition was complicated by the fact that she was a cancer survivor since the age of 3 years old.? As a child, doctors gave her so many doses of radiation that her spine began to curve, so they inserted metal rods into her back to keep it straight.? She had been living with these rods for many years at the time of the crash.

Unable to work, crippled, and drowning in medical bills approaching $1 million ? Ms. Weyker also had to pay for legal services to defend herself from the Milwaukee County Sheriff?s Department.

What?s worse, the case wasn?t being dropped, even though the evidence was clearly on her side.? The night of the crash, Weyker was in no condition to give a field sobriety test, but her blood was drawn during hospitalization.? The test results came back proving that she had absolutely no alcohol in her system.

Justice Served?

It is unlikely that such treatment would have occurred to the victim of any other crash that did not involve a police officer.? With no tangible evidence for the charges, the Milwaukee County Sheriff?s deputy pushed the blame onto his victim to ?protect himself and his department,? according to Ms. Weyker.

Deputy Quiles himself was found to have changed his story.? In his official police report, he claimed to have made a complete stop at the stop sign.? Yet a surveillance video captured from the nearby airport showed that Quiles rolled right through it, striking Weyker?s vehicle.

The department obtained the surveillance video only days after the crash ? but it was kept hidden from Ms. Weyker and her attorney.?? Instead of revealing the evidence and dropping the manufactured charges against her, the department sent her threatening letters demanding money to pay for the accident.

Fortunately, the district attorney declined to pursue the charges against Ms. Weyker.? The Milwaukee County Sheriff?s Office seems to have an unaddressed integrity problem.

In a later internal investigation, Deputy Quiles was recorded admitting his own fault in the crash.? Despite this admission ? contradicting his original report ? he is still listed as an active deputy with the department, WITI News discovered.? He was never fired or officially disciplined for the fraudulent report that caused Ms. Weyker so much agony.


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automatic response.when vou are a cop ,it can't be your fault.and everyone of the rest of the cops will automatically fall into place behind each other without question This charlatan cop is on medical leave and now going to more than likely get disability, unbelievable. The devil does wear a badge and a uniform. These despicable, pathetic cowards...these pukes who call themselves "men"...these liars and miscreants who don't have a drop of honor or integrity in their veins...these ruthless, sociopathic bastards...these uniformed baboons that serve as the hired thugs of the State to enforce the policies of the State, and are therefore protected by the State...does anyone still honestly believe these vile, corrupt, heartless, bullying, mentally disturbed FREAKS are "the good guys"?

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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Police 'Sorry' They Raided Wrong Home & Terrorized Innocent Children


Chris | InformationLiberation

From MyFOXBoston:
A Framingham family was awakened Thursday by police breaking down their front door and forcing everyone to the ground at gunpoint after they conducted a drug raid at the wrong house.

Framingham and State Police were conducting a multi-jurisdictional drug investigation when the mistake occurred around 6 a.m. Thursday.

"They had me down on the hallway upstairs, my daughter was coming out of the shower, she didn't have [any] clothes on, they make her get down, my kids are on the floor," said Michelle McClain, whose apartment was raided.

She has five kids between four and 18 years old. Some, she says, have behavioral problems, making it hard for them to understand what happened.

"They were asking me 'why are they here, why are they doing this, what did we do?'", said McClain.

After police acknowledged their mistake they proceeded to raid the next door apartment and make an arrest. A Sergeant later returned to McClain to apologize. The town manager did as well.

"We acknowledge the mistake, we feel remorse and we offered an apology," said Town Manager Bob Halpin.

Framingham police killed an innocent grandfather in a similar raid three years ago.


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Monday, June 9, 2014

Adult Photography Record-Keeping and Inspection Law Threatens Free Speech


By Andrew Crocker

EFF and the ACLU of Pennsylvania have joined forces to file an amicus brief in a long-running challenge to two criminal statutes that unconstitutionally limit the free expression of millions of adults who use the Internet and other electronic forms of communication. These statutes bring the threat of criminal sanctions for private, lawful speech and also violate important privacy rights, including both the First and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

At issue in the case, Free Speech Coalition v. Attorney General, are provisions of federal law that require anyone who produces a visual depiction of sexually explicit expression to maintain extensive records--including copies of drivers' licenses, the dates and times images were taken, and all URLs where images were posted--and often force public disclosure of a creator's home address. Even more troubling, the regulations allow law enforcement warrantless entry into homes or offices in order to inspect the records that are supposed to be kept. In this case, the plaintiffs are a range of producers of adult material. But while these statutes regulate the commercial pornography industry, they also potentially apply to a staggering number of Americans who create and share images of themselves over social networks, online dating services, personal erotic websites, and text messaging.

The case has followed a complex procedural trajectory. EFF previously filed an amicus brief when it was first heard before a Pennsylvania federal district court in 2010. Subsequently, the case was dismissed, appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and remanded back to the district court. In September 2013, the district court sided with the plaintiffs on one issue--the statutes' authorization of warrantless entry into homes or offices--which could not be squared with the Fourth Amendment. However, the court found that the statutes did not violate the First Amendment, and the plaintiffs have appealed once again to the Third Circuit.

EFF hopes the Third Circuit will take this opportunity to protect individuals' First Amendment rights to produce and share private, lawful speech.


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Sunday, June 8, 2014

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Cops No Longer Need Warrants to Search Vehicles


?..heedlessly contravenes over 225 years of unyielding protection against unreasonable search and seizure..?
Adan Salazar


Pennsylvania?s Supreme Court has ruled police officers in the Commonwealth are no longer required to obtain a warrant prior to searching a vehicle, a decision that essentially overturns the protections enumerated in the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and in Pennsylvania?s own state constitution.

Yesterday, Justice Seamus McCaffery issued the court?s opinion, stemming from a 2010 Philadelphia police department traffic stop of a man for having dark tinted windows, who was later found to be hiding two pounds of marijuana under the hood of his vehicle.

In a 4-2 vote, the court decided "the prerequisite for a warrantless search of a motor vehicle is probable cause to search."

Previously, as explained by Lancaster Online, police were not allowed to search a vehicle unless a driver consented, "or if the illegal substances were in plain view."

"Now, based on the opinion, it only takes reasonable probable cause for an officer to go ahead with the search without a warrant," writes Brett Hambright.

Not surprisingly, police are ecstatic.

"It is a ruling that helps law enforcement as they continue to find people in possession of illegal drugs," said New Holland Police Lt. Jonathan Heisse, reports Hambright.

However, in her dissenting opinion, Justice Debra McCloskey Todd rightly noted the ruling ?heedlessly contravenes over 225 years of unyielding protection against unreasonable search and seizure which our people have enjoyed as their birthright.? Todd also called the decision ?diametrically contrary to the deep historical and legal traditions? of Pennsylvania, according to Associated Press.

Several defense attorneys also view the court?s ruling as a monumental government overreach that could negatively impact the normal, day-to-day lives of ordinary citizens.

"It's an expanding encroachment of government power," Jeffrey Conrad, a defense attorney with the law firm Clymer Musser & Conrad told Hambright today regarding the court?s final opinion. "It's a protection we had two days ago, that we don't have today. It's disappointing from a citizens' rights perspective."

"I am concerned," another defense attorney, Christopher Patterson, expressed to Hambright, "that we are on a slippery slope that will eliminate personal privacy and freedom in the name of expediency for law enforcement."

Another lawyer clarified that the ruling does not grant police the authority to search vehicles arbitrarily.

"This does not mean that they may search every vehicle they stop," Mike Winters with the law firm McMahon & Winters said. "They must still develop probable cause before they are permitted to search your vehicle without a warrant."


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Probable cause (rather than "hunch" like reasonable suspicion) is always enough for the police to search a car. That's why the cops bring the dog to sniff, and if the dog alerts, they have their reason to search, no warrant is required. This is well known to anyone cursory familiar with the matter, so it's odd that the article presents it as some new and unheard of practice - see http://www.flexyourrights.org/faqs/when-can-police-search-your-car/ any pretty much all literature on the subject. If Pennsylvania was an exception, it was amazing, but it ended; the cited court opinion does say "Accordingly, we adopt the federal automobile exception to the warrant requirement, which allows police officers to search a motor vehicle when there is probable cause to do so" - which indeed seems to be the case everywhere else.

In this specific case, the driver told the cops that he had "some weed" in the car; then when they brought the dog to sniff (I wonder why, after that admission), the guy tried to flee and was caught. Seems like more than enough reasons to search the car.

This may end up in the supreme court. That couild be a good thing or a bad thing. Its again going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe night in our lifetime but god willing eventually Americans will realize cops are an occupying gang force that are the enemy and only exist to put people in jail for non-crimes.

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Saturday, June 7, 2014

Kids Traumatized, Have Nightmares After Cops Raid Wrong House


Cops give kids stuffed animals to make up for three hours of terror
Adan Salazar


A Michigan SWAT team provided a small family fresh inspiration for nightmares after they broke down the door to the wrong home and turned the place upside down looking for drugs.

Police in Kalamazoo apologized for mistaking Jeremy Handley?s home for that of an armed drug dealer, and hoped giving his children stuffed animals would make up for the terror-filled night.

Handley, his wife Becky and his two children were home last Thursday when he heard sounds making him believe his home was being burglarized. His kids ran to hide in a closet, hoping the thieves wouldn?t find them.

?I thought it was somebody either trying to rob us, or hurt us,? Handley recounted to CBS affiliate WWMT.

He says police entered through the back door and ordered him and his wife to the floor, handcuffing and searching them.

?He had me sprawl out right here on the floor, and then he had me put my hands behind my back,? Handley said, pointing to the area in his home where police held him at gunpoint.

Handley?s kids were also ferreted out of the closet, claiming they "were staying quiet, because we thought they were bad guys coming in."

The Handleys were cuffed and interrogated for three hours, while police rummaged through their belongings looking for controlled substances, Federal Reserve notes and firearms. ?Every drawer, every cabinet, every piece of paper,? Handley says of the SWAT team?s thorough search.

Police were apparently more thorough during their search, rather than prior. When all was said and done, they realized it was their mistake, as they were looking for the tenant who used to rent the Handley?s home about a year ago, a man by the name of Chum.

?Do you know this Chum guy?? police asked, to which Handley replied, "No, I would never recognize him if I were to see him in the street."

The whole menacing affair badly traumatized the Handley children, leaving them emotionally scarred and with recurring nightmares. ?One dream was about Chum coming in our house with a gun, saying get on the ground,? Handley?s daughter told WWMT. ?It made me sad and scared."

Police raids on wrong houses are occurring with such frequency that one wonders whether the raids are being carried out as a means of intimidating the public, or if their intelligence can really be so bad as to cause this many frequent mistakes.

Just last week, we highlighted a SWAT raid in Bakersfield, Cali., where police also battered down the door to the wrong house and ordered a half-naked young mother to the ground as she was about to jump in the shower. They stormed apartment "A," but were supposed to have been at "B."

Two days prior, we also reported on a raid that took place in Richmond, Virginia, in which police terrorized a 75-year-old grandmother, binding her hands with twist ties and telling her she was under arrest as they searched her home for drugs. In that case, police were supposed to be at apartment "E," but went to "G" instead.

Despite their traumatic scare, the Handleys are lucky no one got hurt.

Back in 2012, we exposed a bungled early morning SWAT raid on a wrong home in Billings, Montana, that left a 12-year-old girl badly burned by a flashbang grenade. "A simple knock on the door and I would've let them in," the girl's mother Jackie Fasching told the Billings Gazette.

(Image Source: Tyler Tjomsland / Kalamazoo Gazette)


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Ghey. Whey Incompetent. Layoff the Loosers. Real Men unflinchingly Breathe Life into their Women and Children. Talmud-Spawned-PsychopatHs,,,,,NOT. cops like to say we are only human as they constantly deny,lie, grant alibi's and excuses for each other and their own fucked up behavour.well what the hell are we the citizens?the nuts are in all the postions that abuse power daily in this country.I want to see cops tv series that shows all the bad they do not just one side.

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Friday, June 6, 2014

One Killer Cop, One Black-Bag Job, One Terrified Wife: The Ordeal of Patrice Teuton

by William Norman Grigg

Patrice Teuton is convinced that her estranged husband, a soon-to-be-disbarred Los Angeles attorney named Mark Teuton, intends to kill her. Her adult son Jonathan is convinced that she is right.

?I am extremely worried for the safety of my mother, my brother, my sister, and myself,? wrote Jonathan in an April 29 letter to the California Bar Association. ?I, personally, have witnessed him beat my family members, abuse drugs, [and] threaten to kill people?. If he is not stopped, then he will kill one of us. It?s just a matter of time.?

Similar concerns have been voiced by a doctor who has been treating Mark for emotional problems and has reportedly described him as a violent sociopath. A video of a violent encounter between an erratic, knife-wielding Mark and his terrified wife tends to corroborate that characterization.

If ? God forbid ? Patrice's worst fears are consummated, LA County Sheriff?s Deputy Julio Jove should be prosecuted as an accomplice. Jove helped Mark track down the would-be victim -- who had been relocated for her safety -- and held her in jail while the estranged husband burgled her home.

About two years ago, Patrice filed for divorce. In January, she obtained an order of protection and moved into a safe house in Orange County. According to Patrice?s attorney, David Scharf, her husband reacted by ?threatening to have her arrested? and promising that he would ?see her in jail.?

At daybreak on March 20, Patrice was startled awake by an insistent pounding on the front door. When she answered she was shoved aside by several deputies who, without permission or explanation, surged into her home with their guns drawn.

The officer in charge of the thugscrum was Detective Jove, with whom Patrice had spoken three days earlier. Patrice had called Jove after learning that the detective was investigating her in connection with the alleged theft of items from her husband's car.

?Mark had violated the protective order by calling me to say I could get some things belonging to Jonathan [the couple?s 23-year-old son] from his car,? Patrice explained to me. ?After we retrieved my son's belongings I found out that Detective Jove was investigating me for some reason.?

Detective Jove later claimed that he was investigating the theft of several items from Mark's car. The March 20 raid was conducted pursuant to a ?Ramey warrant,? which indicates that Jove was already planning to arrest Patrice when she contacted him three days earlier. If he had legitimate suspicions about Patrice, he neglected an opportunity to clear the case without further trouble by talking with a cooperative suspect.

Instead, Jove ?told me that he had no questions to ask, and no information he could give me,? Patrice recalled to me in a phone interview. ?I also let him know about the protective order against Mark, who was stalking and harassing me. Under the terms of that order, Mark was not permitted to call me, and he wasn't allowed to know where I was living, and I explained that to Jove. I also gave him the name of other law enforcement officers who had been in contact with us and knew the details of our situation. I explained all of this to him just a few days before the cops raided my home at daybreak, supposedly in search of property that had been stolen from Mark.?

The property in question consisted of two laptop computers that had been purchased with family funds and would be considered the family's ?community property? under California law, since the divorce has not been finalized.

Patrice believes that Mark wanted access to information on the laptop computers dealing with alleged sexual and financial misconduct, which would play a significant role in divorce proceedings. However, Mark didn't know Patrice's passwords, and since she was living in an undisclosed location he had no way of getting them from her.

By inviting Patrice to collect the laptop computers, and then reporting them as ?stolen,? Mark effectively enlisted Detective Jove and his comrades as accomplices in a home invasion robbery. The confiscated property wasn?t turned over to the Magistrate?s office, as required by law. Instead, the laptops were handed to Mark, along with an Apple desktop computer that Patrice had purchased by herself.

?After seizing my client's property under the claim of a warrant, Dep. Jove took her computer and her other property and immediately gave it to Mark Teuton,? recalled attorney David Scharf in a detailed letter to the District Attorney's office. ?Releasing property that has been obtained under a search warrant is a blatant violation of the law.? The same is true of Jove's refusal to provide the search warrant and the return when Scharf filed a formal request for those documents.

After the police invaded her home, Patrice offered documentation proving legal ownership of the supposedly stolen computers, to no avail. Jove and his comrades weren't there to solve a crime, but rather to commit one.

?In front of my 14-year-old daughter these deputies pushed me, handcuffed me, and verbally abused me,? Patrice told me. ?They had no justification for this, and they knew it. They also knew about my health problems? ? she suffers from Lupus and coronary artery disease ? ?but this didn't make any difference. They took me to the hospital, then dragged me off to jail.?

Despite the burden of her parents? impending divorce, Patrice?s daughter Natalie has maintained a 4.0 GPA in her high school. The illegal confiscation of the Apple desktop computer by ?armed government workers? placed her academic life in jeopardy, Natalie explained in a letter to Detective Jove, because it ?contained all of my school assignments, essays, and notes.?

Not content to confiscate Natalie?s schoolwork, the intruders attempted to do essentially the same thing to her. One of them led the 14-year-old to a waiting vehicle and told her that she would be in the company of a social worker. The driver was actually Mark's girlfriend, who was a complete stranger to both Natalie and her mother.

?This woman Natalie didn't know kept telling her, `Don't worry, it will all be over soon, and you'll be with your father,'? Patrice recalled. ?During the entire trip this woman was recording my daughter and trying to get her to say damaging things about me.?

Patrice would later learn that after she had been arrested, Detective Jove called Mark and told him, ?I have your daughter. What do you want me to do with her??

?I was given sole custody of Natalie, and the order of protection specified that Mark was to have no contact with either of us,? Patrice observed. ?He hadn't paid us a single dollar in child support, and was facing both disbarment and contempt of court ? yet after Jove arrested me, he tried to turn my daughter over to her abusive father, as well as giving him my address and a huge amount of confidential information he was not legally entitled to have.?

Natalie returned to the safe house, where she stayed with her adult brother until Patrice was released from jail. Once she was home, Natalie noticed that the doors had been left open. A quick inventory of the family?s belongings revealed that someone had taken a black book containing Patrice's computer passwords, as well as two large binders filled with receipts, financial records, and other materials that had been gathered for divorce hearings.

The raid happened on a Thursday morning. Patrice was able to arrange bail by late that afternoon ? yet she was held, without necessity or justification, for more than three days. No charges against Patrice were ever formally filed. The purpose of arresting her was simply to get her out of the home long enough for her husband to carry out a black-bag job.

Scharf concludes that while Patrice was held in custody ? despite posting bail ? her husband, who was forbidden to have any contact with her, ?gained access to her home and stole the black book and the two binders containing documentary evidence obtained by Patrice proving Mark was actively hiding assets intended for use in the final divorce trial. No one else on earth would have any interest in these items and only Mark would know that there would be no one at the residence while Patrice was being arrested. It is significant to note that for no apparent reason Jove deactivated the security camera recording system installed by Patrice? before she was taken to jail.

Jove arrested Patrice without cause, confiscated her property and illegally transferred it to her ex-husband, facilitated the near-kidnapping of her teenage daughter, disabled her home security, and then prolonged her unwarranted detention to allow her ex-husband to steal critical evidence in a civil case. Jove did this in knowing violation of a protective order, acting outside his jurisdiction to aid and abet a man regarded as an immediate, and potentially lethal, threat to his wife and children.

?I know Mark,? Patrice was reportedly told in her home by an Orange County deputy who had served papers to him. ?You need to protect yourself because Mark will kill you in seconds, and I can?t get here for minutes.?

As Scharf pointed out in his letter to the Los Angeles DA?s office, Patrice would have been able to protect herself ? were it not for the intervention of Detective Jove: ?The simple fact is that Patrice Teuton's life is in danger and Jove has been facilitating a stalker with his violations of law and perjury.?

Accusations of sexual and financial misconduct are typical in divorce cases, and it?s hardly unheard of for one deeply alienated spouse to obtain a protective order by falsely accusing the other of harboring violent intentions. The fears expressed by Patrice, her son Jonathan, and her best friend, were considered plausible by the judge who issued the protective order. While that isn?t a particularly challenging hurdle to cross, it does suggest that the wisest course of action would have been for Patrice and her daughter to be left unmolested in their safe house until the divorce was finalized.

The husband in this dispute, however, enjoyed the advantage of impunity-by-proxy ? that is, he was able to persuade police officers to commit illegal acts under the color of ?law.? Detective Jove was in a position to help because he has literally gotten away with murder.

In October 2010, Detective Jove shot and killed a 20-year-old man named Jonathan Cuevas who had been jaywalking across a street on Long Beach Boulevard in Lynwood. Jove rolled up to Cuevas and several friends and flashed a spotlight on them. Cuevas, who was not a criminal suspect, bolted. Video provided by a security camera shows Jove shooting several times at the fleeing man, who falls to the ground and is dispatched execution-style once the officer reaches him.

In his report, Jove dutifully recited from the police officer?s catechism of self-exoneration, claiming that the ?unusual behavior? of Cuevas and his friends led him to believe that they were ?setting him up for an ambush? ? despite the fact that he was the one who initiated the contact. When Jove demanded that Cuevas show him his hands, he ?quickly turned his upper body,? which prompted the high-strung officer to shoot at him. As Cuevas fled, he stopped long enough to turn and ?blade his body? at the officer, who fired several more rounds.

After Cuevas fell, Jove continued, the victim could be seen ?aggressively moving his shoulders from side to side? while screaming, ?You f****g shot me!? Honest and rational people would describe this behavior as ?writhing in agony.? As someone deeply indoctrinated in the officer safety uber alles dogma and given authorization to lie, Jove insisted that his victim?s death throes left him ?in fear for his life,? which supposedly meant he was justified in firing ?two to three rounds from his service weapon? at point-blank range.

Jove?s incident report claimed that Cuevas pulled a handgun from his waistband. A gun was allegedly found at the scene, but Cuevas?s fingerprints weren?t on the weapon and there is nothing in the surveillance video corroborating Jove?s claim that Cuevas ever reached for it or threatened him in any way. Additionally, the firearm provided to the family?s attorney as part of civil discovery was not the silver-handled gun supposedly found on the scene.

The video ?doesn?t show that he makes a threat to the officer,? insisted Mayra Murrillo, the mother of Cuevas?s son, who was a newborn when his father was killed. ?He?s running. He gets shot in the back and he falls down and the officer stands over him and continues to shoot him.?

Seven months after Jove killed Cuevas, the LA County DA?s office, presiding over the familiar liturgy of institutional immunity, ruled that the killer ?acted in lawful self-defense? when he shot a fleeing man in the back and then administered the coup-de-grace at intimate range. Last September, the county paid $875,000 to settle a $5 million wrongful death suit brought on behalf of the victim?s son.

No punitive action was taken against Detective Jove, which left him in a position to terrorize an innocent woman on behalf of her estranged and allegedly abusive husband, which is precisely the kind of service reasonable people expect from the degenerate racket called "law enforcement."
_
William Norman Grigg publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.


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Thursday, June 5, 2014

Making the World Safe from Democracy or: How to Defend Oneself Against the United States

Reflections on State and War
By Hans-Hermann Hoppe


Read part I

After this excursion into the theory of democratic peace I am back to the proposition that there is no greater threat to lasting peace than the democratic state, and in particular the United States. Thus, the question: how to make the world safe from democracy or how to defend oneself against the U.S..

This is not only a problem for foreigners but for Americans as well. After all, the territory constituting the U.S. too is conquered and occupied territory -- conquered by the U.S. government just as Iraq today is conquered by the U.S. government (if only less successfully). Thus recognizing the question as a truly general one allows us to gain a more principled understanding of the issues involved.

Let us assume that a small territory within the borders of the current U.S. -- a village, a town, a county -- declares its independence and secedes from the U.S. What can and will the U.S. do in response? The answer depends on many "ifs" and must be largely speculative, but not entirely so.

It is possible that the U.S. will invade the territory, crush the secessionists, and if necessary kill everyone in its way. This is what the FrenchRepublic did to the seceding Vendee during the French Revolution, for instance, what the Union did to the Confederacy, and on a much smaller scale and more recently, what the U.S. government did in Waco. But history also provides examples to the contrary: the Czechs and Slovaks separated peacefully, Russia let Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia go; the Slovenes were let go; Singapore was even expelled from a previous union with Malaysia.

Obviously, the relative population size matters in the decision to war or not to war. Likewise it matters what resources and technological capabilities are at the secessionists' disposal. Also the geographical location of the secessionists can weigh in favor or against intervention. But this cannot be all. For how is one to explain, for instance, that France has not long ago conquered Monaco, or Germany Luxemburg, or Switzerland Liechtenstein, or Italy Vatican City, or the U.S. Costa Rica? Or how is one to explain that the U.S. does not "finish the job" in Iraq by simply killing all Iraqis. Surely, in terms of population, technology and geography such are manageable tasks.

The reason for these omissions is not that French, German, Swiss, Italian or U.S. state rulers have principled moral scruples against conquest, occupation, expropriation, confiscation, enslavement and the imprisonment or killing of innocents -- they do these things on a daily basis to their "own" population. Bush, for instance, has no compunction ordering to kill innocent Iraqis. He does so every day. Rather, what constrains the conduct of state rulers and explains their reluctance to do things that appear feasible from a "technical" point of view is public opinion, domestically, but also abroad.

As La Boetie, Hume, Mises, Rothbard have explained, government power ultimately rests on opinion, not brute force. Bush does not himself kill or put a gun to the head of those he orders to kill. Generals and soldiers follow his orders on their own. Nor can Bush "force" anyone to continue providing him with the funds needed for his aggression. The citizenry must do so on its own, because it believes that, by and large, it is the right thing to do. On the other hand, if the majority of generals, soldiers and citizens stop believing in the legitimacy of Bush's commands, his commands turn into nothing more than hot air. It is this need for legitimacy that explains why state governments itching to go to war (and especially democratic governments expecting popular war support) must offer a reason for their actions. The public is not typically in favor of killing innocent bystanders for fun or profit. Rather, in order to enlist the public's assistance "evidence" must be manipulated or fabricated so as to make aggression appear as defense (for what reasonable person could be against defense). We know the catchwords: FortSumter, the USS Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, 9-11.

It thus turns out that not even an overwhelming size advantage is ultimately decisive in determining the course of action. That David Koresh and his followers in Waco could be brutally killed by the U.S. government was due to the fact that they could be easily portrayed as a bunch of crazy child molesters. Had they been "normal people" an invasion might have been considered a public relations disaster and hence prohibitive. Moreover, regardless of whatever disadvantage the secessionists have in terms of size, resources or location, this can be made up by a favorable international public opinion, especially in the internet age when the spread of news is almost instantaneous. If almost everyone anywhere sides with the secessionists and considers their behavior decent, understandable and just, even the seemingly most powerful government on earth must fear for its legitimacy if it decides to crush the "rebellion."

These considerations bring me to the final points: the likelihood of success of the secessionists depends on their choice of internal organization. The new secessionist country can be another state or it can be a free, state-less society. Tying back to my explanation regarding the relationship between state and aggression, I will argue that the likelihood of successful defense against U.S. aggression is higher if the secessionists form a stateless society than if they opt for another state. Because whether large or small, states are good at aggression and bad at defense, except at defending themselves. (Granting, maybe prematurely, that the U.S. had nothing to do with 9-11 directly, the events of that day certainly show that the U.S. was not good at defending its own citizens: first by provoking the attacks and secondly in having its population disarmed and defenseless vis-a-vis box-cutter wielding foreign invaders.)

How would the defensive stance of a free society differ from that of a state and how would this affect the likelihood a) of a U.S. attack and b) of its success?

Ad a): As explained, the likelihood of an attack depends essentially on the ease of manipulating the evidence so as to camouflage aggression as defense -- and to "discover" such evidence is much easier in the case of a state than that of a state-less society. Even the most liberal state has a monopoly of jurisdiction and taxation and thus cannot but commit injustices and create victims which, properly stylized as "victims of human rights violations" or some such, may provide the necessary "excuse" for a planned invasion. Worse, if the new state is a democracy it is unavoidable that one group -- the Catholics or the Protestants, the Shiites or the Sunnis, the Whites or the Blacks, the Haves or the Not-Haves, etc. -- will use its power to dominate another -- and once again there exists an "excuse" for invasion: to "free some oppressed minority." Better still: the oppressed are incited, assisted by financial aid, to "cry out" for U.S. help. Moreover, in reaction to domestic oppression terrorists may grow up who try to "revenge" the injustice: just think of the Red Brigades, the RAF, the IRA, the ETA, the PKK, etc. -- and both: the continued existence of terrorists as well as a policy of trying to eradicate them may provide "reason" to intervene (to prevent the spread of terrorism or to come to the rescue of freedom fighters). In distinct contrast, in a free society only private property owners and private firms, including insurers, police, and arbitration agencies exist. All relationships are contractual. If there is any provocation or aggression, they are the actions not of terrorists but of ordinary criminals: of murderers, rapists, burglars, thieves and plain frauds -- and it is difficult to portray the treatment of criminals as criminals as a reason for an invasion.

Ad b): What if the attack does occur? In that case it might well be best to give up quickly, especially if the secessionist territory is very small. Thus Mogens Glistrup, founder of the Danish Progress Party, once recommended that the Defense Department of tiny Denmark be replaced with an answering machine announcing (to the Russians) that "we surrender." This way, no destruction occurs and yet the prestige, the good name of the invading government as a "defender and promoter of liberty" is likely forever soiled.

This preliminary consideration leads to our central question regarding the comparative effectiveness of states vs. free societies in matters of defense. As a monopolist of ultimate decision-making, the state decides for everyone bindingly whether to resist or not; if to resist, whether in the form of civil disobedience, armed resistance or some combination thereof; and if armed resistance, of what form. If it decides to put up no resistance, this may be a well-meaning decision or it may be the result of bribes or personal threats by the invading state -- but in any case, it will certainly be contrary to the preferences of many people who would have liked to put up some resistance and who are thus put in double jeopardy because as resisters they disobey now their own state as well as the invader. On the other hand, if the state decides to resist, this again may be a well-meaning decision or it may be the result of pride or fear -- but in any case, it too will be contrary to the preferences of many citizens who would have liked to put up no resistance or to resist by different means and who are entangled now as accomplices in the state's schemes and subjected to the same collateral fallout and victor's-justice as everyone else.

The reaction of a free territory is distinctly different. There is no government which makes one decision. Instead, there are numerous institutions and individuals who choose their own defense strategy, either independent of or in cooperation with others, each in accordance with one's own risk assessment. Consequently, the aggressor has far more difficulties gathering information and conquering the territory. It is no longer sufficient to "know" the government, to win one decisive battle or to gain control of government headquarters from where to transmit orders to the native population. Even if one opponent is "known", one battle is won or one defense agency defeated, this has no bearing on others.

Moreover, the multitude of command structures and strategies as well as the contractual character of a free society affect the conduct of both armed and unarmed resistance. As for the former, in state-territories the civilian population is typically unarmed and heavy reliance exists on regular, tax-and-draft-funded armies and conventional warfare. Hence, the defense forces create enemies even among its own citizenry, which the aggressor state can use to its own advantage, and in any case there is little to fear for the aggressor once the regular army is defeated. In contrast, the population of free territories is likely heavily armed and the fighting done by irregular militias led by defense professionals and in the form of guerilla or partisan warfare. All fighters are volunteers and all of their support: food, shelter, logistical help etc. is voluntary. Hence, guerrillas must be extremely friendly to their own population. But precisely this: their entirely defensive character and near-unanimous support in public opinion can render them nearly invincible, even by numerically far superior invading armies. History provides numerous examples: Napoleon's defeat in Spain, France's defeat in Algeria, the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, Israel's defeat in South Lebanon.

This consideration of the relationship between fighters and civilians leads immediately to the other form of defense: unarmed resistance or civil disobedience. Provided only that the secessionists have the will to be free, the effectiveness of this strategy can hardly be overestimated. Just recall that power does not rest alone on brute force but must rely on "opinion." The conquerors cannot put one man next to each secessionist and so force him obey their orders. The secessionists must obey by their own free will. However, if they do not -- and this insight forms the basis of the doctrine of civil disobedience -- the conquerors will fail. Most importantly: civil disobedience can occur in many forms and degrees. It can range from ostentatious acts of defiance to entirely unobtrusive ways, thus allowing almost everyone to participate in the defense effort: the courageous and the timid, the young and the old, men and women, leaders and followers. One may hide armed fighters or not hinder them and keep quiet about their whereabouts. One may publicly refuse to obey certain laws, or evade and ignore them. One may engage in sabotage, obstruction, negligence or simply display a lack of diligence. One may openly scoff at orders or comply only incompletely. Tax payments may be refused or evaded. There may be demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts, work-stoppages or plain slacking-off. The conquerors may be maltreated, molested, ridiculed, laughed at or simply ostracized and never assisted in anything. In any case: all of this contributes to the same result: to render the conquerors powerless, make them despair and finally resign and withdraw.

As is often the case, the first step in the anti-imperialist-anti-democratic struggle is the most difficult. Indeed, the difficulties are enormous. Once the first step has been successfully taken, however, things get successively easier. Once the number of secessionist territories has reached a critical mass -- and every success in one location will promote imitation by other localities -- the difficulties of crushing the secessionists will increase exponentially. In fact, the more time passes the greater will the comparative economic and technological advantage of free territories become and in light of the ever increasing attractiveness and economic opportunities offered by the free territories the imperialist powers will be increasingly happy if they can hang on to their power rather than risk whatever legitimacy they still have in an attack.
_
Hans-Hermann Hoppe [send him mail] is distinguished fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and founder and president of the Property and Freedom Society. His books include Democracy: The God That Failed and The Myth of National Defense. Visit his website.


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