Never Trust a Costumed Stranger

by William Norman Grigg

Within the space of seventy-two hours last weekend, three women were detained and sexually assaulted by armed strangers in official-looking costumes. Two of those incidents occurred in Texas, the other happened in Minnesota.

The first attack took place on a highway near Carrollton, Texas on Thursday, November 21. An unidentified man wearing what appeared to be a police uniform stopped a woman, handcuffed her, and assaulted her in the back seat of his car.

Early Sunday morning, a female student at the University of Minnesota was sexually assaulted by a man dressed like a police officer. The assailant, who was driving a black SUV, approached the woman and admonished her that she shouldn?t be walking alone late at night. Beguiled by what appeared to be the stranger?s official attire, the woman got into the vehicle. The driver locked the doors and conveyed the victim to a remote location, where he raped her.

Sandwiched between these episodes of sexual predation by ersatz police officers was one involving an actual cop. During a routine patrol on Friday, November 22, San Antonio Police Officer Jackie Len Neal allegedly stopped a 19-year-old girl, handcuffed her, and raped her in the back seat of his police cruiser. This was not the first time he has been accused of assaulting women during traffic stops.

Neal was arrested a few hours later, but released after making bail. He was immediately put on paid ?administrative leave,? and allowed to keep his firearms ? professional courtesies that would not be extended to either of the other two accused roadside rapists if they were captured.

Following the attack by the police impersonator near Carrollton, police officials warned female drivers that if they are suspicious of the individual pulling them over, they should call 911 and then drive to a well-lit area before stopping.

This course of action might defeat the evil designs of a police impersonator. However, if the suspicious stranger is a police officer, a female driver who acts on that safety advice will probably find herself involved in a dangerous pursuit that could lead to criminal charges ? assuming that she survives the encounter.

This is demonstrated by the cast of Arizona resident Dibor Roberts, who was attacked by a sheriff?s deputy during a late-night traffic stop after she tried to find a safe and well-lit area to conduct unwanted business with the uniformed extortionist.

At roughly 10:45 PM on the evening of July 29, 2007, Mrs. Roberts, a 48-year-old nurse and naturalized U.S. citizen from Senegal, was returning from work when she noticed a car driving erratically in front of her.

After passing the dangerous driver, Roberts noticed police lights in her rear-view mirror. Her initial reaction was relief, since she believed the officer was going to pull over what she suspected was an impaired motorist. Her relief turned to puzzlement and then alarmed suspicion when she realized that she was the target.

Just a few days earlier, Dibor and her husband had discussed local incidents involving police impersonators. They were aware of advice given by police agencies to people being pulled over in dangerous circumstances: Drive carefully to a well-lit, preferably public area, and call 911 if possible to verify that it is a police officer. That was the official recommendation offered by the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. That department?s employees included Sgt. Jeff Newnum ? who, ignoring another driver who was operating his vehicle erratically at unsafe speeds, had targeted Roberts for a revenue collection encounter on that dark July evening.

Roberts did nothing wrong. She acted in strict compliance with the Sheriff?s official advice, slowing down and proceeding in the direction of a well-lit area. Her behavior was not that of someone trying to flee from the police.

Deputy Newnum, on the other hand, had already lost his composure, informing the dispatcher that he was in pursuit of a ?black driver? who refused to stop. He pulled alongside Roberts and attempted a ?pit maneuver? to force her off the road, which did nothing to allay the innocent woman?s entirely proper suspicions. After Roberts came to a stop, Newnum erupted from his vehicle with a drawn gun because, he later testified, ?I knew I had an angry driver.?

Roberts, who by this time was terrified, frantically tried to explain that she was looking for a safe place to stop. Ignoring her desperate pleas, and no doubt eager to exploit an opportunity to inflict property damage, Newnum took out a baton and shattered the driver's side window, bellowing at her to "Open the f*****g door!" He then seized the terrified woman and dragging her out of the car. As he did so, Dibor's foot came off the brake and her car -- which was still in gear -- rolled forward over Newnum's foot.

Through her window, Dibor had repeatedly yelled "It's too dark; I'm afraid." She was dragged from her vehicle yelling "No, no, no, no," as Newnum threw her to the ground. Her cellphone was taken from her and thrown away as well.

"He pulled me out and the car jerked because I had my foot on the brakes," Dibor explained after the incident.

"She took it too far when she ran over my foot," insisted Newnum later under oath. This is a petulant lie of the kind that comes readily to the lips of tax-eaters of Newnum?s ilk. He had needlessly escalated the encounter by threatening to use deadly force. Roberts made no effort to escape after supposedly assaulting Newnum.

Furthermore, Newnum?s courtroom testimony that Roberts clearly intended to run over his foot contradicted his official report from six months earlier, in which he said it wasn?t clear whether this was a mishap or an act of malicious intent. He likewise equivocated on the witness stand as to whether or not he was injured in that ?attack.?

Another key contradiction in Newnum?s testimony dealt with his concerns over Robert?s ?threat? to his safety. The deputy claimed that he was worried that he couldn?t see Roberts?s hands, which supposedly justified his decision to approach the car with a drawn gun at the ?low ready? position. However, he also testified that when he reached Roberts?s vehicle he saw her hands plainly, and that they were gripping her steering wheel "firmly" ? which he said justified suspicions that she might have been impaired.

In his closing arguments during the trial, Yavapai County Prosecutor Glen Hammond insisted that the driver?s crime was that "she did not stop" --

which would mean that Sheriff Waugh had abetted the crime by instructing motorists uncertain of the identity of their pursuer not to stop until they reached a well-lit area. Hammond's position was that Roberts was a criminal because she had obeyed the instructions offered by the Sheriff, and that it was not necessary to prove that she had willfully tried to flee or injure Newnum.

The jury, which apparently was populated entirely by punitive populists, ratified that claim after less than two hours? deliberation, finding Roberts guilty of two felonies ? resisting arrest (which isn?t a crime) and unlawful flight. (Significantly, the initial traffic violation was dismissed outright, as was a charge of ?assaulting? Newnum for supposedly running over his foot.) The trial judge, in what he probably thought was an act of tremendous generosity, dismissed the first conviction and sentenced Roberts to six months' supervised probation. This left an undeserved felony conviction on her record, which meant an end to her nursing career.

Not content to ruin Roberts?s professional life and inflict substantial financial and emotional hardship on this innocent woman and her family, Hammond ? offering the last full measure of prosecutorial malice ? tried to depict the terrified nurse as the bully in this encounter.

"All he [Newnum] wanted from the very beginning was an apology and [he] left it up to the County Attorney what to do with this case," whined Hammond. "It was a misunderstanding. It has been really tough on him and his family due to a lot of press, a lot of hate mail. He has been called a racist.... He just wants everyone to move forward and" ? at this point, dear reader, you may want to find a receptacle for your rebellious gorge -- "let the healing begin."

Bobbing in this slurry of insipid clich?s is an unintended confession by Hammond that he had committed malfeasance of office: If this incident was a "misunderstanding," then it wasn't a crime, and shouldn't have been prosecuted as such. In addition, if Newnum really wanted nothing more than an apology "from the very beginning," he should have complied with Dibor's reasonable and lawful request to find a well-lit area to conduct the traffic stop.

An actual peace officer (who wouldn?t be involved in roadside shake-downs in the first place) would have cleared up that ?misunderstanding,? rather than escalating it. Jeff Newnum, like practically everybody else in his profession, is a law enforcer who impersonates a peace officer. Such people are immeasurably more dangerous than their imitators.
_
William Norman Grigg publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

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How Can We Trust Perjurers?

by Jacob G. Hornberger

President Obama says that we just need to trust him and national-security state officials with the power to secretly monitor our telephone calls and emails. He says that while it's true that they've been secretly keeping data about our telephone calls, he assures us that no one is recording our telephone calls or indiscriminately reading our emails.

But how do we know that he's telling the truth about any matter relating to "national security," given that it's considered okay to lie about secret matters relating to "national security"?

In other words, if the national-security state is, in fact, secretly recording people's telephone calls and vacuuming up emails, President Obama and national-security officials aren't about to disclose that fact to us, given that disclosure would threaten "national security" by letting the terrorists know that their calls were being recorded and emails being read.

How do we know that the president and his national-security team would lie to us about secret programs relating to ?national security?? We have proof in the form of the perjury committed by the president's very own director of national intelligence, James Clapper.

Consider Clapper's sworn testimony last March before the U.S. Senate:

QUESTION: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

ANSWER: No, sir.

QUESTION: It does not?

ANSWER: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect--but not wittingly."

Of course, Clapper was testifying long before Edward Snowden made his revelations. The last thing on Clapper's mind was the possibility that anyone would ever discover that he was committing perjury and that the NSA was, in fact, knowingly, intentionally, deliberately, and wittingly collecting data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.

So, why hasn't Clapper been indicted for perjury? After all, there isn't any doubt whatsoever that if this had been a private citizen like Martha Stewart or Roger Clemens, U.S. Justice Department attorneys would be jumping up and down, screaming about how the integrity of our free and democratic system requires truthful answers in official federal investigations, including those before Congress.

The answer lies in the extraordinary power that the national-security state apparatus has acquired in the last 60 years. That's why the Justice Department, the Congress, and the federal judiciary are rolling over on Clapper's perjury. None of them has any desire to jack with the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, which is why they have been so deferential to them for so long and especially since 9/11.

How do they justify not going after Clapper for perjury when they go after private people like Martha Stewart and Roger Clemens?

They don't have to justify anything to anyone. But the answer for their inaction lies in the two most important words in the lives of the American people in our lifetime: "national security," the two words that have absolutely no objective meaning, aren't found in the Constitution, and whose sole purpose is to expand the power and reach of the national-security state over the American people.

The large concentration of power in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA has obviously given rise to an informal grant of immunity for crimes committed in the name of "national security," including murder, assassination, torture, kidnapping, and perjury.

All that national-security state officials have to do when accused of criminal wrongdoing is cite "national security" and they will be let off the hook, notwithstanding that no U.S. law provides that "national security" shall be a defense to criminal conduct.

An interesting question, one that the mainstream press, not surprisingly, isn't asking, is: What did President Obama know about Clapper's testimony and when did he know it? Did the president and Clapper discuss what Clapper should say if he were asked under oath about the existence of a secret NSA surveillance scheme on the American people? Did the president order Clapper to lie about the program if he were asked about it during his testimony? If so, that would make the president guilty of the crime of subordination of perjury.

At the very least, President Obama almost certainly had to have known about Clapper's false testimony after the fact. It defies credulity that the president would have not known about the details of his own director of national intelligence's sworn testimony before Congress.

If that's the case, then rather than order Clapper to return to Congress to correct his testimony or rather than issue a corrected statement himself, Obama let the perjury stand.

Why would the president of the United States do that? Because he would have been taking the same position Clapper obviously took: That keeping a national-security secret is more important than speaking the truth, even under oath, especially if "national security" is at stake.

And that's precisely why no one can trust that Obama or any other national-security state official is telling the truth on anything they say about secret programs relating to "national security."
_
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Put Not Your Trust in Federalized Sheriffs

by William Norman Grigg

"You look depressed."

"I was lamenting. I?ve lost my innocence."

"You lost that some time ago. If you've only just noticed, it can't have been very important to you."

Exchange between Thomas Cromwell ? the Machiavellian Lord Chancellor of England ? and Richard Rich, an ambitious functionary who had sold his soul in a buyer?s market, from A Man for All Seasons.

"I will not enforce an unconstitutional law against any citizen of Smith County," insisted Sheriff Larry Smith. The sheriff wants his constituents to believe that he would refuse to participate in a federally mandated gun grab, or permit one to be carried out by federal officials within his jurisdiction. Yet ten days before Smith offered that assurance, his office had taken part in an early-morning SWAT rampage throughout East Texas in which 73 warrants were served as part of the federal government?s patently unconstitutional war on drugs.

During a December 2011 campaign debate, Smith said that he wanted to "invest more resources" ? that is, redirect wealth plundered from the productive ? into a "Drug Task Force," and insisted that under his administration the Sheriff?s Office would embrace a "Task Force mentality" in dealing with law enforcement issues.

The problem with the mindset Sheriff Smith was extoling should become obvious once it?s understood that the German term for "task force" is einsatzgruppe. By their actions many multi-jurisdictional task forces in contemporary America are increasingly faithful to their historic pedigree.

Smith?s devotion to narcotics task forces might be the residue of his early law enforcement career, which included two years as a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration ? an agency that could be considered the mentally deficient stepchild of the CIA, which is the world?s largest narcotics syndicate.

Twenty years ago, an ATF einsatzgruppe launched a murderous raid against an isolated religious group at Mt. Carmel outside Waco. The warrant they were enforcing was clotted with falsehoods. The investigation that produced it was haphazard. Its target, Vernon Howell -- aka David Koresh -- was suspected of trivial violations of federal firearms regulations, and had indicated his eagerness to cooperate with ATF investigators to clear the record.

If an arrest were to be carried out ? and one was neither necessary, nor justified ? it could have been performed during one of Koresh?s frequent solitary jogging expeditions, or one of his routine visits to town. Instead, the ATF ? seeking a dramatic, high-profile enforcement action to generate headlines for the scandal-plagued agency ? staged a paramilitary assault on the religious sanctuary. They did so even though the raiders had lost the element of surprise, and when they arrived at Mt. Carmel they opened fire on the building despite the fact that an unarmed Koresh had confronted the stormtroopers with his hands up, pleading for them not to shoot.

Four ATF agents were killed during that Sunday morning raid. Their deaths were utterly unnecessary, and entirely well-deserved: They were attempting to murder innocent people, and the would-be victims acted within their rights in using deadly force to defend their homes against that assault. The criminal clique that had sent the ATF to attack the Davidians sent a larger contingent to lay siege to their residence, and eventually arranged for the holocaust that annihilated 76 people, including seventeen small children.

Like most gun owners in Eastern Texas, Smith can remember where he was the morning of April 19, 1993, when the Mt. Carmel refuge went up in flames. He was on the scene as an agent of the ATF, which he had joined in 1989. Smith believes that the initial ATF raid on the Davidians was justified, and that the entire operation was at least a partial success. It?s doubtful that his assessment is shared by many gun owners in his jurisdiction.

Larry Smith is among dozens of sheriffs who have gone on record in opposition to the Obama administration?s impending firearms restrictions. All of them have promised to intervene to protect their counties from federal tyranny. And all of them are active collaborators in the same.

Kieran Donahue was sworn in as the new Sheriff of Canyon County, Idaho on January 14. Three days later he joined the ranks of "refusenik sheriffs" by promising not to implement any federal gun policy at odds with his responsibility to "uphold the Constitution."

Unfortunately, that resolute statement of principled defiance was fatally undermined when Donahue ? in the same press conference -- expressed his willingness to continue his office?s collaboration in the federal "war on drugs" and displayed his indecent eagerness to accept new federal subsidies to deploy deputies to guard public schools as soon as the funds are available.

Wendy Olson, the official assigned by the regime to act as the federal regime?s legal sub-commissarina for Idaho, has said that her office will fully comply with new federal firearms mandates. She pointedly noted that the Canyon County Sheriff?s Office ? like most others in the country ? has officers who are cross-deputized to serve on federal einsatzgruppen. During last year?s campaign the future sheriff proudly boasted of his work as an "undercover officer" with the FBI-supervised METRO Violent Crime and Gang Task Force.

"In these changing and difficult economic times it is a great benefit to have all law enforcement agencies working together in order to share costs and resources," insisted Donahue. Those words will almost certainly come back to haunt Canyon County gun owners when ? not "if" ? the Feds make it clear that they are willing to "share resources" only with sheriff?s offices who are on board with the gun grab.

Donahue insisted on playing coy about the fact that he?s for sale. Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims was shameless. She told the local ABC affiliate that while she will not enforce unconstitutional gun laws, she also "backs the added funding for local law enforcement, especially in schools."

Her office has a huge budget, a small but significant portion of which is derived from proceeds seized through a federally supervised "asset forfeiture" program.

In 2009, Mims was the "local" face that was pasted onto the Obama administration?s "Operation Save Our Sierra" marijuana crack-down, which was personally supervised by federal Drug War Commissar Gil Kerlikowske. This campaign involved 300 personnel from local, state, and federal agencies ? including military pilots that flew Black Hawk helicopters over targeted areas. The manpower and hardware were deployed in a mission best described as militarized horticulture. It?s quite easy to see how the personnel and assets used against "illegal" plants could be employed to confiscate "illegal" firearms in the future.

A few years ago, when Mims and her department faced a $4 million budget deficit, the Fresno County commission had to scrounge up $10.6 million in plundered funds to prevent layoffs in the Sheriff?s Office. That money most likely won?t be available next time Sheriff Mims wants to avoid handing pink slips to her deputies. It?s quite easy to imagine a scenario in which her federal supervisors will introduce her to a new variety of alchemy -- converting confiscated "illegal" firearms into federal subsidies.

Four sheriffs in Oregon have announced their opposition to the renewed campaign to disarm citizens. Among them is Sheriff Brian Wolfe of Malheur County (who, in the interests of full disclosure, is a childhood friend). In a letter to Vice President Biden, Sheriff Wolfe declared: "I believe that the Constitution stands above all laws and executive orders of this Country. I want to be very clear that no one employed on our team at the Malheur County Sheriff?s Office will enforce or support any laws or executive orders that are not consistent with the Constitution of this great land."

If only those inspiring words were consonant with Sheriff Wolfe?s actions. Like every other sheriff in the country, Brian Wolfe violates the Constitution on a routine basis.

Last August, the Malheur County Sheriff?s Department casually announced that it had found several small marijuana gardens during a two-week aerial surveillance operation conducted with the help of the National Guard.

Acting as the department?s official stenographer, the Argus Observer newspaper reported that Sheriff Brian Wolfe will now "contact property owners and acquire search warrants if needed." Warrants would not be necessary, Wolfe observed, if the property owners consented to the searches. The Sheriff pointed out that the plants may be part of legal medicinal marijuana operations, or could have been planted without the owner?s knowledge or consent.

At this point an actual journalist would have asked Wolfe why his office was conducting warrantless aerial searches of private property without probable cause. After all, the Sheriff has admitted that none of the property owners was a criminal suspect.

The Malheur County Sheriff?s Department spends part of each summer arresting marijuana plants ? that is, dispatching its SWAT team to barren locations in rural Oregon to clear out patches of marijuana.

Sheriff Wolfe insists this is necessary to "protect the public," which is more acutely threatened by the unconstitutional, paramilitary operations of his own department. Wolfe?s department spends a great deal of time seizing contraband and prosecuting people who possess it. That experience will prove quite useful when ? once again, not "if" ? the Feds decide to treat legally owned firearms as illicit contraband.

There isn?t a single county sheriff?s office in the country that hasn?t compromised itself by accepting federal funds, and collaborating in unconstitutional federal enforcement operations. They?ve long since lost their innocence, but are pretending that they?ve just noticed that fact.

Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the Feds to prohibit the consumption of narcotics or any other substance. Indeed, last time the Feds undertook a campaign of national prohibition, they had to change the Constitution in order to do so. Unless they?re investigating charges of treason or counterfeiting, sheriffs should not collaborate with the Feds ? and in such circumstances the Feds themselves should be treated as the primary suspects.

If you take the nickel, you take the noose. If a sheriff?s office receives so much as a farthing of federal funding, it will be subject to federal mandates. That principle was underscored about seven years ago in the case of Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old video blogger imprisoned for refusing to turn over a portion of footage he shot of tumultuous street protests during the G-8 summit in San Francisco.

The Feds claim that Wolf, who spent two-thirds of a year in prison on civil contempt charges, possessed footage of a police car being set on fire. Wolf maintained that he didn?t have the material the Feds were after, and that under California's very liberal journalist shield law, he wasn?t required to turn over his confidential, unpublished material. A Federal District Court Judge ignored Wolf's argument and incarcerated him in a detention center in Dublin, California for contempt.

The alleged assault on a San Francisco police car would be a municipal matter, and the California shield law is obviously a question of state law. Why was this dealt with in a federal court?

As Time magazine pointed out: "The Feds say they have jurisdiction over the case because the police car is partly U.S. government property since the SFPD receives federal anti-terrorism money."

Note well that the Feds didn?t claim that the regime paid for the specific cars that were reportedly destroyed, only that the police department had been subsumed into the federal law enforcement apparatus because it had received some quantity of Homeland Security funding.

What this means, in principle, is that any police agency that receives a dime of federal Homeland Security money is effectively an appendage of the Department of Homeland Security (or, to use the appropriate German expression, the Heimatsicherheitsdienst).

This is obviously true of municipal police departments, which are innately illegitimate paramilitary bodies in no way accountable to the public they supposedly serve. We?re invited to believe that local elected sheriffs are different ? at least where the incipient gun grab is concerned.

The ranks of the refuseniks will continue to expand, and they will feed gun owners a steady diet of bold talk about their willingness to interpose on behalf of their constituents if the Feds come for their guns. Some of them may be sincerely committed to do so. But until they stop actively collaborating in existing federal abuses, why should we assume they would be willing to take the side of the public against the Feds when the Regime decides to come for our guns?

By Way of Illustration...

... we see the following act of felonious assault and kidnapping by Citrus County, Florida Deputy Sheriff Andy Cox, who threatens to murder innocent, law-abiding gun owner. It took less than two seconds for this this cretinous, foul-mouthed tax-feeder to drop the pose of superficial geniality. His first instinct, on learning that this harmless man was armed, was to threaten to murder him, because he had been indoctrinated in the belief that Mundanes simply cannot be permitted to bear arms.

When assessing the credibility of "constitutional sheriffs" as protectors of the right to bear arms, bear in mind that sheriffs are politicians and administrators; the patrol officers in their departments are people like Andy Cox.
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William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

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