Trooper cuts off motorcycle, biker to face charges

Southeast, NY - A motorcyclist is still alive and in stable condition at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, after hitting the right side of a New York State Police patrol vehicle, a guardrail, and then being thrown from his bike at high speed. 20-year old Matthew Hillman was rescued from a ditch by firefighters.

News reports indicate that a State Trooper positioned on a center-median in Fishkill, NY clocked the bikes at 100-mph, but was unable to pursue and then radioed ahead to another patrol to intercept the dual menace. That patrol engaged the first bike which passed by, cutting off the approaching second motorcycle, when the crash occurred.

The injured biker will face charges.

Wait, what? What about the Trooper? The Trooper must have known that there were two bikes to be on the lookout for to begin with. Second of all, just because someone is speeding, does not give the police the right to pull out in front of them and cause a wreck. Particularly with a motorcycle, which could easily cause a fatality.

And for that matter, we don't even know if the biker was actually speeding at that point. Okay, so maybe they were clocked at 100-mph in the next county, that is no proof that the biker was speeding when the police-patrol vehicle deliberately collided with him.Hard to imagine anyone actually surviving a 100-mph impact on a bike.

But maybe it was just an accident. Maybe the Trooper didn't actually see the second biker coming down the long stretch of interstate highway, at night, with his headlights on. Maybe the biker really was going so fast the Trooper didn't see him in time before pulling out and cutting him off by accident.

Somehow, I doubt that. I really don't care so much that the biker was running out his machine a little in the middle of the night on an open stretch of highway. I am far more concerned that a State Trooper appears to have tried to kill him because of it.

Prosecution would have used false evidence to execute Casey Anthony

One of the main sticking points by the lynch-mob couch-lawyers that Casey should have been hanged, is the supposed computer search for information on chloroform. During the trial the prosecution claimed that Casey had searched the term 84 times, based on the testimony of their computer expert John Bradley. Now it appears that not only was that information false, but that the prosecution knew that it was false, and never corrected the matter to the jury or shared the revelation with the defense.

This matter is not only a sticking point in the trial-by-media which still continues, but was in fact a primary reason that the prosecution intended to seek a death sentence against Casey. So not only did the prosecution let the jury believe that Casey had searched for chloroform 84 times, but they were going to execute her knowingly based on false evidence.

Was it really false evidence though? It does appear that the term was in fact searched one time from the Anthony home computer. But is that enough for a conviction? Is that enough to execute someone? I can tell you that I have searched chloroform a number of times since this trial, and on at least one occasion before the trial after I saw the movie The Vanishing. We also must consider too, who actually did the search.

Suppose this is why the State Attorney’s office has decided not to seek perjury charges against Cindy Anthony? Casey's mother testified at trial that she put in a search query for chlorophyll, and mistakenly entered chloroform. As anyone who as ever Googled knows, when you begin to spell out a word, it pops up with a list of closely spelled suggestions. One click is all it takes to land you someplace other than where you searching originally, either mistakenly, or because a new topic or term catches your interest in the moment.

When clarifying the error in an interview with the New York Times...

The Google search then led to a Web site, sci-spot.com, that was visited only once, Mr. Bradley added. The Web site offered information on the use of chloroform in the 1800s.

So, in a nutshell, the police used an incompetent programmer to design the software for their invesitgation, the prosecution used false evidence in order to prosecute someone and then did not disclose that fact to the defense when the programmer discovered an error, and were also planning to use that false evidence in order to execute someone. And you really want to give those people MORE power?

Say No To Cayleee's Law

Be sure to check out these two related articles from the big boys of media for more details:

Software Designer Reports Error in Anthony Trial

Casey Anthony Trial Witness John Bradley Backtracks After Blasting Prosecutors

An open debate on Caylee's Law

I would like to take this opportunity to make an open rebuttal to the page Get Caylee Justice, in regards to their support of Caylee's Law.

As many readers here know, I am against Caylee's Law for many reasons, including the painfully simple fact that it is a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Nevertheless, so many folks continue to deny the facts, and come up with any number of illogical reasons why we need this law. Using the lengthy response from this one page as an example of the oft-repeated points by supporters of Caylee's law, I will now refute their position through applied logic and the exposure of their application of the classic 25 Rules of Disinformation. Point by point, in parentheses, I will cite the tactic being applied, so keep the list handy.


Let us begin...

Absolutely amazed with people. I didnt not ban you yet so I can explain a few things to you about Caylee's law and effective parenting.

Right out of the gate, we see the opponent try to goad us (5, 18), while threatening to ban us (25, 6) and then attempt to establish themselves as an authority (8) as if they are the only good parent on the planet, while assuming that we know nothing about good parenting.

One, on average a child who is abducted is killed with in the first six to eight hours. SO to be quite frank, without a doubt, every second counts.

Here the opponent exposes the fallacy of their position, and is "quite frank" about it, establishing a fall-back position (11). While anyone would agree that indeed seconds do count either in an abduction, or even of course in a medical emergency, the proposed Caylee's Law only makes it a felony crime to not report a missing child after 24 hours, not the first six to eight in which the child is actually killed, according to our opponent. Therefore, Caylee's Law is not a practical measure or standard for dealing with a child who may have fallen into harm's way.

Second, to all of your little attempted theories about well what if you didn't know in the first hour or 24 hours, it is after you discover. Sure, a child might go off to a friends house, but I can tell you, my daughter will need to call me whenever she gets to where she is going, and if she leaves that place to go to a new place. A rule every parent in my mind should have into effect. 

In the first sentence they ridicule earlier statements we had made in the course of previous discussion on the issue. as "little attempted theories" (3, 8, 18) rather than seeing the points raised as the legitimate and logical points they were (1, 19). That discussion can be viewed here. Or if they remove the thread/comments, we can add the screenshots later that we took of the conversation.

As to the specifics of the proposed law itself, most versions propose to make it a felony if you fail to not report a missing child within 24 hours, or a child who has died within 60 minutes. Now, in general, a reasonable person should not have to point out how these time constraints may be impractical in the real world for any number of reasons which may not otherwise be considered to be criminal or even immoral.But more to the point, our opponent here specifies that the point of "discovery" is when the clock starts ticking. There is no such provision made in the laws I have seen proposed. If it were, it would again make the law itself pointless. After all, a parent accused of wrongdoing could claim that they didn't know, had not made the discovery for any number of reasons, for any amount of time. Indeed, in the Anthony case itself, Casey never did admit to discovering her deceased child at all, at any time. The only thing that can be factually established is the time of death, not when the parent actually discovered the child was deceased.

Next we see the "MY child" logic (2) so often applied in these discussions. Again in an attempt to establish themselves as the perfect parent with perfect children (8, 11) while simply ignoring (9) the many, many examples of why a child may be out of touch with a parent for more than 24 hours, and why it is not necessary to always have the police micro-manage how you raise your child. Maybe the child simply forgot to call. Maybe because of scheduling between work and school the parent and child fail to connect. Perhaps the child has run away from home in a fit of rebellion against an overbearing and obnoxious parent who fancies themselves perfect and who demands nothing less than perfection from the child. Is it a good idea to set out rules like this for a child to keep in contact and be communicative? Absolutely. But trying to force them to act in this way will only encourage rebellion and leave the parent in situation after situation where they will not in fact be able to find their kid. And more importantly, it should not be a FELONY on the parent if the child breaks this household rule.

Also if you do not report your child after as you say been floating in the pool for twenty hours, you are going to have some serious felonies on your hands anyhow with federal level child negligence and abuse.

Yet again we see the opponent actually make the point for us, that Caylee's Law serves no practical purpose (15), because as the opponent themselves have pointed out, there are already laws on the books which can be applied. Murder, negligence, all of these things are already illegal, and did nothing to save the life of little Caylee, nor was Casey proven to be responsible for her daughter's death. If this law had been on the books already, prosecutors would have had an even more difficult time actually proving that Caylee was even in her care at the time of the baby's death/disappearance.

Third, every law has acception to the rules. Technically if you were to be walking by a man screaming for help while drowning in the river, and you didn't jump in and save him, you can get first degree murder, not even man slaughter, murder. This law was added to be able to charge everybody in a group killing with first degree murder. Now how many people do you know charged with murder because they didn't jump into a save a stranger over something they had nothing to do with? It is an exception to the rule.

This passage is outright false in a number of ways (3, 4, 13, 20, 22) and the opponent is trying to use a "red herring" in order to distract us from the facts. To begin with, no as a matter of fact, laws do not have exceptions to the rules. Nor should they have any.

"The duty we owe our constituents obliges us to be as attentive to the safety of the innocent as we are desirous of punishing the guilty; and we apprehend that a doubtful construction and various execution of criminal law does greatly endanger the safety of innocent men." ~JOUR. HOUSE OF BURGESSES (1773-1776) 

Arbitrary justice is no justice at all.When a particular police officer, prosecutor, or judge can pick and choose who they will and will not prosecute based upon their own personal biases, hunches, political affiliations, etc., rather than on the rule of law applied equally to everyone, you wind up with fiefdoms of absolute dictatorship.

Now again, the example of the man drowning in the river is patently false. There is no such law that requires anyone to risk their own life and limb to save anyone. Even the police are not required to take any such risks. No murder charge, no manslaughter. In fact if you did jump in to save them and failed, then you could actually be opening yourself up to charges and a lawsuit. Same goes for rendering first-aid of any kind, Heimlich maneuver, CPR, etc. The only way you can be charged with murder in a group setting, is if you conspire to and are in the process of carrying out a felony. If you and a friend decide to rob a store at gunpoint, and your friend shoots the clerk, you are going to prison for murder as well, even if you did not know your friend was going to kill the clerk.

So end all be all, the opponent here has failed to establish a rule, and therefore cannot establish an exception to the rule. 

For further information, you might like to watch this video discussing a recent case where people stood by and watched while a teen girl was brutally raped.

As I have read posts on your page, let me explain this to you. Caylee's law was not made to "bring back a dead child" it is infact to bring harsher punishments on things such as this to maybe deter somebody from killing their or anybodies child (if you read the entire law, it isn't just for parents, it is for adult in a caregivers position, like if your kid went over to a friends house and went missing it would be the responsibilty of that adult. Like the Haleigh Cummings incident where she wasn't reported for a few hours.

Again we see that our opponent is trying to put words in our mouth (4). No one ever said anything about bringing back a dead child, though the logic (13) of some opponents in that camp seems to often imply it, or that the law would actually prevent a death. If the threat of execution or life imprisonment on a charge of murder does not deter someone from killing their child, then they certainly are not going to be deterred by Caylee's Law.

Yes, we are aware (8) that the law applies to all caregivers, not just parents. Which actually only complicates matters further. How does one prove who's care the child was actually in when they disappeared or died? This was one enormous gap in proving Casey guilty of murder in the first place, so how will this new law actually help in that regard? It also opens the door to wrongful prosecutions.

I know you think it want stop people from commiting crimes but a lot of people do like to obey the law. There are some people who dont care if they are going to get the death penalty and are going to do things regardless of the punishment. But some of us respect the law. You wouldn't rob somebody for a million dollars if it was completely legal and you werent going to hurt anybody? The law stops you from doing that because you dont want to go to jail. It is to try and stop those who can be stopped.

Again we see circular logic being applied (13) along with assumptions made as to what we would do in a given situation (4). No law ever prevented a crime. If someone is willing to murder their child, then obviously they don't care enough about the law to worry about another few years getting tacked on to their life sentence thatnks to Caylee's Law. And those of us who respect that law, who don't murder and abuse our children, should not go to prison not meeting some arbitrary reporting deadline that fails to take into account the many nuances of modern family life and the many reasons why a parent may not be able to, or may feel it is best not to report to police. 

Also the law was created to try and preserve the evidence so nobody can walk away free because the body was to decomposed.

Which now bring us to the entire crux of the matter. This law is created to destroy YOUR Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Your right to not provide evidence against yourself or to self-incriminate.

But we also see here again the fallacies of our opponents position  (1, 9, 13, 15, 20)  since we all know full well that many people have been successfully prosecuted without a body ever being located at all, or in very poor condition for examination as was the case in the Scott Petersen trial.

And in mind, anybody who is complely opposed to this law, should think twice about becoming a parent.

So then our opponent finally signs off by invoking a whole slew of disinformation tactics in a single sentence. (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 17, 18)

I expect rules 24 and 25 will follow soon as well. So let me sign off here with a little of the old number 18.

And also be sure to join the Facebook page Say No To Caylee's Law.

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach." -Adolf Hitler

When journalism fails the public (and the story of a brutal crime)

We often cover and link to stories here of police corruption and brutality. Indeed, it is a daily occurrence in America, so much so that it has been impossible to keep up with. Instead, we cherry-pick the news for the stories that really make our blood boil the most, and pass them along to you.

This story is yet another story of police corruption. Of innocents jailed and denied justice after being the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators as charged. But it is more than that.

This is also a story of another trend in America today. That of the failure of the press, the failure of journalism to accurately and effectively report on events without bias. Is the press corrupt, actually taking payoffs and favors from different groups such as corrupt police departments, to look the other way and not report on key information, or to slant news that can't be covered up? Are these news outlets knowingly complicit in crimes against the people, rather then being the eyes and ears of the people? Or is corporate journalism simply inept, no longer up to the task of rooting out corruption and reporting truth?

And now, from an alternative media news source, the tragic story of...

Skinheads Hunt Native American Family: Guess Who Gets Arrested? 

Also check out a recent article from a local page, on the lack of integrity in corporate media, with additional links to more supporting information...

Newspaper threatens to sue blog

Was Casey Anthony trial propaganda-coup to destroy the Fifth Amendment?

From the start, I wondered why so much attention was given to this one particular case when, sadly, so many children are killed every day in America. Was it simply media profiteering as they do off the misery of others, or was there something more sinister afoot? Has the media been actively engaged in a propaganda campaign to condition Americans to accept, nay, to demand a law that would be tantamount to a repeal of a key right outlined in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America?

Seems far-fetched I suppose on the one hand. But we have to accept that the mainstream media are whores, who do willingly engage in propaganda to shift public opinion on any number if issues, ideas, products, etcetera. We also have to accept that this country has gone to hell in a handbasket these past years. I don't think it is an accident or coincidence.

Now let's pretend for a minute that we lead a group of powerful people, bent on the destruction of liberty and the Constitution in order to establish a fascist oligarchy, or some-such tyrannical form of government. (This is not imaginary, there are powerful people in the world who seek to destroy America, you know this.) The next goal on your agenda is the destruction of the Fifth Amendment clause which bars self-incrimination, which will then open the door to forced confessions and torture of citizens. How would you achieve that goal? You can't do it overtly, because the people would never stand for an open repeal of the Fifth Amendment. So, you will have to do it covertly, conspiring with your allies in government and media. There is a term known as "problem-reaction-solution" which has been employed by the powerful against the interests of the people for longer than you can imagine, which is a sure-fire way of covertly achieving such a goal. Basically, it is a sleight-of-hand magic trick that you can pull on the public. 

Here are some links that detail the method and provide historical documentation of how it has been used far back into ancient history even:

U.S. Pavlovian Conditioning

Diocletian's Problem-Reaction-Solution

The Problem Reaction Solution Paradigm

What is the Hegelian Dialectic?

Problem Reaction Solution Explanation (on Youtube)


Step One, Problem. Our problem, imagining again now that we are the would-be dictators, is that the Fifth Amendment stands in the way of our goals. But we need to create a problem that will attract the attention of the people. In the geo-political scheme and in military operations, the old false-flag attack is often employed as the opening salvo of a problem-reaction-solution campaign. But for our ultimate goal here in destroying the right to not self-incriminate, let us take advantage of a social problem that we have no intention of actually solving. We don't have to create the problem, when we can take advantage of one which already exists. (Or one that we had created earlier through a wide array of socio-economic conditions which spawn criminals in the first place.) The neglect and murder of children in America, always a tug at the heartstrings of decent people everywhere. We will call in support from our friends in the courts, to find the perfect case that will solicit maximum emotional response from the public. Covertly, we will set the stage for a pre-determined outcome. Then our friends in the media will bombard American living rooms and break-room tables with specially selected images and details of this one particular tragedy. The media will sell the story to the public, vilify the defendant in the worst ways possible to garner public support for the government (prosecution), and leave the people believing that there is only one possible outcome for justice to prevail.

Step Two, Reaction. We want the public to be shocked, absolutely outraged, to the point where they will throw all logic out the window. to the point where they themselves would do murder. A completely malleable emotional mob. Frenzied, like a stampede, that with a little nudge, we could drive right off a cliff if we chose to. And how do we solicit this reaction? By denying the public "the only possible outcome." By letting Casey Anthony go free. Maybe we knew she was innocent all along and that the justice system would work just fine to exonerate her. Or maybe, she really was guilty, and our friend the prosecutor deliberately bungled the case. It doesn't matter. Our goal has been achieved. (The lives a few individuals is inconsequential to master manipulators who wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people with a simple pen stroke, declaration of war, carpet bombing campaign, etc. So the case is irrelevent other than how it can be used to serve our goals. Which of course, is why this particular case among many thousands of dead children, is being tried in the court of public opinion.)

Step Three, Solution. We wanted to destroy the Fifth Amendment clause which prevents self-incrimination. Now the public, by the millions, demand a law that will do just that. All in the name of one little girl. The public has been tricked into believing that giving up their own rights, that undermining a primary tenet of justice and liberty is somehow a good thing. It satisfies the bloodlust of some who want to see people imprisoned no matter what a court can prove, it satisfies the naive notions of others that such a law might actually save someone's life.

Caylee's Law will not save anyone. Instead, it will open the door to the persecution and torture of innocents. And just because you supported Caylee's Law, will not make you immune from the system coming after you next. After all, it was "We the People" who they were after all along. Our rights. We are the threat to their power. Still sounding far-fetched? Don't believe me that there is a nefarious cabal out to take away our fundamental rights as Americans and as human beings? Well who would you believe? A past President perhaps? Someone loved and adored by the public in his time. A legend? How about JFK?






Caylee Anthony is the poster-child for justice gone awry alright. She is the face of the little girl who convinced Americans to sell themselves out.

But Captain Six, how will Caylee's Law violate the Fifth Amendment, you ask? Well, let me go ahead and pull a quote here from my previous article on the matter.

If Casey Anthony were guilty of any crime whatsoever involving the death of her daughter, requiring her to report her daughter missing to police would be a violation of her Fifth Amendment rights which protect her against self-incrimination. That doesn't mean a self-incrimination of murder either. It could have been something as simple as a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully dealing with human remains, or being high on marijuana at the time of the Caylee's disappearance or death even if she was not present.


Therefore, the only time this proposed law could be applied in accordance with the tenets of the Constitution of the United States, is if you first proved that the parent/guardian was in fact innocent of all other crimes related in any way to the disappearance of the child. And of course then, a person who had done nothing else wrong whatsoever, is the last person you would actually want to send to prison for not reporting their child missing.


Read more: http://stationsixunderground.blogspot.com/2011/07/caylees-law-do-we-need-one.html#axzz1RleErvzw

At the end of the day though, it is a conspiracy theory I suppose. I can't say for sure if this was ever an intentional plot against the Constitution. But does it really matter if the end result is the same? If we are left deprived of liberty, and opening the door to police coercion, threats, even torture of suspects?

The writing of a new law is no inconsequential thing. It's impact far exceeds it's immediately stated aims. Law is not a linear "x = y" concept. It is an ongoing chess-match, in which hangs the balance of liberty over tyranny. The rights of mankind over the privilege of the few.

Take something as seemingly simple as traffic law. Think you know traffic law because you read the learner's permit handbook? Think again. These laws far exceed their perceived mandate of public safety, and regulate so many aspects of our modern life, economically, socially, how we interact with the police, and so forth.

Now consider criminal law. Nothing is more defining of a society and yet so personal, defining us not only as a nation, but as a people and as individuals. Indeed, the concept of freedom from self-incrimination has not only been a key tenet of defining us as Americans, but has defined liberty and justice for Western Society since the Magna Carta of 1215 A.D. It is not only a tenet of the Constitution, but a tenet of law itself!

Will all of that be undone because of the bloodlust of the American people for vengeance? For a misplaced sense of justice?  To be replaced by a lynch-mob anarchy bastardization of justice?

"The duty we owe our constituents obliges us to be as attentive to the safety of the innocent as we are desirous of punishing the guilty; and we apprehend that a doubtful construction and various execution of criminal law does greatly endanger the safety of innocent men." ~JOUR. HOUSE OF BURGESSES (1773-1776), p. 22.

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach." -Adolf Hitler

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article contributed by Station.6.Underground, used by permission.

Guilty until proven innocent - Florida to take DNA upon arrest

This is a serious affront to liberty and due process. Media coverage and public apathy are just as offensive.

The Florida legislature has now approved $1.2 million for police to begin collection of DNA samples for all felony arrests. While some may view this as a unique and powerful crime-fighting tool, it is equally true that such sampling will be misused and exploited to nefarious ends by police, government, and corporations.

About this time last year we did a story outlining the preciousness of freedom and the dangers posed by DNA profiling in our article...

L.A. Touts Serial Killer Arrest to Quash Civil Liberty Concerns (UPDATED)

No need to rehash the points of that article here again, but be sure to check out that link of course. In the meantime though, let us have a look at this article from ABC-7 WWSB to expose the classic tactics of disinformation.

To begin, there is...

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.

We see that there is no mention of resistance to this new program, no moment of pause, no consideration for the many valid reasons why DNA collection from anyone should be met with the utmost skepticism. And certainly there should be open discourse on taking DNA from citizens who have not been convicted of any crime.

Next we have...

8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough "jargon" and "minutiae" to illustrate you are "one who knows", and simply say it isn't so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.

...with the article reporting...

"We are very pleased with the decision," said Manatee County Sheriff's Office spokesperson, Dave Bristow.

Of course you are pleased the decision Mister Bristow, and the average Dorito-munching Wheel-watcher on the street will trust the word of the police authority, even if is the police themselves that we should be most afraid of in reality. And we should certainly be concerned about this end-run around the Constitution and due-process as well.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel." ~Patrick Henry

Heck, police cannot even force you to take a breathalyzer because it is unconstitutional, but now they are going to be allowed to create a genetic profile of you from a DNA sample? But if the general reader even bothers to think about these things, next up on deck we have the emotional appeal to rhetoric. Invoke mental imagery of a ravaged and murdered little girl and a grieving father with...

Drew Kesse is also pleased with the decision. He has been lobbying for the change for years."The more we can take the scum off the street, that's what we need to do in this world," Kesse said. Kesse's daughter, Jennifer, was abducted from her vehicle at an Orlando area apartment complex in 2006

...which could fall under any of these headings if his authoritarian will were challenged...

2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the "How dare you!" gambit.

...Pretty much self explanatory, but of course you would expect him to scream out the "how dare you" appealing to your emotions for his suffering and that of the victim, which then sets the stage for...

7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.

...With the emotional swirl of an abducted little girl, you can pretty much demand whatever you want from the public. After all, to go against whatever this man wants as a solution to his suffering, you must be "for" horrific crimes against children. Which of course is a fallacy, as is his...

4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.

...tactic. He jumps right to the conclusion that anyone who is ever arrested is not only guilty before the case ever goes to trial, but that they are also "scum." I for one, do not equate an arrest with a conviction. In this say and age, we have good reason to even take a conviction on a murder charge with a high degree of skepticism.

Take for example, the case of Barry Gibbs, who spent nearly two decades in prison after being framed by two NYPD Detectives. And even in the end, it was not some new DNA evidence that freed him, like so many convictions overturned by the Innocence Project. He just got lucky, the crooked cops were exposed and their cases reviewed.So let's not jump to the erroneous conclusion that DNA testing will prevent any false convictions. Indeed, it even raises the specter of using false DNA evidence to a secure a conviction that could not ever hope to be overturned by the Innocence Project.

The article then goes on to report that 21 states already have such databases. Indeed, it is quite alarming that this trend has been allowed to continue and has not been overturned as being an affront to the liberty of all citizens, whether guilty or innocent, convicted or acquitted. You see, even if you go to trial and are found not-guilty, it's too late. Your sample has already been taken and stored. The United States now has the largest DNA profiling database in the world which is right in line with the fact that we also have the largest prison population. The US has only 5% of the world's population but 25% of world's prisoner population, not including supervision programs such as probation.

Now lastly, the article rounds out with this enigmatic claim...

And to give you an example of the economic success of the database, law enforcement agencies around the state of Indiana were able to save $60 million over the past year with this program.

So there we have a news station, rather then being objective, offering up a financial endorsement without any substantiation or explanation. How does one save $60 million, by spending a few million more? Of course, again, your average brain-dead reader will simply think "oh, it saves money, I'm all for it," and flip to the next page without thinking twice about it.

Meanwhile, that statement could actually fall under any one of these categories...

22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.

20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.


15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.

As well as the aforementioned...

9. Play Dumb.

8. Invoke authority.

...and even...

4. Use a straw man.

...since cost is not really even relevant to infringement on liberty, or for that matter, catching a child-abductor. And finally...

6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning -- simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent's viewpoint.

...seeing as how they made such a brief little article, chock full of disinformation tactics but reporting little of substance on such an important story for the future of our society and the Republic for which we stand.

And just as one added side-note. With familial DNA mapping, it is not only you who will be genetically mapped if you are arrested, but your family as well.

Freedom a threat to police

A recent brief on PoliceOne.com, a website for law-enforcement personnel to share information, declares "sovereign citizens threat to cops." What a shame that the police are so far around the bend, that they don't even realize the oath they took to uphold the Constitution was an oath to defend these principals, not to declare the adherents a threat. This is the true face of the police-state today, and a clear example of the perverted justice they uphold.

Government corruption, economic ruin and wanton violence against the people by a paramilitary police-state apparatus, has never been more prevalent or obvious. Yet in propaganda pieces like the segment from 60 Minutes that I will share here, the powers-that-be resort to flawed logic and rhetoric in order to make their case that freedom is bad, and that people who adhere to the founding principals of this nation are a threat to the nation. Yet they will show no proof that the claims of a sovereign are either incorrect or illegal. I'll let you go ahead and watch the clip first, then we'll talk more about it...




Normally I think 60 minutes is a fantastic program. But this time it seems clear that they are being used as a propaganda tool, just like every other mainstream media source. Right off the bat, they try to portray sovereign citizens as some sort of new-fangled organized "movement" when really that is not the truth at all. They are not a society, they are not an organization, they are not a political movement. Tthey are citizens, just like you and I, who adhere to strict interpretations of our Constitution and who seek to legally unbind themselves from a complex web of statutory contract law.

This is a concept that is really not understood by the layman, and I am not about to explain it all here. I do suggest you look more into it yourself though by surfing the web a little and learning about it. But as an example to the reader, let us take a look at your driver's license and all the statutory regulations that go with the "privilege" of driving. The fact is, you have a Constitutionally protected God-given right to freedom of movement by whatever means you so happen to choose. So where do the police get the power to issue you a ticket for driving with s suspended driver's license, or for not paying the state tax to have your car registered? You gave them the power. When you signed on the dotted line to get your state-issued driver's license, you made a contract agreement to abide by the state laws or "codes" of the road. The sovereign refuses to be subject to or bullied into contract agreements that are contradictory to the liberties spelled out in the Constitution. That's it. It has nothing to do with shooting people, has nothing to do with taking control of the government (we are the government, in theory anyway), has nothing to do with recruiting new adherents to a Conservative wet-dream. The sovereign has many different social ideals, economic beliefs, and religious values even if it is no religion at all. That really is the entire point. Freedom.

So now the government has declared folks who take the Constitution literally to be "among the nation's top domestic terror threats" because some have become violent. If we are going to use that criteria, I suggest that perhaps it is the police who are among the nation's top domestic terror threats. When was the last time a sovereign citizen molested your child at the airport? When was the last time a sovereign citizen tore off your wife's clothes because she called for help, and then laughed about it (last second of vid)? When was the last time a sovereign citizen smashed a man's face in for using a video camera in his own front yard? When was the last time a group of sovereign citizens beat up on unarmed women in a restaurant? When was the last time a sovereign citizen got away with murder because of corruption and lies? When was the last time a gang of sovereign citizens broke into a war veteran's home and executed him in front of his wife and child?

And the favorite excuse of the apologists? "Cops are just people too." You're goddamn right they are just people too, which means they have no fucking right to do the shit that they do no matter what some court rules. The courts, no matter what they decide on paper or in collusion, have no fucking right to decide that you no longer have your Constitutionally protected God-given rights of free men. They have no right to tell you that you cannot protect yourself against a home-invasion.

Of course, court mandated and approved supra-Constitutional police powers aside,  there are also plenty of cases of police officers committing actual crimes as well, not just abusing the rights of citizens. Blatant criminal acts that sometimes we actually hear about, on that occasion when such acts make it to the light of day through the blue wall of silence and multilayer system of corruption, cronyism, and propagandist white-washing. So if we are going to use the "few bad apples" excuse for police, who we should actually expect to be held to a higher standard with all of their power and authority, not a lower one, couldn't that same "few bad apples" excuse be used for any other group, including citizens?

So let us be clear here. I am not defending the actions of this man and his son who went over the edge and chose to murder two police officers for no obvious reason. That is not freedom, that is not liberty. I do not endorse violence for the sake of violence or to make some bullshit statement. But I will say this. With more and more proud, freedom-loving Americans being shoved around one too many times and left no place to turn, it hardly surprises me to see things like this happen, where folks decide they have had enough, and decide to shove back. Nevertheless, portraying some down on his luck supposed scam artist and his son as the spokespersons for citizens who value the Constitution is like saying that Biggie Smalls spoke for all New Yorkers.

In the first segment of the clip they focus on the actual shooting. I don't see anything in that video that would justify the actions of that man and his son. Of course, there might be something in the editing that I am missing. But really, I am a firm believer in "live to fight another day." I see no reason to kill a police officer unless a police officer is about to kill you, or to kill anyone else for that matter unless your own life (or another innocent) is in danger. As much as I "hate" cops from an ideological standpoint, I hate no cop personally just because of what he does for a living. (I've also met a criminal or two that were actually real good people, if misguided.) So seeing that bit of video, where the chief arrives at the scene, that got me choked up. I can hardly imagine what that must have been like.

Nonetheless, with the two shooters dead 90 minutes later, I wonder if the Chief is looking for someone else to blame. Indeed, even 60 Minutes calls sovereign citizens the Chief's obsession. A natural, psychological, human coping mechanism to try to find someone to blame for such a shocking and tragic loss, but it was not some movement that killed his son and son's partner any more than it was their job that killed them. It was a young gunman and his father, who are now dead. There is no one else that can be blamed.

Next up in the piece we hear from J.J. McNab, a self-employed, self-avowed "expert" on sovereign citizens who's last job was as a financial planner. I see nothing in her resume that says she is lawyer, much less a Constitutional scholar. Yet 60 Minutes interviews her as if she were indeed an authority, when clearly she is not. She begins with an erroneous and inflammatory statement claiming that the sovereign citizen claims they are "above the law" when in fact the exact opposite is true. The sovereign citizen sees that the government, the courts, and the police, are putting themselves above the law. And that of course is my very own interpretation, since the whole point of being a sovereign is that nobody tell you what to think or can tell other people what you think. Maybe she should look up the word sovereign.

She goes on to talk about the sovereigns' "twisted" view of history, yet she is no historian at all by any credential. She claims that people of the 18th century saw themselves as free of all legal constraints, and that sovereign citizens today also believe that and want to "return" to that time. The fact is, that people of the 18th century very much believed in the rule of law, a just law, prescribed by the document they put forth called the Constitution. The core values of what made this nation a nation in the first place, free of tyranny and oppression. The values which inspired a Revolution and set men free to prosper in a nation where one man would never have to bow before another. So then the question really becomes, at what time did the government see fit to deviate from that rule of law, from this promise of liberty?

The segment then goes on to equate sovereigns with anti-government forces. How can the people be anti-government in a true democratic republic when the people are the government? They equate the movement with terrorism, and even racism but then in the same breath say that black actor Wesley Snipes used "sovereign language" in trying to combat the IRS. 

Back again to the self avowed expert who now profiles what to look for in a sovereign citizen. A30-35 year old (white man) in economic dire straits who has probably lost their job and their wife. Many are "paranoid, conspiracy theorists" according to her. Nevermind the fact that she is not a psychologist or in any position at all to judge whether or not someone is paranoid, and nevermind the very relevant questions that so called conspiracy theorists put forth. There was once a time when people who said the world was round, or who believed in the Mafia were conspiracy theorists too. Simply more vilification of any who dares to question the status quo. And of course, nevermind too that profiling disillusioned white men is about as ignorant as saying a nigga from Brooklyn is probably a cop killer.

In the next segment they do a real hack job on the guy trying to explain what sovereignty is all about, so I don't have too much there to comment on, other than to say I don't trust the government any more than he does. Any true patriot will distrust their government.

"Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." ~George Washington

But just after that, they go on to talk about different seminars and "scams" that are all over the internet. On that point, I do offer a word of caution. There are indeed many scams out there. Even someone as affluent as Wesley Snipes found out the hard way that trying to pry oneself out of the web of contract law is next to impossible. I do not declare myself a sovereign for that very reason if no other. Not because they are wrong mind you, but because I do not have the time, education, or skill to dedicate myself to the subtle nuances of sovereign law. One slip-up, and you wind up in the penitentiary with Wesley. But it can be done...





...and stuff like that folks, is why the system will degrade you, smear you with propaganda, imprison you, and ultimately murder you if they get half a chance. Because being a sovereign is a direct threat to your God-given rights. One mis-step, and they will come down on you with all the fury Hell hath to offer.

Nonetheless, as I said, it can be done, in more ways than one too. A smart sovereign would never go out and make a spectacle of themselves as a would-be martyr gunned down in some delusional blaze of glory. The true sovereign is the one who knows how to navigate this complex web of deceit, which is more than a century in the making. The true sovereign, and the real threat to the usurpers, are the sort of folks they point out in the next segment. The ones who use the system, against the system. What the 60 Minutes reporter calls "retribution" is completely legal, and some might say, completely justified. In that segment, they actually admit that sovereigns are not the "delusional" sort that JJ McNab tries to portray. While she claims these folks have turned off their "common sense switch," many have used the system's own rules and statutes against gate-keepers. The same sort of loopholes that might leave you stranded by the side of the road after police have impounded your car for a dirty license plate, or being charged with felony assault of a police officer for farting at a cop.

Next segment we have a judge from Queens holding court in Rosendale NY, a small local community I know well, claiming he is scared to death when he learns that some moron in his court over a misdemeanor traffic ticket had "contacts" with the West Memphis shooters. Number one, I would like to know what contacts that actually was. Passed eachother in some chat forum, subscribed to the same newsletter? Second of all, does he really expect us to believe that a judge from Queens who worked 30 years in the penitentiary with the most depraved human beings alive has never felt unsafe in his life before coming up against the "sovereign citizens"? Even in the video segment it appears that the judge himself can't even hold back his laughter.

And did you get a look at those goofballs that are this supreme threat to national security? To this judge to the point that he is sleeping with a gun under his pillow? Newsflash judge, if you are that scared maybe you should start lobbying the state to stop shutting down mental health units. Is the crux of this whole report telling the American people that our entire nation is about to be brought down by the Three Stooges? Seriously? Now Wesley Snipes, I might have bought that one.

Back again now to the brief segment with the man 60 Minutes has labeled as the "sovereign guru." The man is completely reasonable talking about the Second Amendment, and the purpose of the right to bear arms. He is absolutely right, it was never meant to protect our right of suck hunting. It was put into the Constitution to provide a sovereign natural right to resist tyranny, by force if necessary.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." ~Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

Quick cut to the police Chief who's son was murdered, who states, "Obviously the guy is crazy, and I think he should be brought up on charges."

There you have it folks, in clear. no uncertain terms, according to the police chief of West Memphis, if you believe in the Constitution, "obviously" you are crazy and should be brought up on charges.

"If they want to come after me, I'm very easy to find. The polic Chief in West Memphis, Arkansas... If they come after me, I have absolutely no problem with it, and might even like it."


"...and might even like it."


"...and might even like it."

Spoken like a true pig there Chief.

Rodney King trial evidence, LAPD radio transmissions, 1:13 a.m. from Powell and Wind to the foot patrol: "I haven't beaten anyone this bad in a long time."

Now don't get me wrong, if someone killed my boy, I might feel the same way. But what the chief fails to recognize, is that no one went after his boy. His boy went after them.

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." ~Thomas Paine

Supplemental:

Operation Vampire killer 2000: American Police Action Plan for Stopping World Government Rule

NY overturns Family Court decision to bar level 3 sex offender from his kids

James Colliton was a half-million dollar a year tax attorney with a Manhattan apartment and a home he shared with his wife and children in upstate Poughkeepsie, New York. Today, he is a convicted level-3 sex offender after pleading guilty to rape, among other charges, for patronizing teenage prostitutes who were pimped out by their mother according to prosecutors. Initially he took his family and fled to Canada, was arrested but released in Ontario, before finally being arrested again in Manhattan to face a 43-count indictment. By the time of his 2007 conviction, he had been in jail for 19 months and was sentenced to one year, time-served, in a plea deal that let him off the hook for a potential 30 years in prison. The mother of the teen girls had previously pleaded guilty to charges against her for pimping the girls out to Colliton.

In Plea Deal, Lawyer Admits Having Sex With Teenagers

Seem like a pretty open and shut case of a real creep who probably got off a lot easier than he should have. I mean, just getting a look at this guy's mug is almost enough to convict him. Tell me that doesn't look like the textbook pic of a pedophile.

Since his conviction he has gone from tax attorney to pro se litigant, suing everyone from American Express for revealing account information leading to his arrest, to his former employer for not paying him his bonus, to the Town of Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County for violating his Constitutional rights and rights to privacy while monitoring him as a registered sex offender. Now it appears as though he might have grounds to go after the county's Department of Social Services with the NY State Court of Appeals ruling in his favor against the Family Court and recommendations of DSS which forced him out of his home for the next three years after his conviction. According to the Poughkeepsie Journal...

The Dutchess County Department of Social Services filed neglect petitions against both parents alleging the father was an untreated level-three sex offender, deemed likely to reoffend, whose crimes involved young teens, and that the mother failed to protect the children from the father.

Enough to make your blood boil right? One article I linked above there they called him "the most ridiculous pro se litigant of all time." And I am sure much worse has been said about him. Certainly enough to piss off the average Joe or Jane to see a creep like this using his legal expertise in to start snagging up loopholes in order to sue various parties for hundreds of millions of dollars. You would think he would have been happy with getting such a lucky break at sentencing for his admitted crimes.

Well, if you know me, or as you get to know me, you will see that I like to play the devil's advocate a lot. I am not easily swayed by rhetoric and shock-value reporting. I don't have the same knee-jerk reactions as most people do to words like communist, terrorist, sex offender or pedophile. So I tried to think about this objectively. Should this man have been forced from his house and barred from his children simply because he was guilty of sex with a teenage girl for money?

Of course I understand that these girls were underage and what he did is indeed a crime, but I am not quite seeing the correlation that shows he would actually attack his own children. It's kind of like the assumption that homophobes always make when they find out a guy is queer. All the sudden the straight guys all think the queer guy is going to try to have sex with them. You see that assumption too when it comes to homosexuals interacting with children. Legal or not, homosexuality is still often seen as sexual deviancy, that the homosexual might be more inclined to molest children and therefore should not be allowed to adopt or work with kids. Even if there were data to support such a notion, there is certainly nothing that says all homosexuals are likely to attack children.

So just because he pled guilty to having sex with a minor, does not mean that he is likely to attack any and all minors, especially his own children.  If he had sex with a prostitute that was of legal age, would that be a sign that he was likely to proposition his children for sex when they became legal age of consent? Certainly not, yet that is same sort of logic which was applied to bar this man from his house and his kids.

Applied logic doesn't always pan out though in the real world. My gut was still telling me that this guy is a creep and his kids would be better off without him. I would certainly sleep better at night knowing that this guy was nowhere near kids, his own or otherwise. But then again I am conflicted between what my gut is telling me, and what my morals tell me. And my morals tell me this has nothing to do with how I sleep at night. My morals tell me that this has nothing to do with what my gut tells me "might" happen. My morals tell me that just because a man is guilty of one crime, I have no right to assume he is destined to be guilty of any crime my imagination conjures up.

Therefore, I must conclude that the judges in this case did in fact make the right decision in their ruling. A difficult decision on their part no doubt, and an unpopular ruling it is likely to be in the face of hyperbole and the public's utter contempt for sex offenders. Nonetheless, we see that they had statutory basis for their ruling.

...under New York's Family Court Act, they cited two findings that required them to determine neglect. The first is "proof of actual (or imminent danger of) physical, emotional, or mental impairment to the child." Second is the danger "must be a consequence of the parent's failure to exercise a minimum degree of parental care."


The court noted the statutory test is not best or ideal care for children, but a minimum degree.

So it does appear that the Department of Social Services did wrongfully separate this man from his family, falsely accusing both himself and his wife of neglect. And as much as I hate to admit it, he should be compensated for that. As this story begins to unravel, now we must consider too that perhaps his other lawsuits were not so frivolous as we had assumed. What if this man were not guilty of statutory rape? I think that perhaps me might actually give him more serious consideration. Which we should anyway. Just because someone is the perpetrator of a crime, no matter how heinous, that is no justification for others to commit crimes against him or to deny him his rights, lest one day we too are abused simply because we are not popular.

Digging a little deeper now, I am confronted by articles that paint a very different picture than what has been portrayed by the prosecution and in most media sources reporting on the case. What if this man really is not in fact guilty of the crimes he was convicted of? It would seem incredulous, unthinkable to even suggest such a thing. How dare I even doubt for a second that such a creep is not as guilty as sin. After all, he pled guilty, and so did the mother who pimped out those poor girls.

So let's go ahead and take a second look at that woman, who also pled guilty in a plea arrangement. How could a mother do such a thing to her daughters? Well, the case comes undone a little more as we pull at the loose ends as they begin to fray.

"The one that was prostituting my [now] 15-year-old daughter was my [21-year-old] daughter," the mother said in her sparse apartment in lower Manhattan. "She's the devil's child, period."


The mother said her vengeful child had been out to get her since she called ACS to report her daughter's boyfriend was abusing her granddaughter.

But it also appears the girls weren't just out to get the mother. According to another article, these young girls have lied about an awful lot in this case, even lying under oath to the grand jury. So what can we really believe? The window of reasonable doubt is suddenly wide open it appears, and perhaps James Colliton should never have pled guilty to what may have been false allegations from the start.

The older sister had alleged that her own relationship with Colliton began when she was 15. This is disputed however by a cousin of the sisters, identified only as "Shorty," who states that it was she who introduced the older sister to Colliton and that it had been three years later than claimed, when she was 18, a year older than the legal age for consent in New York State. If that is true, then one of the rape charges against Colliton goes right out the window. Plainly not guilty of statutory rape, even if guilty of patronizing a prostitute.

The younger girl has now admitted that she lied about her mother pimping her out, but maintains that she did in fact have sex with Colliton for money and gifts at the behest of her older sister.But that too must be met with the utmost skepticism at this point, considering how this whole case came about in the first place. The elder sister became pregnant by another man, but then began extorting Colliton until finally he demanded a DNA test be done. This is where the younger sister comes into the picture.

By some accounts, still needing cash, the older sister began offering up her younger sibling to Colliton. At first to clean his apartment in exchange for money, but eventually he is alleged to have begun paying in cash and gifts for sex with the younger girl for the next several months. By her own admission, the younger girl began extorting Colliton, threatening to have him arrested.

"I started threatening him that if he didn't give me money that I'd call the cops on him. I told him to give me whatever he could give me. I didn't want to have sex with him anymore," she said.

Maybe she never had sex with him in the first place. The older sister convinced the younger to report Colliton to ACS Administration for Children's Services) while implicating their mother becasue she was too strict on them. As if the credibility of these two girls was not already in serious doubt, we also have the case of José Mangual, the ex boyfriend of the mother of these two girls, who has come forward stating that he was the subject of false allegations made by these two sisters.

Mangual said he ran afoul of the older sister when he moved into the family's Manhattan home and the mother began paying more attention to him than to her kids.


The older girl, then 17, filed physical-abuse charges against the mother with the Administration for Children Service and allegedly persuaded her younger sister to accuse Mangual of sexual abuse.


Mangual said he was never arrested but hired a lawyer to defend himself in family court. He said that the girls' claim fell apart under questioning and that the case against him was dismissed. He and their mother later broke up.

Considering that Mangual came forward and the testimony of the girls had been all but disproven by their own public statements to press, it is hard to imagine how the charges against either the mother or Colliton still stood at all, much less why they might have elected to plead guilty to those charges. Of course, there are those who will maintain the naive notion that "only a guilty person would plead guilty." But sadly, that just is not the truth in this day and age of the presumption of guilt over innocence. The police and courts are too well trusted, while someone as loathsome as a child molester or an unfit mother will hardly be afforded any reasonable doubt even when only the weakest of evidence is brought against them.

So considering that. Considering the very real possibility that they may spend decades in prison for something they did not do, it is really little surprise that such a fear would get the better of someone. And that they would rather just plead guilty, go home and try to move on, leaving the whole sordid tale behind them the best they can. And that my friends, is a big reason why our system is broken. Because the accused, even with the best lawyers often, know full well that there is no such thing as the presumption of innocence anymore. How did that happen? How do we change that?

This article courtesy Station.6.Underground, used by permission, all rights reserved.

Murder-Suicide Case Raises Questions About Right to Bear Arms

On June 27, Anthony John Ricardulli, 55, was arrested after a domestic disturbance at his home along a country road in the small historic town of Hyde Park in upstate NY. He had allegedly shoved his wife down stairs, struck her with part of a child safety gate broken during the fall, and menaced his family with a shotgun. In all he was charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors. Bail was set at $25,000. Three long-guns and several hunting knives were confiscated from the home.

After one month in the county jail, bail was posted and Ricardulli was released. Two days later at their home, in the early morning hours of July 29, he shot and killed his wife Linda, 47, before turning the gun on himself. Both died as a result of a gunshot wound to the head. Present at the time of the shootings was their 17 year-old daughter, who phoned 911 when her father first shot her mother, inflicting a non-fatal wound at about 4 a.m. It wasn't until about 4:50 a.m. that he delivered the fatal shots as police entered the home. Two younger children were not at home at the time of the incident. The 17 year-old daughter escaped without serious physical injury.

At this time it is not known where the perpetrator obtained the .38 caliber pistol used in the attack.

In the aftermath, the outrage of the community appears to be focused on the failure of the legal system to prevent this tragedy, with a side-dish of militant feminism pointing finger at what they see as the evil scourge of males in our society. For the discerning reader, it should not need to be pointed out that gender bias is an erroneous argument at best. There are countless incidents of women attacking, mutilating, stalking and murdering men, as well as having them imprisoned on false allegations. So, we won't waste any more time on that. Let us instead focus on the “nanny-state” mentality of this community, and gun control. The truth of the matter is that the courts and the police cannot protect you. Only you can protect you. The police are there to clean up the mess, and the courts to assign blame, after an event has occurred. Prevention is not in their mandate, nor should it be lest we give-way to the prosecution of thought-crimes, and arbitrary imprisonment of persons who have committed no crime at all but whom the courts deem unfit for society.

It makes little practical difference whether this man was able to make bail, or if he spent the next 20 years in prison only to then get out and seek his revenge. Many have berated the judge who set bail in the original case, for what they see as an error in not setting the bail much higher than $25,000. What these folks fail to recognize is that this man was convicted of no crime, only that he was accused. Bail is not a punitive measure, it is only meant to secure flight from justice. The judge had no way of knowing that this man was going to go out and do something like this. Thousands upon thousands of domestic-violence cases come before the courts that never end in such tragedy. Many of these cases turn out to be unfounded, others are resolved through counseling and civil proceedings. Even those cases in which a criminal conviction is secured there is still no guarantee that the perpetrator will not commit another violent crime after the sentenced has been served. It is obviously a tragedy that this man did what he did, but that does not mean that he was not entitled to due-process, nor that any of us should be stripped of our due-process in the future because of it.

If we are going to assign blame to the legal system, rather than the perpetrator himself, there are other matters that can be examined. First we can look at the botched tactical entry by police. Although the woman was shot once already when police were first called, she was in fact still alive when the first responder from the Sheriff's department entered the house. He then retreated from the house to call in the help of the specialized Emergency Services Unit. The woman was still alive for about 50 minutes between the time she was first wounded and when the man delivered the fatal shot. He shot himself in the head as police were advancing toward him in the hallway. It is not known if a negotiator was able to establish contact with the gunman, or precisely how events unfolded at the scene second by second and what protocols were practical as a result, but it seems quite clear that the police presence was an agitating factor further enflaming the situation rather than de-escalating it. Perhaps matters could have been handled more delicately from a psychological standpoint, or from a tactical standpoint, that the woman life might have been saved by a different application of force. Having said that, it does appear that this man was hellbent on destruction, and there was probably little that the police could do to alter the outcome. That point underscores the premise that the police cannot protect you.

The only thing that might have saved this woman's life is if she had been willing and able to defend herself. No one but her could possibly know any better what a credible threat this man was. Accordingly, she should have been armed and prepared to defend herself. As noted above, the court ordered weapons removed from the house, including three firearms. The judge, and the victim herself possibly, erroneously believed that removing the weapons would remove the threat. Guns are a tool, nothing more. They were never the threat. Had the guns been left in the house, the woman, or the teen daughter, might very well have been able to use those tools to eliminate the real threat, rather than being lured into a false sense of security. The threat was actually increased when the guns were removed from the home, not only for those reasons, but also because their mere presence as a deterrent was also removed. When this man initiated his crime, he knew that his family would not expect him to be armed, and he also knew that the guns had been removed from the home leaving them unarmed. At this time it is not known how he obtained the pistol used in this crime, but for the sake of argument, we can assume that it was illegal for him to have in his possession. So we see that legislative restrictions on the Constitution have come to deadly consequences, rather than saving lives. The legal guns were forfeit, while the armed criminal murdered with impunity.

Obviously, the man himself is the truly guilty party in this mess. But if we are to examine outside factors that appear to have allowed this tragedy to occur, we have to ask ourselves some difficult questions. Do we blame the courts for failure to act, or society at large for our naivety? Why do we continually put so much faith into a system that fails us at nearly every turn? Is giving even more power to that system really the answer, or a knee-jerk response by reactionaries who believe that the state can fix all of the problems of the world? The culpability of the court rests not in that they did too little, but that they did too much, in taking away the tools by which that family might have protected themselves from a deranged man. Assuming of course that the victims were willing to defend themselves. Or were they infected by the pervasive mentality of this community that we should rely on others to protect us, who can't protect us, instead of protecting ourselves? Did that woman raise any objection to the judge's order, and defend her own right to keep and bear arms in the face of imminent danger? If so, then the court is culpable. If not, then we as a society are culpable, for leading her and others like her to believe that we will be there to defend them, with our pieces of paper signed by judges and crime-scene tape wrapped around shattered illusions.


Links to the local newspaper reports on the story can be found here, including a photo of the man and the house:

2 Dead in Early Morning Murder-Suicide

Investigation Continues

Great grandson of telephone inventor gets life for being Cuban spy

73 year-old retired intelligence analyst Kendall Myers, great grandson of famed inventor Alexander Graham Bell, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for spying on behalf of Cuba from within the U.S. State Department for nearly a third of a century. He will also forfeit about $1.7 million in Federal pay that he had accumulated while working for Cuba as a spy. His wife Gwendolyn was also convicted of spying and was sentenced to 5 1/2 years. The two were flown to Cuba in 1995 where they met with Fidel Castro and were given medals.

A Yahoo hosted AP article on the case can be found here...

US analyst, wife sentenced for syping for Cuba

L.A. Touts Serial Killer Arrest to Quash Civil Liberty Concerns (UPDATE)

Today the topic is DNA, with the arrest of Lonnie David Franklin Jr., charged in a string of murders dating back to 1985. Dubbed the Grim Sleeper, for a long stretch of inactivity, a profile was built of a serial killer who preyed on women in south L.A. and dispatched them using the same small caliber pistol each time. Police reportedly recovered DNA evidence from at least two victims, but never had a person to match it to. That was until Mr. Franklin's son was convicted on a weapons charge. His son's DNA was entered into a database where it was then processed by California's familial DNA search program, which then led to the identification and arrest of Mr. Franklin. Seems like a win for the good guys right? Science being used to get an evil person of the street, simple as that?

Not quite. It wouldn't be the first time that science has been wrong. Police already bungled the investigation once and arrested the wrong person based on ballistics evidence. They had termed that arrest to be a "solid case" as well. No wonder victims' families are cautiously optimistic this time around. Former governor and state Attorney General Jerry Brown has no such reservations however, boldly stating, "This arrest provides proof positive that familial DNA searches must be a part of law enforcement's crime-fighting arsenal. Although the adoption of this new state policy was unprecedented and controversial, in certain cases, it is the only way to bring a dangerous killer to justice."

So much for the presumption of innocence.

How does one go about implementing a totalitarian police state in a free country? Say it's for our own good of course. Whenever the police and prosecutors want to move the goalposts ever closer to state dictatorship over every facet of our lives, they tell us it is for our own good, for our own safety, to protect us from evil things, and then march out before us some heinous criminal who "might never have been caught if it weren't for..." whatever new law or technology they are trying to implement. They raise a rabble by selling fear and vengeance to silence those who might question yet another violation of the liberty spelled out by the nation's founding fathers. Most folks go ahead and fall right in line with the agenda. After all, no one wants to side with some brutal killer, even if it means saying goodbye to the last few essential rights we have. In this way, we not only hand over our liberty and everything it means to be an American, but we demand it!

No doubt there are many draconian dragnet fishing expeditions the police could go on that would bring up results. Like calling every citizen out of their houses and onto the street at 1 a.m. to submit to a DNA test and a retina scan perhaps. The only real question here is, where does one draw the line? Clearly, the police and prosecutors see no line to be crossed and won't be happy until everyone in America is swabbed for DNA and implanted with a microchip to monitor every movement and thought process. Maybe we should just go ahead and put everyone in prison right now, to be on the safe side. It isn't enough that we already keep more people in prison than any other country in the world. (The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's total population, but 25% of the world total prison population.) For now though, it is time to push this agenda of the presumption of guilt by association.

Maybe, just maybe they happened to be right this time, and nabbed a viscous serial killer. That is no guarantee of future results. What it does guarantee is that suspicion will be cast on many innocent people simply because they are related to someone who was once arrested. (14 states hold DNA records on people who are arrested, regardless of whether or not they are actually innocent or convicted.) Folks will be plucked from their daily lives and then dragged in for interrogation. In some instances they will be held indefinitely without a lawyer, as is becoming more customary in many cases. (In another recent case, police held two men suspected of setting booby-traps against police officers in an L.A. suburb for five days without charges. It is not known whether or not they were given access to a lawyer during that time.) They will be subject to every sort of threat and coercion that the police can muster in a closed room, free from the prying eyes of the public or a lawyer, not only to force them to confess but to submit to their own DNA testing as well. (The Supreme Court has ruled that police may now continue an interrogation, without a lawyer present, even after the "right" has been invoked and a lawyer requested.)

Perhaps some folks would be willing to subject themselves to such an ordeal, and face the idea of going to prison as an innocent person, in the name of public safety. Especially since it is only being used against the most dangerous sort of criminals, right? Wrong. In one of the first cases of its kind, police in Denver, Colorado used familial DNA to catch a person who had broken into a car to steal $1.40 in change. But the problems with this sort of evidence do not end there. Aside from the fact that DNA science itself it not as foolproof as late night dramas would have the public believing, this familiar DNA search is extremely biased against men and blacks. Because black Americans constitute a larger portion of people arrested by police, this means that the black population as a whole, regardless of any criminal activity, will be genetically profiled to a much larger degree than other races. Furthermore, females cannot be accurately identified with familial DNA profiling. as this technology is based on mapping Y chromosomes.

Aside from presumption of guilt over innocence, guilt by association, racial and sexist bias, the undermining of Constitutional values, and a whole host of other concerns that are now being overlooked with the arrest of this man said to be a prolific serial killer, there is also the concern of how this may impact family relations. What will this do to family and personal privacy in regards to adoption, children born of affairs or incest, transgendered persons, estrangement, etcetera? How will this play out when it comes to twins? All of these concerns are being brushed aside in a public outcry of support for the invasion of our own rights, disguised as justice. How many innocents will be persecuted, how many lives turned upside down, for the extremely rare instance that a deranged maniac is actually caught based on this technology?

Raising these questions though, will not be popular at all now, and the media is helping to ensure that. A CNN article pulls at the heart strings by specifying one victim over all the others, since she was only 18. The old "it's for the children" propaganda being played there with some subtlety. Southern California Public Radio had this to say...

"The familial DNA search had been criticized as an invasion of privacy but now that it’s yielded amazing results, should it [be] used without hesitation?"

How can the question even be asked before a conviction is brought? An arrest is certainly no "amazing result" at the cost of privacy and the violation of liberty. According to the National Research Council of National Academies who advises the government on scientific matters, these sort of databases should never have been created in the first place, noting "serious issues of privacy and fairness." Of course, the warnings will go unheeded as they always do, drowned out by the mass of short-sighted, historically forgetful, fearful and vengeful citizens so easily manipulated into knee-jerk reactions. Another sad day for liberty, and another victory for tyranny. All in the name of public safety.

"Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither." ~Benjamin Franklin

7/10/10 UPDATE:

Reports out today show that suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested at least 15 times in the past four decades, but was never sent to prison and never had a DNA sample taken in recent arrests. He was arrested for serious crimes including burglary, car theft, firearms possession and assaults, but despite recommendations of probation officers, he was still never sent to prison or had a DNA sample taken. So clearly, this familial DNA technology is not, in fact, "...the only way to bring a dangerous killer to justice," as stated by Attorney General Jerry Brown. Now the public is supposed to submit to even more infringement upon their own rights and liberty because the government can't even use the tools it already has effectively? Tell us Mister Brown, how is your incompetence, "proof-positive" as you put it, "that familial DNA searches must be a part of law enforcement's crime-fighting arsenal" when you and your office let this man go free time and time again? According to the Associate Press article on Yahoo News, one of his victims was killed in 2003 when Mr. Franklin should have been in jail for stealing a car, but was instead released early.

Of course, some will use these revelations to endorse a "build more prisons, get tough on crime" agenda once again. Sure, give even more money and power to those who don't even know how to do their job. Feed the incompetence. The answer is not more jails and stiffer sentences. It's about picking and choosing the battles. Rather than keeping a bunch of people locked up for selling some marijuana, maybe the government should let them out and make room for the real criminals. Violent repeat offenders with multiple felony convictions. And in the bigger picture, maybe the leadership of this nation should get things on track economically so that folks don't become so desperate that they feel they have to resort to crime in the first place. That would certainly help to smoke out the real maniacs, if they weren't camouflaged by so many would-be regular folks being persecuted as arch-criminals just for trying to survive on mean streets.

Back to the topic of DNA specifically, there is another troubling aspect of this case. The manner in which they collected the DNA sample from the suspect. As reported by the same AP article linked above, "An undercover officer pretending to be a waiter in Los Angeles collected tableware, napkins, glasses and pizza crust at a restaurant where Franklin ate, allowing detectives to obtain a DNA match."

By what right do the police clandestinely collect DNA material from a citizen? They had no other evidence linking this man specifically to any of the killings, or even to the familial DNA sample taken from his son. They had no reason to suspect him specifically, other than a hunch. They had no way of knowing if Mr. Franklin was indeed his son's genetic father. Nor could they be certain that it wasn't any number of other people with a similar DNA profile. This reeks of typical police fishing expeditions under the guise of "you match the description" just because he happened to be a black man related to a felon.

So it seems now that the police can take anyone's DNA sample at will, so long as they have a hunch that you might be a criminal. A very dangerous precedent indeed in what was once a free country, where people had inviolable rights to privacy. How long before police are putting citizens up against the wall for a cavity search and a genital swab, just because they happened to be in a ten block radius of a crime scene? But of course, no one complains about it right now, because police got the big fish on their expedition this time, as they trampled all over the Constitution. What happens though, when they start spending more of your tax dollars hand over fist on these expeditions, coming up short more often than not, or for something as petty as $1.40 in change, leaving a trail of wrecked homes and lives behind them? If the police could just go in and secretly take Mr. Franklin's DNA at will, who is to say they won't simply start doing this to everyone at will? What is to stop crooked cops like murderous Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa from taking your DNA evidence and planting it on a murder victim? How would crooked cops like them even be caught once they have their manipulative hands on the Holy Grail of evidence? What is to stop a lab from making mistakes, or even being willfully fraudulent in their findings with your DNA in hand? There's an old adage that the founding fathers no doubt knew. "Never trust someone who doesn't trust you." They certainly trusted no government, and saw it only as a necessary evil, meant to be limited in every respect possible.

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

~Thomas Jefferson