(Expanded) Special Update, May 7
Wired News's Threat Level column is reporting that Ashton Lundeby is not being held under the USA PATRIOT act. Since the case is under seal at present, the only source for the relevant details is Annette Lundeby; admittedly, she is not an objective observer, but the same would be true of the prosecution, as well.
A memo marked "Not for distribution outside law enforcement" was circulated today accusing Mrs. Lundeby of making "false claims" about the use of the PATRIOT act
and her son's present circumstances.Those claims led the office of US Attorney David Capp to issue a press release today insisting that the charges against Ashton Lundeby "is unrelated to the PATRIOT act."
"The juvenile has appeared in court on three occasions, once in North Carolina for an initial hearing and a detention hearing, and twice in Indiana for a continued initial hearing and a status hearing," the press release relates. "At each hearing, the juvenile was represented by counsel.... The juvenile is presently housed in a juvenile facility in the Northern District of Indiana where he does not have contact with adult offenders. His mother has been apprised of each court appearance and has attended the hearing in North Carolina; she did not appear at either of the hearings in Indiana."
I am informed that the facility where Ashton is currently incarcerated is the Thomas N. Frederick Juvenile Justice Center in South Bend, Indiana. Although he is subject to federal prosecution, the detention center is a county facility. Ashton -- as noted below -- faces prosecution under federal statutes for making bogus interstate bomb threats.
As the press release notes, Annette Lundeby was present during the initial hearing in North Carolina, and until today she was the only source available to describe the details of her son's arrest and the terms of his detention. In interviews I conducted with her both on May 5 and 6, Mrs. Lundeby has insisted that the PATRIOT act was invoked by the Feds in this case.
I reported her claims in good faith, buttressed by the assessment presented in the WRAL report from former U.S. Attorney Dan Boyce, as well as the fact -- noted in the original essay below -- that the PATRIOT act has been used in at least one other case involving a juvenile accused of a serious crime. Interestingly, the Feds have not denied that they're applying the PATRIOT act in this case; there's no reason not to issue such a denial if Mrs. Lundeby's claim is untrue.
As indicated in the first update below, which was filed just hours after the original post, a source close to the prosecution (not directly involved in the prosecution, but with detailed, first-hand knowledge of it) insists that the case against Ashton is strong enough that the use of such extraordinary measures would not be necessary.
Title 18, Section 844 (e) of the US Code makes it a felony punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years to make a bomb threat, either real or bogus, using "the mail, telephone, telegraph, or other instrument of interstate commerce...." That provision would explain the involvement of the FBI in a suspected bomb threat made from North Carolina against Purdue University in Indiana. Whatever the wisdom of that statute, its existence would appear to make use of the PATRIOT act gratuituous. This doesn't mean that the Feds didn't take the easy route, as Mrs. Lundeby claims, of course. But it does mean that if Ashton was involved in making bomb threats, he bought himself more trouble than he expected.
Expect a follow-up on all of this today.
(For the other updates, please go to the bottom of the essay.)
It's been said that a lie is a poor way to say "hello." It is also the standard greeting one receives from government employees, particularly those who carry guns.
Around 10:00 p.m. on March 5, a wolf-pack of armed men gathered at the front door of the Lundeby family's home in Oxford, North Carolina.
When she answered the doorbell, Annette was greeted with the sight of a State Highway Patrolman who introduced himself with a lie. Things went dramatically downhill from there.
"He told me that my son Ashton had committed a hit-and-run with somebody's car," Annette told Pro Libertate in a phone interview. "I said, `No, that's not true -- it was exactly the reverse; he was on the receiving end of a hit-and-run, and that was last January.'"
The State Trooper's lie was a pretext to rouse the home-schooled teenager from bed and bring him to the doorstep. Once the falsehood shattered against Mrs. Lundeby's polite resolve, however, the pretense was dropped and roughly a dozen armed men in body armor stormed into her home. One of them demanded that Annette go get her son; the others fanned out to search the house.
"They wouldn't tell me who they were, or where they were from," Annette recalled. "All I knew was that if I said the wrong thing I'd be dead on the floor, and there would be nobody here to protect my children." So she went upstairs and woke up her son, as instructed. When she returned with Ashton she demanded to see a search warrant. She was shown the paperwork, but the intruders were still reluctant to explain why they had invaded her home.
At some point over the next three and a half hours, Annette and Ashton learned that the men who had barged into their home were from the FBI, and that the teenage boy, who had never been in trouble with the police, was suspected of making several bomb threats via the internet. The one that brought the FBI had been made against Purdue University in Indiana at 9:05 Central Time on February 15.
Ashton had an alibi so tight it could be used as a space capsule: On the evening in question he was at a meeting held in the Union Chapel Methodist Church in Kittrell, North Carolina until after 9:00 p.m. local time, a fact that could be confirmed by interviewing any of several dozen witnesses.
After helping his mother clean the chapel, Ashton accompanied her to a local grocery store to buy food and litter box filler for the family's three cats. Once again, this element of Ashton's alibi -- for which his mother was an eyewitness -- would be relatively simple to confirm.
The Union Chapel church is about 35 minutes away from the Lundeby family's home. Annette recalls that the family got home shortly after 10:00 on February 15, which wouldn't have given her son adequate time to log on to the Internet and make a bomb threat by 10:05 Eastern Time (which would have been 9:05 p.m. in Indiana). She also insists that her son "went straight to bed" without turning on his computer.
The FBI insists that the threat was made using Ashton's IP address. Mrs. Lundeby insists that her son was the victim of identity theft, and that he was not the family's only victim. Her late husband, a former employee of the federal Bureau of Prisons, also had his personal financial information stolen, and Annettee herself recalls that her bank account was hacked a couple of years ago.
They're watching you: A PATRIOT (sic) Act notification from a Savings and Loan.
For the past several months, she explained to Pro Libertate, "our family has been receiving bizarre and threatening phone calls from people" because of the malicious activities of at least one hacker.
"We had the police call here claiming that someone had called 911 to report drugs in our home. I told them that there wasn't anything going on here, but they were free to come and search the place to see for themselves."
That's an invitation she wouldn't extend again under similar circumstances.
According to Annette, at least one of Ashton's friends can identify, by screenname, the hacker who made life miserable for the Lundebys. Once again, there is no shortage of leads for an honest, competent, reasonably resourceful investigator to follow in establishing Ashton's alibi. The unfortunate truth is that the FBI is, as far as I can tell, entirely devoid of people meeting that description.
Annette and her children were held hostage in their home until 1:30 in the morning. The 12-year-old daughter was dragged from her bed by an armed stranger -- an act that left the girl traumatized (and one for which the assailant should be thrashed to within a centimeter of his tax-devouring existence). Annette insisted that Ashton not answer any questions without an attorney present, but she wasn't permitted to call one.
The Feds confiscated Ashton's computer and gaming equipment, and made off with a great deal of family paperwork. But they couldn't find a particle of evidence anywhere to suggest that the teenager had built a bomb, or that possessed the necessary knowledge and intent. Nonetheless, they handcuffed Ashton and hauled him away to jail.
A hearing was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., which meant "that I couldn't get an attorney -- none of their offices was open," Annette recalls. Her son was given a court-appointed attorney, an ineffective nebbish who -- in the fashion of too many court-appointed "defense" lawyers everywhere -- was entirely disinclined to contest the prosecution's assertions.
At this point it's appropriate to note that too many "court-appointed" defense lawyers perform exactly the same function as "jobbers" in professional wrestling: Their role is to lose every contest. And judges in federal cases generally serve the same purpose as referees in pro wrestling "matches": They offer a pitiful pantomime of objectivity as they advance the pre-determined storyline. In this case, the script called for Ashton to be taken into federal custody under the terms of the Sovietesque PATRIOT (sic) Act.
"The standard that they used to arrest and detain my son was not `probable cause,' as the Constitution requires, but rather `good faith,' as specified in the PATRIOT [sic] Act," Annette Lundeby observes. "This meant that they didn't have to provide real evidence of a crime, because they didn't have any. All they had to do was assert their `good faith' reasons for arresting and holding Ashton, and the judge simply let it stand."
Before and after the hearing, Ashton -- a sixteen-year-old -- was kept in detention with as many as thirty adult criminal suspects. He was then transferred to a federal detention center in South Bend, Indiana, where he has been for more than 60 days.
As of today (May 5), a criminal complaint in this case does exist, but Ashton has yet to be charged with a crime. Were we living in a country in which the habeas corpus guarantee was operational, Ashton would most likely be free, and a lawsuit against his persecutors would probably be in the works.
However, the late Bush administration, with the enthusiastic support of nearly every conservative commentator and activist of any consequence, quite thoughtfully disposed of the habeas corpus guarantee. And since Ashton is being held on terrorism-related charges, his status is analogous to that of an "enemy combatant" -- which is to say, he can probably be held indefinitely, and even be subjected to the same "enhanced interrogation" methods that so enchant many of the pew-defilers in conservative "Christian" congregations.
Ashton hasn't been mistreated yet, according to his mother. However, the 16-year-old -- who is "in every sense still a child," in his mother's estimation -- is in an environment defined by cruel, arbitrary regulations designed to break his will.
"I've been able to talk with him several times since he was taken into federal custody," Annette told me, "but there was a period of about three weeks in which I didn't hear from him, and nobody would let me talk to him. I was frantic, and my mother -- she just turned 81 -- had to be hospitalized for stress."
When that long silence was finally broke, Ashton explained to his mother that "he was being punished for `moving his eyes in the lunchroom,'" Annette related in a voice heavy with incredulity. "He told me, `Mom, all I did was try to find out what we were eating. But I got written up for moving my eyes.'"
If the case goes to trial, Ashton would be prosecuted as an adult, and would face a 15-year prison sentence. The Feds, who at this point appear to have no case, are quite likely using the leverage offered by the PATRIOT (sic) Act and similar measures to terrorize Ashton and his family into a plea bargain that would preserve the State's sense of infallibility and reinforce by precedent its ability to terrorize citizens at random.
Pioneering case: Brent Clark was a troubled and potentially violent 8th grader in Tempe when he was accused of "domestic terrorism" under the provisions of the PATRIOT (sic) Act.
Something of this sort took place last time a teenager was charged with terrorism under the PATRIOT (sic) Act -- specifically, section 802, which makes practically any crime committed on "public" property an act of "terrorism."
Two years ago, Andrew Thomas, the demented and politically ambitious prosecutor for Arizona's Maricopa County, filed "terrorism" charges against Brent Clark, a 14-year-old deliquent from Mesa who pulled a pocketknife on a schoolmate. Thomas also charged the eighth grader with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, which seems like a sufficiently serious offense. But invoking the post-PATRIOT (sic) definition of "terrorism" helped extract a pre-emptive guilty plea from the adolescent and his family.
In Brent Clark's case, there was an actual crime committed: He threatened a girl with a knife and tried, albeit not with much ardor, to take her hostage before permitting her to flee to her home. Brent's parents apparently discovered evidence suggesting that the emotionally disturbed teenager harbored ambitions -- how serious, we'll never know -- of carrying out Columbine-style violence.
None of that applies in the case of Ashton Lundeby. [At least some of it may apply; see the update above -- WNG, 5/7] Apart from the use of Ashton's ISP information -- a fact for which he and his mother have provided a persuasive and easily inspected alibi -- nothing connects the 16-year-old to a bomb threat anywhere. Under traditional Anglo-Saxon standards of evidence and due process there is no case against Ashton.
This is precisely why the Feds are apparently using the Stalinist PATRIOT (sic) Act to keep this youngster confined for as long as it takes to extort some kind of confession from him.
If they determine the situation requires such measures, the Feds can draw upon the precedent set in the case of Jose Padilla, the first U.S. citizen to be designated an "enemy combatant" and held indefinitely without criminal charges. In Padilla's case, federal authorities conducted a prolonged campaign of psychological torture designed not only to break his will, but literally -- in the words of a Bush administration official -- “to destroy Mr. Padilla's ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning in order to extract from him potentially self-incriminating information.”
Annette Lundeby once attended a police academy; her late husband, as noted previously, was an employee of the Bureau of Prisons. The family's home in North Carolina is decorated with U.S. flags. The three of them are devout Christians who spend most of their free time in church-related activities. The loss of Annette's husband was a severe blow, and the continued harassment they have suffered from hackers and identity thieves is the sort of thing one reads about in the Book of Job.
But the treatment of Ashton by the Regime is like something from modern dystopian literature; indeed, Franz Kafka might find the story nearly implausible.
"This isn't America -- not the America I knew, the one I grew up in," Annette told Pro Libertate. "This is like something out of a Third World dictatorship where the people in power just do whatever they want to anybody they choose. I want my son back, and I'll do anything I can to free him. But people need to know that if this isn't stopped now, any of us at anytime can be treated the same way. The next time it will be your house they visit in the middle of the night, and your children they take away."
***
***
Update, May 6: The Other Side of the case, a strengthened alibi
Owing to the federal gag order on the officials involved in the arrest and prospective prosecution of Ashton Lundeby, it's not possible to get the official reaction to Annette Lundeby's view of this case.
However, I received a message from a source close to the federal side of the story who insists that the case against Ashton is a "slam-dunk," owing to information obtained from various documents and other sources. Without getting specific permission from that individual I can't share the details he shared with me. I have described some of them, in broad outline, to Mrs. Lundeby in order to get her view of the matter.
Although the alleged crime here is inter-state in nature, the source in question agrees that the so-called PATRIOT Act (which this person opposes) shouldn't have been used in this case. The alleged offense here is the cyberspace equivalent of maliciously pulling a fire alarm in school. Yes, it's disruptive, obnoxious, and destructive of time, money, and whoever phoned in what the source describes as multiple bomb threats should be punished.
I'm convinced that the reliance on the enhanced powers under the PATRIOT Act wouldn't be necessary if the case against Ashton is anywhere near as solid as that source insists.
On the matter of Ashton's alibi:
An early contributor to the comment thread below points out that "if the time of the supposed threat (9:05 pm) and the place (Purdue University in West Lafayette) are correct, then the alibi is even stronger than you claim, since West Lafayette, IN, is on Eastern Time (as is the rest of Indiana with the exception of some counties in the southwest and northwest corners)."
Please allow me one final, personal note. Among the correspondence I received about this essay was a note from a reader who was deeply offended by the reference to "pew defilers" in conservative Christian churches.
That inelegantly phrased comment was perceived by this earnest and well-informed fellow as a gesture of anti-Christian hatred. It was intended as a slap at the hypocrisy of people who profess to be followers of Jesus and yet condone the torture of fellow human beings. It turns out, as the essay hyperlinked to that phrase documents, that self-described conservative Evangelical Christians are the sub-population most likely to endorse the use of torture.
In describing people who harbor such opinions, I suppose I could have used the expression "white sepulchers," which is at least as offensive as the term I used.
Second Update, May 6: Corrections and Observations
In the interest of fairness to the small but stalwart population of genuinely heroic, principled lawyers who act as court-appointed defense attorneys an approach that role with a categorical commitment to protect the rights of their clients, I've moderated my original comments about court-appointed attorneys.
My views on that subject have been shaped by an unfortunate and consistent trend among court-designated defense lawyers to approach their task as if they were working in the Cardassian judicial system. Several writers have properly taken me to task for my overbroad characterization of court-appointed attorneys, which I've tried to correct above.
What if Ashton Lundeby had been involved in phoning in crank bomb threats? Obviously, this would be more than just a cruel prank, but a serious crime -- particularly if it involved disrupting the lives of hundreds or thousands of people by leaving them convinced that their lives were in immediate danger.
It's not difficult to imagine the victims of phony bomb threats fleeing their work areas in panic, making desperate cell phone calls to loved ones, and otherwise experiencing the visceral fear that comes from the thought that they confronted anonymous, arbitrary lethal violence.
We've seen an example of how this kind of thing works quite recently -- a little more than a week ago, when the White House induced widespread panic in New York City by conducting a still-unexplained "photo op" involving a very low pass by one of its fleet of Air Force One 747s in more or less the same trajectory followed by the hijacked jetliners on 9-11.
A reader sent me the following description, provided by a relative who was on the scene, of the coronary-inducing panic that resulted from the White House's bizarre, sadistic little exercise:
Our office is in the southern-most building in Manhattan. I mean literally the tip of the island. I didn't see what was going on, but all of sudden almost the entire floor started sprinting for the stairs. That never happens.
These are people who pretend they are on the phone during fire drills, so they don't even have to get out of their seats. I didn't see the plane coming for the building, but when everyone runs for the stairs you run too. We are on the 50th floor, and let me tell you that is a long way to run. To make matters worse, there are people sobbing in the stairways, women falling down because of their high heels, ladders in the middle of the landings, and the floor is so slick that it makes it impossible to run down the steps in shoes with leather bottoms (no traction at all - guess we should amend the dress code for sneakers), which is of course what everyone is wearing.
Did I mention the pregnant women trying to run down the stairs?
The worst part was the noise. Thousands of people running down the stairs is deafening. So loud in fact, that people thought it was the plane about to crash into the building.
I thought I was going to die today. I don't mean maybe, and I don't mean for just a second. I mean the entire way from the 50th floor down. When I started down from 50, I thought to myself, please, God, just let me make it to 45. When I got to 45, I thought if I can just get to 40 before it hits I have a chance. I did this over and over again until I got to he 1st floor.
The scene outside was surreal. Thousands of people standing around with no idea what they should do. Some people were standing around crying, some were running uptown, some getting in cabs, some standing right under the building, but no one with any idea what to do.
It's impossible for me to see the moral difference between what the White House and its cohorts did on April 27, and the actions of someone who maliciously phones in a phony bomb threat that sends people scattering from their offices and classrooms. The only substantive differences have to do with the magnitude of the offense, and the costs inflicted on taxpayers and businesses as a result.
So whoever is responsible for phony bomb threats against Purdue and other institutions should be prosecuted and punished, even though the use of the PATRIOT act was entirely unjustified -- and if the guilty party ends up in prison, he should enjoy the company of Barack Obama and several dozen of his minions, who appear to be guilty of committing a much grander version of exactly the same offense.
On sale now
Dum spiro, pugno!
70 comments:
swatting.
I haven't finished reading yet, but I thought I'd mention that if the time of the supposed threat (9:05 pm) and the place (Purdue University in West Lafayette) are correct, then the alibi is even stronger than you claim, since West Lafayette, IN, is on Eastern Time (as is the rest of Indiana with the exception of some counties in the southwest and northwest corners).
ah yes...
10pm. why not during the day? some things never change. and the police wonder why folks get upset with them?
rick
I pose a question to all of you who read stories such as this and wonder why these state sponsored terrorists continue to get away with this kind of conduct: Have you truly made a commitment to protect your family from voilent criminals? Are you willing to do all that may be necessary to fulfill that commitment?
A violent criminal with a badge is still a violent criminal. As mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives we must be willing to prevent such acts from being carried out against our families using all necessary force.
Illegally forcing your way into a home and attempting to kidnap an occupant therin should make you equally dead regardless of what uniform you may be wearing.
"...which is to say, he can probably be held indefinitely, and even be subjected to the same 'enhanced interrogation' methods that so enchant many of the pew-defilers in conservative 'Christian' congregations."
Wait! Don't the "pew-defilers" specify that only Arabs can be tortured !? !
"This isn't America -- not the America I knew, the one I grew up in," Annette told Pro Libertate. "This is like something out of a Third World dictatorship where the people in power just do whatever they want to anybody they choose."
It's unfortunate that so few people wake up to this fact until a family member falls into the clutches of the criminal 'justice' system.
In minor interactions with law enforcement and airport security since 9/11, my wife and I have both noticed the change in attitude. Absolute, cringeing compliance with arbitrary rules, edicts and orders is demanded. The slightest complaint or resistance provokes a savage overreaction.
Someone said, 'The past is another country -- they did things differently there.' Indeed they did. Most of what we were taught in those proverbial public school civics classes turned out to be preposterous fairy tales.
Those of an idealistic bent who took the high-flown principles of the constitution to heart are particularly handicapped in the post-republican regime. None of it, now, is meant to be taken seriously. Vast portions of the Bill of Rights are simply repealed by the unPATRIOTic Act. Legally, the constitution is supposed to trump mere statutes. But a neutered judiciary, bought and paid for, sees no problem with a martial law statute suspending the constitution during a 'period of emergency.'
You can believe what you want. I believe that the America we grew up in -- that foreign country of the past -- is not coming back. This new country doesn't suit me. So I'm emigrating to a place more like the one I remember. One where people have a healthy contempt and cynicism for politicians, after having seen them veer out of control and go feral.
Americans are terribly, terribly naive. Like the victims of Will's story, they'll still be flying the red-white-'n-blue, even as their friends and neighbors are hauled off to the FEMA camps. Think like a cow -- from our overlords' point of view, we're just human livestock. Some are born to work, others to feed the prison-industrial complex, and others to rule. If you're not one of the rulers, then you're a sucker and a loser.
I stumbled upon your blog by accident, and I live in Indianapolis. Just wanted to say very excellent article. I was unaware of this travesty.
btw, here is a self serving you tube you might find interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4v2TH46H3w
Patriot Paul
I thought that 16 years of age is too young to criminally prosecute in federal court.
Our federal judge makes civil attorneys take federal criminal cases on appointment and I got a 16 year old girl off because of her age about 15 years ago after I got her christening certificate out of Mexico.
Maybe they've changed the law.
Time to pack the bags and leave before the borders are closed. The closing aided and abetted by the rabid republicthugs monomanical fear about the brown peril. When history is written the dumb asses populating this cross section of Amerikkka will be viewed as the useful idiots that they are.
About half an hour before this essay was published, I was lying in bed thinking to myself, "boy, I hope William Grigg talks about the Ashton Lundeby case in his next essay."
I feel sick.
Anyone who voted these criminals into office (the majority of Americans) only have themselves to blame.
Now some of you want to leave? You say this is not the America you knew and grew up in?
This is the America YOU personally created and are fully responsible for!
4:03 PM
there is no place to run.
I'm so ready. Time to get organized.
Yes, it is alarming how easily one can fake IP address info. I would like to know if Ms. Lundeby supported Bush. I know from reading a local article, she "doesn't believe in gun." Well, maybe she should convert. One quibble, I don't have quite as much anger at the armed enforcers. In the fullness of time, people like Viet Dinh should be remembered. That sends a better message. Going after the enforcers is useless because of the corporate whore media. Prominent tyrants should be remembered, that's what was settled at Nuremberg.
This is interesting. An article from 2001 states that Purdue receives bomb threats "every semester." I don't suppose Ashton Lundeby has been threatening the Boilermakers since he was 8 or 9 years old.
http://www.purdueexponent.org/2001/09/13/campus/bomb.html
(Side-note: Can an 8-year old be held under the PATRIOT Act? Time will tell.)
So, in the end, all of the above posters will do nothing, so far... myself included. [Except some will to try to run, to escape up the scraggly cliff.] They do not see this boy as if he were their own or as themselves, or they do & that’s why they run? If they can do it to him, they can do it to us. Dog eat dog world. Whatever *is* there to do? Is this like standing around watching someone get tasered? Is it important to let this play out to reveal once again the emperor has no clothes? Do we wait until the empire falls of its own weight? What does Purdue have to say about this? He is jailed in their name isn’t he? And in ours? Not ours, we have no say in the matter. It’ll be plea bargained before anything, I’ll bet. He gets out, they get to keep going on doing what they do. Isn’t that how it always goes?
Who said a lie is a poor way to say "hello?"
(Anyone besides Will?)
Mr. Spock, I'm grateful to see that you survived your run-in with a mechanical rice-picker!
To anon @ 711: Stop lecturing the readers you sanctimonious windbag.
Mr. Grigg, I thank you for another excellent article. It is apparent that America has devolved into a fascist police state. And I predict it will only get worse. The founding fathers must be spinning in their graves. Americans should never question how it was possible that tyranny came to Nazi Germany or communist Russia. It is happening right before our very eyes, and we do next to nothing to try and stop it. What cowards we all have become. Americans; ask not for whom the evil bell of tyranny tolls - it tolls for thee!
Mr. Griggs,
Can you post something about what we can do to help the Lundebys?
I saw someone mention "what does Purdue think?". Perhaps we should be e-mailing Purdue, as well as Indiana State Police, an FBI branch local to the situation, the judge's office who is over this situation, etc. Can you get any of that info together (perhaps from the Lundebys) and post it?
I live in Ohio now, but spent my growin'up years in s/e Indiana and still have family there. This whole thing makes me feel sick.
Why did you include disparaging remarks regarding pro wrestling? I'm aware of several noted Libertarians that work in that particular industry and have made positive contributions in the ongoing quest for Liberty. Some have even endorsed your book and/or blog on their sites....
Have you truly made a commitment to protect your family from voilent criminals? Are you willing to do all that may be necessary to fulfill that commitment?I'm sure that most, if not all of the readers here have made exactly such a committment. In my and everyone else's defense, however, I will state that it is difficult in the extreme to carry through to the fullest the committment to defend one's life, family, and property for the simple reason that the statist invaders are almost ALWAYS equipped with overwhelming firepower compared to the small arms that the average family possesses (remember too that the average victim of a Gestapo/NKVD raid is completely unarmed, a fact that might in many cases be well-known in advance by the invaders). Even the most heavily armed families who possess assault rifles and copious ammunition still face the problem of having ammunition that can either penetrate body armor or provide sufficient blast to disable the heavy weaponry that accompany the average statist raid. There is also, finally, the question of what to do when the invading army calls in reinforcements. Are your neighbors sufficiently armed to come to your defense when summoned (and you to theirs)? I would say that a "yes" answer to this question is highly unlikely in most cases.
All of the aforementioned said, I'm not justifying apathy or submission on the part of the population as a whole, nor do I have a quarrel with your (implied) contention that many or most of us are hesitant to stand up to a show of force by agents of the State. I'm merely describing the practical obstacles that make immediate and proportionate response to a home invasion by agents of the State highly problematic, at best. The only possible solutions that I see to this problem are to either "reclaim" the heavy firepower from the clutches of the State's organs (I'll leave to your interpretation what I mean here) and give it back to the taxpaying public to whom it rightfully belongs in order to "level the playing field," mount an active campaign to disband the Waffen SS Einsatzgruppen (a.k.a. SWAT Teams) that carry out such raids (good luck with THAT effort), or flee into the hinterlands to mount an offensive guerilla campaign. Barring any of these options, it really all comes down to being prepared to fight to an almost certain death, outgunned and outnumbered, in defense of your family and property. That's a daunting thought to even the most committed liberty lover, so I wouldn't be too harsh on those who don't verbally relish the thought with every fiber of their being.
Did someone ostensibly not one of them really take offense to the term "pew-defilers?" That is about the mildest and most charitable description of them that I can imagine, one that is absolutely and infinitely too kind. Will is clearly demonstrating his genuine Christian charity and goodness (something that said pew-defilers are genetically incapable of exercising) by refraining from using far more potent and apt terms to describe these apostate charlatan mammon and Molech worshippers.
Liberranter
I agree with your assessment of the difficulty involved in armed resistance. One question that we must always face is the question of expediency from the standpoint of the soul. That is, what is the right thing to do in the eyes of God. For myself, I would hesitate to put up an armed resistance. For others, I would be much more likely to do so. When I say expediency, I do not mean to imply that apathy, cowardice, and inaction are goods, but only that we must consider whether futile armed resistance is superior to whatever alternative is presented us. In the case of Solzhenitsyn, for instance, whose claim that "...we did not love liberty enough" is one of the most profound indictments of the consequences of apathy, I say in his case, his refusal to resist brought about his arrest, conviction, and eventual conversion to Christianity. Is this not a higher good than martyrdom in the cause of freedom?
This is a question I struggle with - whether dying in the cause of liberty is a worthwhile endeavor. To die for my faith, or for my family, or even for a friend or the innocent, seems a self-evident choice, but can this be extended? I do not know. Please do not think I am arguing against the sacrifices of true patriots, only that I question whether and when it is the correct decision.
Perhaps the solution to this question lies in an understanding of the uniqueness of our callings in this life. We have not all the same end and purpose. For now, I am thankful that I am able to live and love in spite of the evils that surround me.
Jon:
I didn't notice your post at first, but thank you for providing the link to "SWATting", a trend that seems to be growing in popularity among malicious telecom users. Particularly common now is the use of Voice Over IP (VoIP) telephone connections (Vonage, etc.) to place 911 calls that cannot be readily traced to a phone number like a traditional landline call (IP addresses are not tied to geography, but are assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority [IANA] to organizations, usually ISPs [who lease the addresses to user-customers as they connect and disconnect from the internet via the DHCP protocol]), organizations, or corporations. That said, it is still not a particularly difficult process to trace a 911 call over a VoIP connection to a specific individual user, particularly in the case of IP Security (IPSec) connections that use built-in digital encryption tools to authenticate a computer's identity before connecting it to a server, or through the implementation of other anti-spoofing techniques (e.g., ARP, RARP, etc.) already in common use.
The point of my technobabbling is that SWATting could easily be prevented through commonly used best practices if the PTB really wanted to prevent them. But since most PD SWAT teams require a political and budgetary raison d'etre, presumably based on the frequency with which they are summoned into action, it is obviously not in the Establishment's best interest to prevent such abuse of an already abusive and overused entity, self-righteous handwringing and posturing over "wasted resources" nothwithstanding. In other words, expect the "SWATting" problem to get much worse, especially given the almost complete absence of consequences or accountability visited upon these thuggish, jackbooted criminal organizations when they destroy innocent lives and property.
Let's see homeschooled, christian and youngster three strikes your out. Like the thugs say What the Fuck you gonna do about it?
Prison Awaiting Hostile Bloggers
By David Kravets May 5, 2009 | 5:12 pm | Categories: Censorship
Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”
Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag.
The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal, are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.
The measure, H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s designed to target the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier.
In response to Meier’s suicide, prosecutors turned to an anti-hacking statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and prosecuted Lori Drew. She was accused of violating MySpace’s terms of service agreement in what prosecutors said was a complex conspiracy to harass Meier via a fake MySpace online profile.
The judge presiding over the case is weighing a motion to nullify the jury’s verdict on allegations the authorities failed to prove Drew knew the MySpace terms of service existed — allegations that would be mooted had Drew been prosecuted under Sanchez’s proposal. Drew’s case was the nation’s first cyberbullying prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Sanchez’s bill goes way beyond cyberbullying and comes close to making it a federal offense to log onto the internet or use the telephone. The methods of communication where hostile speech is banned include e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.
We can’t say what we think of Sanchez’s proposal. Doing so would clearly get us two years in solitary confinement.
The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
"Two weeks before deciding to invade Iraq, President Bush was told by CIA Director George Tenet there was a "slam dunk case" that dictator Saddam Hussein had unconventional weapons." - Bob Woodward
If a Federal agent declared that this case is a "slam-dunk' then I would encourage Ashton to take heart - as we all know how true the WMD claim turned out to be.
Via: WRAL:
Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby’s bedroom in his mother’s Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.
But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.
The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.
“Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats,” Lundeby said.
Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.
“I was terrified,” Lundeby’s mother said. “There were guns, and I don’t allow guns around my children. I don’t believe in guns.”
Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son’s IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.
Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.
“There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire,” Lundeby said.
Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.
Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.
“We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution,” she said. “It wasn’t intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can’t even defend.”
Research Credit: pookie, anothernut
Using another person's computer to launch attacks and malware is known as a zombie bot. Using someone elses IP address is known as a cutout. Funny that most middle school kids know what these are but the big bad FBI and the Criminals In Action don't know.
Liberranter.
The key to penetration is velocity. All high velocity (< 2000 fps) rifle rounds will go through soft armor (level IIIa), even soft point or hollow point ammo. "Rifles eat armor like Pac Man eats dots", as Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch is fond of saying. 62 grain 5.56 NATO rounds will even go through hardened steel plate if fired close enough. They were designed with steel penetrators for that specific purpose. It'll also penetrate 3mm of mild steel at 600 meters.
And, depending on the state you live in, full size .30 rounds, such as the .308 and .30-06 both are available with tungsten-core armor piercing ammo that are legal to own, or it's legal to buy the pulled bullets and load them yourself.
Ceramic or armored steel plates won't withstand multiple hits from any armor piercing or even regular rifle rounds.
Someone invades your house and is wearing armor. Shoot them in the chest. They're not down yet? Shoot them in the groin or hips. They still not down? Keep shooting.
Besides, who says you have to fight fair? If you know someone is going to be conducting a home invasion, such as, um, gangs are more commonly doing now, don't sit and wait. Leave. If you can't or don't want to, then prepare.
Always cheat, always win.
Sorry, meant > 2000fps.
This would include most .22 varmint rounds (.22-250, .220 swift, .223, etc) and up past the full powered .30 rounds.
Even the stubby and slow 7.62x39 - the round that the AK47 fires - will go through soft body armor.
1. Your mom is not a very good alibi. Don't get me wrong, I think this whole thing stinks as a crime, and any use of the PATRIOT Act an even bigger crime, but mama won't carry a jury. Hopefully she used a credit card/ debit card to pay at the store to establish time and presence...and her lawyer has preserved the evidence.
2. Bomb making components/ instructions are also immaterial...he is charged with bomb threats. He needs a good computer/ communications expert...and even then people have been convicted for less.
3. I am glad she is on the offensive now because that boy would still be stuck incommunicado in a hole forever if the feds have their way with nobody paying attention.
4. If they had a case they would not be using the PATRIOT Act. Be sure to look up and thank your son-of-a-bitch CONgressman the next time you can for this crap!
5. Yes, there is no doubt they are using unbailable confinement as leverage to get him to plea put to something of lesser charges: If they hole him long enough, to time served for wire fraud or some such. Can't sue us... you criminal.
6. Dad worked in the prison and mom wanted to be a cop...oh, the irony. Devout Christians... previous supporters and perhaps advocates of the USA PATRIOT Act, and all the other wonderful homeland securing legislation that followed?
7. Criminal defense attorneys [court appointed or not] are almost without exception nothing more than judas goats paid [often by the sheep] to lead the sheep to slaughter. They hold your hand, say soothing words and guide you through the process that convicts you causing the least amount of trouble to the court. The ones who cost the courts and counties time and money are never allowed to defend people on the taxpayer's dime again. The few good ones have plenty of horror stories to tell about the prosecutor and the judge working in open collusion against their client.
8. Cardassian law IS our system of justice. This episode (Deep Space Nine, Season 2, episode 25, "Tribunal") is well worth watching for a glimpse at our own justice system.
see 4-30-09
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_04_26-2009_05_02.shtml#1241122059
at first thought it was a joke, but don't think so;
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1966:
A fed felony for blogging an unapproved opinion!
Memo to Linda Sanchez.....
Why don't you perform intercourse on yourself you rotten female dog?
I have said that the time has come for the breakup of the Amerikan Empire.
As I have mentioned, the so-called PATRIOT Act should never have been passed and that the Department of Fatherland (or is it Motherland) Security should never have been created.
I am no one @1:13pm: I had forgotten about the Lori Drew case. When you said, "She was accused of violating MySpace’s terms of service agreement in what prosecutors said was a complex conspiracy to harass Meier via a fake MySpace online profile," who had she conspired with? Herself? Friends? MySpace?
I am to the point now that my list of jailable offenses is growing smaller and smaller. If I were on a jury and I heard the word "conspiracy," that's an automatic not guilty. I heard of one case where the "crime" was something like "conspiracy to purchase drugs for the purpose of distribution." Since there were no co-conspirators, I assume he had conspired with himself.
Thanks for publishing that account of the reaction to the WH photo op. Until I read that I had no idea -- even the news link of the account referenced just used the word "startled," as if people were only startled and irritated. It makes me sick to think that the gubmint did it on purpose, and that the police were even threatened if they revealed to anyone that the event was to take place. What was the point of that? Surely they didn't spend all that money and make threats JUST to cause a panic. Did they?
http://rawstory.com/user_blogs/2009/05/06/the-practical-politics-of-a-presumed-plague/
Hope I did ya justice. I'm going to work on my short synopsis'.
Mr. Grigg,
In Nazi Germany, those who are still alive to remember say that the erosion of liberty was gradual there too. Every month there was a new law or a new organ of State control, just slightly, incrementally worse than the month before. Once the people got acclimatized to it, why, then it got just a little bit worse. Then they adjusted again, and again, it got just a little bit worse.
We know how that ended for them.
What gives me hope here and now in this country is three things: (1) That we once had a Constitution and a group of Founding Fathers, whom we have not yet forgotten and whose First Amendment gift of the right to bitch and complain we cherish dearly, and (2) That we have the invention of the Internet, which so far defies government efforts to control it, like the invention of the printing press defied the efforts of the Church to control thought in the Middle Ages, and (3) We have people like yourself, who keep our national flaws always before our eyes.
Thank you, sincerely and deeply, for keeping our anger on the boil. It is too easy for us to be like sheep, ready to follow the herd dumbly to the slaughterhouse. Your prodding and goading stirs us to fury, which is an emotion completely foreign to sheep.
If I was the President, I would take his Medal of Freedom away from that slimy poison toad George Tenet, and give it to you instead.
Yours sincerely,
Lemuel Gulliver.
If my memory doesn't fail me and my facts are correct: The same Lori Sanchez found lurking around Hugh Heffs Playboy parties at the mansion -prior to her upset over Bob Dornan.
I guess she is only libertarian when it involves sexual deviancy. Boy is she a useless piece of crap.
Lemuel, that was a very generous thing to say. Of course, as you understand very well, in our present system, presidential awards are given to those who anesthetize the masses, rather than waking them up.
Thanks again.
the fact that he is not allowed representation is the most frightening part of this - God help u.s. ALL!
Mr. Grigg,
What would have been the proper procedure had the Patriot Act not been used? How long under the law were agents allowed to detain people before the act was passed?
Wired reported yesterday that the boy was NOT arrested, charged, etc. under the USA PATRIOT (sic) Act:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/bloggers-tv-go-nuts-over-misleading-patriot-act-claim/
Can you follow up, Mr. Grigg?
Will,
Keep in mind that Mike Nifong claimed he had a "slam dunk" case against the lacrosse players. If they have a confession, then keep in mind that a young child has been subjected to the kind of brutal interrogation that "terrorists" have become accustomed to receiving.
I would doubt the veracity of any federal source. We already know that the feds usually lie, and I have to assume they are lying here.
Does Status QuObama have anything to say about an American child being lost in the American Gulag system? Ohh he hasn't recieved his marching orders from AIPAC and the bankers yet darn that change is slow in coming.
The little bastard is Tyrone. His BSing mom admitted this already. He has been making threats and crank calls for YEARS. He's broken tons of laws and just got what was coming to him. Using the Pat act was wrong, but he deserves jail time.
Frank -- see the May 7 update at the top of the page. Thanks!
Mom says they never cited the Patriot Act? (from the Wired article)
"On Alex Jones, Lundeby seemed to more-or-less admit that the USA PATRIOT connection was something she dreamed up on her own.
Jones: And they said they are charging him under the Patriot Act, so –
Lundeby: They’re not saying that, but that’s exactly what they’re doing.Jones: Well, it’s in the newspaper.
Lundeby: All their actions point towards that. But they don’t deny it either."
will,
saw your post on LRC. i read the part about the "interstate commerce" clause. seems like the anti-federalists were right. the general welfare clause is being applied to everything, preamble or no.
rick
I don't know if Ashton Lundeby is guilty or not guilty. But there is one thing I know for sure. America now has its very own version of the old USSR's Gulag Archipelago. There is no excuse for; suspending the writ of habeas corpus, establishing secret military courts and tribunals, establishing secret prisons and denying a defendent immediate access to counsel. The civil courts are functioning. Any defendent, no matter who he or she may be; has the right to counsel, has the right to a speedy hearing before a civil court and judge to determine if their arrest and detainment is lawful, and has the right to a speedy trial if that is necessary. The unPATRIOTic Act has no place in America. If it does, then we no longer live in a free republic composed of free men with god-given and constitutionally guaranteed rights; we live in a totalitarian dictatorship of slaves subject to the arbitrary whim of tyrants.
It is good that many did not jump to conclusions & be played like a puppet. That whole idea of, it is important to always hear the other side of the story before you make any conclusions, is so proved here, huh? And, WOW! to the description of fleeing the AirForce One fly by scare. That was very moving.
Still, as a result, I have some ideas I want to run by you all.
Is the FedGov trying to make a new organizational structure of the world with the FedGov at the top followed by man, woman, & child on an equal horizontal line below it, subservient to it? Does the FedGov place God & religion below them all? Is this to replace the current hierarchy where God is at the top followed vertically by individuals or the family structure of man, then woman, then child, then government? Is resistance to the new FedGov world organizational flow chart obedience to God? Not just for Christians, but for every follower of every religion, & even atheists? Are those who support the new FedGov organizational flow chart disobedient to God & to the rights of individuals? I’m just trying to sort things out here.
The religious rants have been useful. The, tho shalt not kill slogans too. It has been perplexing. It is not accurate to use the word & meaning, kill, it is tho shalt not murder, as far as I can tell. A big difference, or are all Christians vegetarians? There is also another Biblical saying, something like, it is the highest honor to lay down ones life for another. Is it conditional to avoid murdering another in the process? Well, how is this done? Isn’t this what the U.S. armed forces are supposed to be based upon? To risk their lives to protect the lives & liberty of others without committing murder? And if so, does someone who works counter to that idea receive the lowest condemnation from God & man? If the FedGov is going to try & replace God in the hierarchy of how our society functions, then is it the highest honor to lay down ones life (read- resist with force, not jump in front of a bullet, because the next bullet makes its target) in defense of the liberty & freedom of others, no matter who they are? People are not just going out & laying down in traffic to lay down their lives, they are to resist with arms as our Constitution suggests. But ONLY if all other peaceful means fail. Is that how average Americans should see things?
Peace & love to everyone.
Mr. Grigg: Could you please ask Annette for a fax or scan of the search warrant? This would settle everything since the words "probable cause" will appear in the warrant if PC was indeed used. If good faith was used instead, those words will not appear and the FBI will indeed have leveraged PATRIOT Act powers in executing this raid.
Uh-oh. New update from Wired. Mom admits Ashton is "Tyrone" - a notorious phone prankster who also ran a business, charging $5 a "pop" to call schools with fake bomb threats.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/teenage-bomb-threat-suspect-was-an-internet-prank-phone-call-star/
"Lundeby confirmed that her son was known online as “Tyrone,” a celebrity in a prank-calling community that grew late last year out of the trouble-making “/b/” board on 4chan. Using the VOIP conferencing software Ventrilo, as many as 300 listeners would gather on a server run by Tyrone to listen to him and other amateur voice actors make often-crude and racist phone calls, some of which are archived on YouTube. The broadcasts were organized through websites like PartyVanPranks.com.
A former fan of Tyrone’s work helped lead the police to Lundeby’s son after the boy allegedly moved beyond pranks this year and began accepting donations from students eager to miss a day of school. In exchange for a little money, Tyrone would phone in a bomb threat that would shutter the donor’s school for a day."
You've been "had"
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/teenage-bomb-threat-suspect-was-an-internet-prank-phone-call-star/
Sigh...kids these days...
Indifference is accepted as Acceptance by the government, until Citizens stand up and start to fight to restore our Rights in America, we will be slaves to the Police. I Don Cordell have been fighting this treason the last 2 years as an Independent Presidential candidate, and I'm afraid too many Americans are more interested in Ball Games than the treason coming their way.
We must wake up, and Restore America, not Change America.
The copious placement of USA flags around the Lundeby home should have been our first red flag.
Patriotism is indeed a scoundrel's last refuge.
That mother. What a liar! I hate her. "Sure, I knew he was making prank calls and bomb threats, some of them were even funny, but he didn't make this particular bomb threat because we weren't home."
And who comes out smelling like a rose? The State. Why we didn't use the Patriot Act, we would never do that, and put a juvenile in a cell with hardened criminals? We never!
I dunno. I did think she was a little too composed with all the makeup in the interview. Kind of like she was a outraged celebrity now that her kid was in jail somewhere, but she didn't seem to know where and wasn't that bothered about it.
Further, when she said it's like being in a third world country, it struck me as odd. Germany or the Sov.Union is what I would have expected.
Regardless, like someone I knew who firebombed an abortion clinic or two, you are supposed to be incarcerated in your locality, not shipped off somewhere out of state. (In this case New Mexico instead of Washington.) But the feds evidently can imprison you anywhere in the country. Still Indiana is a long ways from N. Carolina.
It has something to do with due process, jury of your peers, etc. As the Russian proverb according to Solzhenitysn goes, 'when it happens to you, you'll know it's true'.
It will also be too late.
Maybe these boys have some strong PC skills but they should have learned that the feds have their own spyware that all the spyware detector software makers agreed to exclude. A few browser installs ago I had the bookmark detailing how the feds caught someone using a computer in Italy as a cutout to make threats online using this undetectable spyware. Even if these children are guilty throwing the kitchen sink at one or all of them is a bit Draconian. We all did dumb things when we were 13 but if they did phone in some bomb threats that was exponentially stupid, especially in a post 9/11 world.
Some more details have emerged about the spyware that the FBI has used in a number of cases to gather evidence. It’s safe bet to say they use software like this for political surveillance and not just criminal investigations.
What does the software do? According to Wired:
The software’s primary utility appears to be in tracking down suspects that use proxy servers or anonymizing websites to cover their tracks.
Naturally, quite a few radicals use anonymizers specifically to deter government surveillance. Wired also has more details:
it gathers and reports a computer’s IP address; MAC address; open ports; a list of running programs; the operating system type, version and serial number; preferred internet browser and version; the computer’s registered owner and registered company name; the current logged-in user name and the last-visited URL.
After sending the information to the FBI, the CIPAV settles into a silent “pen register” mode, in which it lurks on the target computer and monitors its internet use, logging the IP address of every server to which the machine connects.
The documents shed some light on how the FBI sneaks the CIPAV onto a target’s machine, hinting that the bureau may be using one or more web browser vulnerabilities. In several of the cases outlined, the FBI hosted the CIPAV on a website, and tricked the target into clicking on a link.
The Wired article suggests that the Feds routinely seek out search warrants in order to use this spyware, but given the continued expansion of state surveillance powers and their documented willingness to regularly break their own rules, this shouldn’t be assumed.
One question to wonder is: if details on this spyware were to come to light, would non-US based security software vendors enable their programs to detect it?
FBI remotely installs spyware to trace bomb threat
by Declan McCullagh
The FBI used a novel type of remotely installed spyware last month to investigate who was e-mailing bomb threats to a high school near Olympia, Wash.
Federal agents obtained a court order on June 12 to send spyware called CIPAV to a MySpace account suspected of being used by the bomb threat hoaxster. Once implanted, the software was designed to report back to the FBI with the Internet Protocol address of the suspect's computer, other information found on the PC and, notably, an ongoing log of the user's outbound connections.
The suspect, former Timberline High School student Josh Glazebrook, was sentenced this week to 90 days in juvenile detention after pleading guilty to making bomb threats and other charges.
While there's been plenty of speculation about how the FBI might deliver spyware electronically, this case appears to be the first to reveal how the technique is used in practice. The FBI did confirm in 2001 that it was working on a virus called Magic Lantern but hasn't said much about it since. The two other cases in which federal investigators were known to have used spyware--the Scarfo and Forrester cases--involved agents actually sneaking into offices to implant key loggers.
An 18-page affidavit filed in federal court by FBI Agent Norm Sanders last month and obtained by CNET News.com claims details about the governmental spyware are confidential. The FBI calls its spyware a Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier, or CIPAV.
"The exact nature of these commands, processes, capabilities, and their configuration is classified as a law enforcement sensitive investigative technique, the disclosure of which would likely jeopardize other ongoing investigations and/or future use of the technique," Sanders wrote. A reference to the operating system's registry indicates that CIPAV can target, as you might expect given its market share, Microsoft Windows. Other data sent back to the FBI include the operating system type and serial number, the logged-in user name, and the Web URL that the computer was "previously connected to."
News.com has posted Sanders' affidavit and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohue.
There have been hints in the past that the FBI has employed this technique. In 2004, an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the bureau had used an "Internet Protocol Address Verifier" that was sent to a suspect via e-mail.
But bloggers at the time dismissed it--in hindsight, perhaps erroneously--as the FBI merely using an embedded image in an HTML-formatted e-mail message, also known as a Web bug.
Will,
As of 6.12am pdt, I think you may have been set up. This is based on your posts at LCR. If you are a threat, government employees may try to discredit you by getting you to report on a case like this. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe "Jason" had his own deal going and you are collateral damage.
mongol Doc Ellis 124
Doc Ellis & Will,
Doc, I think you may have hit the nail on the head. I would advise Will to review where he got this story - was it sent to him or did he just stumble across it? If someone sent it, Will should view that person with some caution in future.
This is exactly what was done to Dan Rather, when he reported on George Bush's Vietnam War record in the Texas Air National Guard. Dan Rather's story was 100% true, in fact Bush's record was even much worse than Rather reported, but Rather was fed bogus supporting documents, which he published and was made to look like a fool. It destroyed Rather's career and made the topic of Bush's Vietnam War record the Third Rail of American journalism. Very slick. Is William N. Grigg now also in "their" crosshairs?
Anonymous @ 6:33 pm,
Thank you for that link, which gives a whole new slant to the story. ("Yes, my son was a criminal but he didn't do it THIS time.")I also find it strange that Ashton's mother did not appear for his two court hearings in Indiana. I know it is a long way, but if it was MY kid facing a possible 10 years in jail, I would beg, borrow, and scrimp to raise the money to be with him. The charge he faces is not a light one.
Will again,
Never mind. Even if it turns out you and we have been deliberately misled, the State and the Power Elite which runs it, and their thuggish stormtrooper enforcers, are utterly vicious and need to be resisted.(*) The story you posted on February 5, about the home invasion, handcuffing and trashing of his home of the Mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD, and the shooting of his two pet dogs, (one in the back of the head execution style,) is eerily similar to this story. I invite everyone to go back and read that one.
Will, we are still with you.
Sincerely,
Lemuel Gulliver.
PS: (*) It is my firm opinion that the last war this country has NEEDED to fight was the War of 1812. Every war since then has been about money and power, not about any threat to the safety of the people. (Including 9-11 and the present war.) They have all been engineered, created and staged for the profit of the Power Elite. The evidence is vast and watertight, but is impossible to cite in this limited space. Some 150+ million people died in wars and internal unrests in the 20th Century alone, all so that the Elite could make money. No other reason. Sheep to the slaughter.
This appears to be turning into an "internet is dangerous and threatening" issue instead of a privacy rights issue.
This kid may have done more damage to the preservation of a free and un-regulated, un-monitored internet than people realize.
The state, it appears, has scored a victory of sorts unfortunately.
Bomb threats are bad, and the kid should be punished for sure. But the precedent has been set, and now the state has justification for it's intrusive activities.
Why does it feel lately like the internet is under attack?
Lemuel,
Somewhere I just read something about the War of 1812 being unnecessary, but regardless, in the 20th century all you have to do is remember the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, (Korea doesn't "count", likewise Panama and Grenada, did I miss any others?) the Gulf of Tonkin and the Kuwaiti Hospital barbarities for the first Gulf war. As for the second, 9/11 was the excuse, but while it really happened, Iraw was never shown to have anything to do with it. That about sums it up for staged/provoked/nonexistent incidents doesn't it?
I'm certain that Dixie, as well as myself, can attest to the fact that it's more than easy enough to take command of an unprotected router, especially a wireless model, and proceed to use it as ones own. That way everything sent by you through the captured device appears to originate from the house it sits in. A savvy user may even clean up afterwards and purge logs from it prior to disconnect. Sounds like the plot of a movie. Does this mean the kid is automatically innocent? Not really. It could all be a complete setup. The irony of it all is that we pay for our accusers.
"Someone said, 'The past is another country -- they did things differently there.'"...
I love it! I'm going to remember this. That "far away land" is but a dim dusty memory and quite likely colored by false nostalgia.
"Indeed they did. Most of what we were taught in those proverbial public school civics classes turned out to be preposterous fairy tales."...
Yes indeed. People will foolishly, and obediently, repeat the words within the Constitution and Bill of Rights like some magic talisman to ward off evil spirits. If you mouth the words the right way with the right inflection and be sure to repeat it often enough then the bad ju-ju will be cast out.
NOT!
I believe it was Soros who said there was no place for patriotism in the market place. He was right. It's a fools game to "hope" that things will turn around when your opposition is taking every edge and opportunity to crush you and take what you have all the while using dead words on parchment to bind you into complacent docility while running rough shod over your broken dreams.
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