Hi Folks — Lenore from Free-Range Kids with a video that just defies description: Two minutes of a blue-haired, baby-tawking clown who warns children all about stranger danger, right down to that nature-damning bit of advice, “Never go in the woods!” Seconds after kids take heed and turn tail, who should slip out from behind a tree but a dumpy, middle-aged woman in sunglasses? They’re everywhere, preying on your kids!

Hey, I agree that you should teach your kids never to get in a car with a stranger. But there has to be some less nauseating way to get that message across. I guess if your kids are not easily frightened by blue-haired clowns with “fun” lisps and zero acting skills (other than an amazing ability to creep viewers out), this is the Stranger Danger video for you! - L.

Here is the facebook group.

-Eapen Thampy

My friend Michael Magnus, who runs a facebook page called “The War on Americans“, sent me this picture of his dog Harper:

-Eapen Thampy

Eapen Thampy, Americans for Forfeiture Reform

From Michigan Live:

Members of a local family said they are upset after eight BAYANET officers broke open their front door Monday night, ransacking the home to seize marijuana, cash and property.

Pot supporters, some from outside of Saginaw County, responded to offer support to the family.

Richard Markva, 42, lives in the home with his children, Tyler Markva, 17, Brittney Markva, 22, and Brittney’s 2-year-old daughter, Areigha.

Brittney Markva said she was sleeping and awoke as Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team officers used a battering ram to knock down the front door.

An officer with a rifle drawn led the team of officers through the front door, Tyler Markva said. He was put on the ground and handcuffed while the officers searched the home.

They were looking for drugs and had a warrant, searching the home to find marijuana in a few locations, totaling about 22 grams, Brittney Markva said, along with two digital scales and a pipe.

The officers seized the marijuana and about $1,000 cash Brittney Markva had in her purse and took her safety deposit box information, seizing about $3,000 she had at a bank. They also took a lease agreement and documents related to a new business that she was working to open in Bay City.

A BAYANET official confirmed that the agency executed a search warrant for narcotics at the Saginaw township home but could not comment further on the ongoing investigation.

She said she earned the money legally with a steady job, and she declined to share where she works.

Fortunately, the Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team doesn’t get a free pass in the media or from informed Michiganders (Michiganities?):

Charmie Gholson of Ann Arbor, founder of Michigan Moms United to end the War on Drugs, also came to the Saginaw Township home Tuesday.

Gholson is against asset forfeiture and believes law enforcement agencies target individuals with assets for raids.

Gholson thinks asset forfeiture should come only after a conviction. She was at the home to speak with the family and offer support and guidance.

I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with Charmie Gholson for a while now on forfeiture issues; she is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and founder of Michigan Moms United to End the War on Drugs.

By Eapen Thampy, Americans for Forfeiture Reform

Last August, a Middlesex County (VA) grand jury returned 25 felony indictments against disgraced Sheriff Guy Abbott over use of his asset forfeiture fund. The indictments included:

Indictments handed down last week by a Middlesex special grand jury allege Sheriff Guy Abbott procured an inflatable boat, two other boats and a vehicle, obtained undisclosed sums of money in an asset forfeiture fund and misused county credit cards, all of which he accessed by virtue of his position as the top law enforcement officer in the county, according to the indictments…

Between 2003 and 2008, Abbott is also accused of using his office to obtain a 1985 Volvo, a Boston Whaler boat, a 1982 Privateer boat and a 1993 Nova Marine inflatable boat, according to the indictments.

Other counts accuse him of misusing various public funds and Visa and Mastercard credit cards over an eight-year period dating back to his first year in office, according to the indictments. Some of the money was in an account in which assets seized for forfeiture are held.

Debra Turck, who coordinated the asset forfeiture program for the Virginia’s Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) for 8.5 years, testified that those funds are to be used “strictly for law enforcement purposes.”

Prosecutor Dion argued that Abbott had the asset forfeiture fund pay for numerous meals that were not related to law enforcement.

Under questioning by Dion, Turck gave an example of where food and beverages expenditures were permitted, such as if they were part of a comprehensive package at a hotel that was hosting law enforcement training. “We want it to be official training” as opposed to a meeting, she said.

Turck said food bought at a meeting where law enforcement operations were discussed was not a permitted expense. “The bottom line is, it has to be for law enforcement purposes.”

Turck said “memorials” that are not “extravagant,” and award plaques were permitted expenditures.

In 2009 Middlesex Treasurer Betty Bray, who controls dispersement of money from the asset forfeiture account, sought advice from DCJS on Abbott’s request to use asset forfeiture funds for a Christmas party. “They are not for social events,” Turck testified.

After that, Abbott ceased meal purchases, said Abbott’s attorney, Craig Cooley.

Under cross examination by Cooley, Turck said the asset forfeiture “guidelines were general in nature. We rely on localities to use their best judgment.”

Turck said that food bought at a multi-jurisdictional drug task force meeting at an Urbanna restaurant to discuss law enforcement plans was “one of those gray areas” where asset forfeiture funds could possibly be spent.

There were other “gray areas,” Turck said, including food purchased when it was related to a stakeout or while serving in a disaster emergency, or as part of graduation ceremony from a law enforcement academy, among other situations.

Under questioning by Cooley, Turck admitted that DCJS did not notify Abbott of incorrect expenditures.

Cooley argued that the legislature did not establish the guidelines, but directed that a board set up an audit procedure to ensure compliance.

Abbott testified that all items purchased through the asset forfeiture account and through his office were related to law enforcement. Regarding a $1,389 Visa credit card bill from 2002 that was paid from the asset forfeiture account, Abbott said, “It was for law enforcement purposes, because I’d have marked it otherwise if it wasn’t.”

Last May, Sarasota, Florida Sheriff’s Deputy Dominic Fornal followed Joseph McNeal’s Jaguar out of a parking lot, then pulled McNeal over. The reason? Dep. Fornal claimed he could smell marijuana coming from the car. Even though the car was traveling at 35 mph. And the windows were up. Oh, and there was no marijuana in the car. Fornal did arrest McNeal and charge him with a DUI, though, even though McNeal’s BAC was about half the legal limit.

Fornal’s dash cam and wireless microphone clearly show McNeal, denying the search. More deputies arrived. They brought in a drug dog, which miraculously didn’t alert. They searched the car anyway, based solely on Dep. Fornal’s obvious olfactory gifts. He must have some bloodhound in him.

It was a thorough search. They went through all the stuff McNeal and his girlfriend had in the car. They made McNeal take off his shoes and socks. They made him turn the socks inside out.  They ripped up the interior of McNeal’s car. They pulled down trim and fabric lining. They found nothing. They then brought in another dog. They searched a second, third, and fourth time. Still no sign of the drugs that beckoned Dep. Fornal’s nose like a fresh chess pie cooling on the neighbor’s windowsill. For some reason, Dep. Fornal then turned off his wireless microphone. Shortly thereafter—we’re a good 90 minutes into the stop, now—another deputy miraculously found a single burnt marijuana cigarette in the trunk. They had missed it during all of those prior searches. They must have been distracted by Dep. Fornal’s live mic. I mean, that’s the only explanation I can imagine.

The state’s attorney later dropped all charges against McNeal. Once he was released, McNeal was free to pick up his car, which the deputies had graciously left in a muddy field. They didn’t bother repairing the damage.

And what about Fornal?

Fornal’s supervisor, Maj. Kevin Kenney, described that search as “going a little too far,” though overall, he stands by the deputy’s actions that night. Kenney said his deputy operated entirely within department policy.

Everyone together, now: Then there’s something wrong with your goddamned policy.

On the plus side, that admission could help McNeal establish “pattern or practice” in his inevitable lawsuit.

But don’t think the sheriff’s department didn’t learn anything from all of this. In fact, they learned a pretty darned important lesson about how to prevent an embarrassing incident like this from happening again:

Fornal will no longer have a camera in his car.

–Radley

If you do not know who Eric Sterling is, permit me to excerpt his bio:

Mr. Sterling was Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary from 1979 until 1989. On the staff of the Subcommittee on Crime, (Rep. William J. Hughes (D-NJ), Chairman), he was responsible for drug enforcement, gun control, money laundering, organized crime, pornography, terrorism, corrections, and military assistance to law enforcement, among many issues. He was a principal aide in developing the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988, and other laws. He has traveled to South America, Europe and many parts of the United States to examine the crime and drug problems first hand. In the 96th Congress, he worked on comprehensively rewriting the Federal Criminal Code. Mr. Sterling was honored by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

In other words, when Eric Sterling says anything about justice system or drug policy reform, it is probably worth your time. In this case, I wanted to discuss Sterling’s recent analysis of marijuana legalization and America’s international treaty obligations. This is a pertinent topic as Colorado, Washington State, and Oregon will all be voting on marijuana legalization initiatives this fall and a conflict with federal law is inevitable (and some would argue that it is already here). In any case, here is Sterling:

Alternet.org has a very thoughtful article by three members of the New York City Bar Association’s Drugs and the Law Committee on the way international treaties impact efforts to legalize marijuana in the U.S.

The U.S. has signed the Single Convention on Narcotics (1961) and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that federal law and treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land.” The various states are governed by these treaties, and thus limit the ability of any state to legalize marijuana. This is certain to become an issue in the summer and fall of 2012 as the voters of Washington State, Colorado and Oregon consider initiatives to legalize marijuana. If one or more of these pass, these international treaties will be a factor in how the federal government responds.

The authors — Heather J. Haase, Esq., Nicolas Eyle, and Joshua Schrimpf, Esq. — note that the international consensus behind these treaties is being shaken.

A major change in the traditional protocol of the treaties — don’t rock the boat — is coming from Bolivia. When Bolivia (and Peru) acceded to the Single Convention (what we in the U.S. call ratifying the treaty), they agreed to ban their long-time practices of coca chewing and drinking coca tea after 25 years (Article 49.2(e), Single Convention of Narcotics). Since 1987, they have not been in compliance.

A couple of years ago, Bolivia rewrote its constitution and decided to try to change the requirement that it disapprove of coca use. (Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales, came to political prominence as the leader of the union of coca growers!).

Bolivia tried to get the U.N.’s Commission on Narcotics Drugs to change the prohibition on coca use, unsuccessfully.

Now Bolivia is using different approach which is to “withdraw” from the treaty (called “denunciation,” Article 46, Single Convention on Narcotics) and then joining the treaty again (“accession,” Article 40) but with reservations (Article 50.3). The reservation can be rejected if it is objected to by one-third of the countries that are party to the Single Convention within twelve months after a country notified the U.N. Secretary General it wants a reservation. That means that one-third of the 183 nations (“parties”) have to object.

This type of strategy is outlined in chapter 6 in the excellent book by Robin Room, Benedict Fischer, Wayne Hall, Simon Lenton and Peter Reuter, Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate, (Oxford U. Press, 2010).

Moving beyond the strictures of the Single Convention on Narcotics is a worthwhile goal. I am reminded of that line from Keynes:

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

-Eapen Thampy

Hi Folks — Lenore from Free-Range Kids. Just wanted to share this brilliant oped that’s running in tomorrow’s Washington Post. It’s by the president of Northwestern University, Morty Schapiro, and the president of Lewis & Clark College, Barry Glassner, who is author of the book (turned phrase) The Culture of Fear. They came up with a new idea: Instead of telling parents to quit helicoptering their hot-house kids (which they have seen does not work), they tell parents DO helicopter. DO step in when your child gets an unacceptable roommate, class or grade. But instead of immediately calling the college to complain,  call upon your child to BUCK UP.

…parents can help by gently pushing their children to embrace complexity and diversity and to stretch the limits of their comfort zones. Some of the most important learning we provide is uncomfortable learning — where students take classes in subjects they find intimidating, and live, study and play with classmates from backgrounds very different from their own.

At last, helicopter parents have something constructive to do: Support their kids in a time of difficulty, instead of striving to make the difficulty disappear!  The parents win because they are doing something that truly helps their kids. The students win because they have parents who believe in them enough to stop swooping in. And the college wins because their deans are no longer dealing with, “My son doesn’t like the dressing options at the salad bar. Plus he got an A-minus in Econ.”  Win. Win. Win. – L.

Although much of my writing on prosecutorial abuse centers deals with how state prosecutors time and again deliberately pursue false charges in so-called sex crimes, I actually began this part of my writing career as a critic of federal criminal law and how federal prosecutors enthusiastically find ways to turn legal actions into “crimes” that are accompanied with harsh prison sentences.

There is one connection, as federal law – specifically the various Mondale Acts (or CAPTA) and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) – has destroyed due process and emphasized the mere accusation without corroborating evidence being the standard for conviction and made it easy for state prosecutors to gain wrongful convictions of innocent people. Ever since the Progressive Era of a century ago, Progressives have claimed that federal intervention into state law is a solution, not a problem, and even now many people refuse to believe that federal criminal law has become an instrument of tyranny.

Yet, time and again I have found myself astounded at the ease by which federal prosecutors are able to target anyone they like and pursue criminal charges accompanied with the loaded term “fraud” to make these actions sound much worse than they really are. Teaming with an attorney friend of mine, Candice E. Jackson, the two of us wrote papers and articles demonstrating how U.S. attorneys recklessly cut a swath of human and economic destruction, and how the supposed government watchdogs, such as the mainstream media, have enthusiastically endorsed this tyranny. Even though dedicated attorneys such as Harvey Silverglate have written enlightening books such as Three Felonies a Day that clearly outline the abuses, the media tends to turn a deaf ear.

From Rudy Giuliani’s relentless pursuit of Michael Milken more than 20 years ago to the government’s imprisoning of Martha Stewart to its refusal to help free wrongfully-convicted federal prisoners in North Carolina, incarcerated because the lawyers of the U.S. Department of Justice did not know the law and federal judges looked the other way, government lawyers have engaged in reckless and brutal acts against innocent people. If I could boil all of my writings about federal prosecutorial abuse into a case against one person, that individual would be Victoria Sprouse.

I met Vickie Sprouse three years ago, just after she was convicted by a federal jury in Charlotte, North Carolina, for “mortgage fraud.” Her conviction was a huge story in North Carolina’s self-described Queen City. Television news reporters breathlessly declared that she had “made millions” from her fraud, and that her actions had helped to create the housing meltdown that inundated Charlotte. The Charlotte Observer, a newspaper with “proper liberal credentials” that prides itself on having a heart for justice, wrote an account that – save its lead paragraph in which the reporter noted that Sprouse burst into tears – that was little more than a rehash of the press release given by the U.S. DOJ on its website.

If one only watched the news and read the Observer, Sprouse’s guilt would be an open-and-shut thing. I followed her trial through the Observer’s website and knew there was no chance for her acquittal. I spoke to one of North Carolina’s best-known attorneys before the trial and he told me, “She is going to get screwed.” And she did.

Yet, the government’s case against Vickie Sprouse was a true house of cards, constructed upon a façade that was supported by judicial rulings that ensured that Sprouse would not have an adequate defense. The irony is that it would not have been difficult for a good attorney to have blasted apart the federal charges and there was enough exculpatory evidence available to have shot the case full of holes. However, federal prosecutor Matt Martens was able to rig both the prosecution and the defense by seizing Sprouse’s assets and forcing her to drop her experienced attorney and having to depend upon public defenders that had no intention of mounting a real defense.

I go through the details of the original conviction in this post I wrote three years ago for Lew Rockwell’s page. (I am grateful that Lew provided a forum by which I could write on such issues even though my harsh words have enraged state and federal prosecutors.) When the original article was published, Martens flew into a rage, claiming first that I was a fictitious character and that Sprouse had written the piece herself, and later saying that Sprouse had dictated every word to me. Neither statement was true and the prosecutor’s words demonstrated to me that Martens (like many other U.S. attorneys) was both an egomaniac and a fundamentally-dishonest character.

There is a postscript to the original conviction which further demonstrates the lengths of brutality that the government will go in order to target, convict, and incarcerate someone. While Sprouse was convicted for so-called mortgage fraud, the prosecution relied upon the malleable federal statute of Honest Services Fraud to make its case. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned much of that law, the legal basis for Sprouse’s conviction collapsed. (I argue in my LRC post that the government did not even prove Sprouse had committed any kind of fraud.)

Government lawyers were demanding Sprouse be incarcerated for 42 years, and she was held under house arrest pending her appeal. When a federal judge overturned her conviction, U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins (the same Anne Tompkins who declared her office could not be “outcome-driven” when confronted with the fact it had illegally-charged dozens of people with statutory crimes that did not exist) and her underlings fashioned bankruptcy fraud charges in retaliation.

I have written a short post on the current set of charges, but that post was incomplete. The feds have used tricks like claiming Sprouse reported fraudulent numbers for rental properties when, in fact, they used gross revenue while Sprouse employed net income. The feds also claimed that a defense fund set up by Sprouse’s sister, a fund of which Sprouse had no personal access and proceeds went directly to pay attorneys, constituted an illegal secret “slush fund.”

One of the ironies in this sorry case has been the fact that Sprouse herself hardly fits the demonized profile that the feds have created and the media have dutifully regurtigated. She is a friendly, kind woman whose mannerisms and language are a throwback to the formal culture that existed in the South many years ago. In all my conversations with her, I never have heard her curse or even use inflammatory language. She seems genuinely confused as to why the feds would pursue her in a Javert-like manner, and I and others who know her all agree.

The sad thing about the personal destruction of Victoria Sprouse is not just in the lost income and opportunities that she and her family have experienced. No, it also has been the very ease by which federal authorities can use the alleged-watchdog media to create caricatures of people that do not fit their real character. Her persecution also is a reminder that any one of us can be targeted in the same manner, and no matter how much proof we produce to demonstrate that federal officials are wrong, the American news media will follow lock-step behind the bureaucrats, even when it is obvious the bureaucrats are not telling the truth.

When the Arizona State Bar earlier this year separated former Maricopa County District Attoney Andrew Thomas from his law license, a number of people who had been victimized by this man and his staff felt some sense of vindication. The unfortunate thing, however, was that Thomas was disbarred for bringing a criminal case into a political fight between Sheriff Joe Arpaio and people in the courthouse when, in reality, the conduct of his staff in the wrongful conviction of Courtney Bisbee should have been enough to have a number of prosecutors disbarred forever.

Because I am at a retreat in the high desert hinterlands of Colorado, my posting time is severely limited, and I am going to let the article from the Phoenix New Times tell the whole terrible story in all of its details. What I will say is that this not only was a wrongful conviction, it was a conviction driven by prosecutorial ambition, the greed of families that believed telling lies under oath would enable them to sue someone else for Big Money, and by the general lies and hysteria that have accompanied the Mondale Act since its inception in 1974.

Andrew Thomas was not satisfied with bringing a wrongful case against Courtney; no, he and his political allies had to send an entire SWAT team to arrest an unarmed, diminutive and non-violent woman. Lest anyone think that the prosecution had the “right” motives but wrong facts in this case, think again. The article details the deliberate myopia of Andrew Thomas and others who wanted a scalp for their trophy cases.

I will include a few snippets from the NT piece to point out why I believe this was a travesty of justice:

The state alleged Bisbee had engaged in a mutual grope session with a 13-year-old named Jon Valles. Incredibly, she was supposed to have done this in a room full of teenage witnesses, some of whom had babysat her daughter.

And:

Two weeks following her arrest on February 11, Bisbee was charged with three counts of child molestation and three counts of indecency. The media lumped her in with various high-profile cases of improper student-teacher relations, though Bisbee was not a teacher, and Jon was not her student. Rather, he attended Desert Shadows Middle School, a mile or two south of Horizon.

Bisbee pleaded not guilty, aced a polygraph test, and passed a rigorous screening designed to sniff out pedophiles. Still, she was convicted after a six-day bench trial in early 2006. Despite conflicting testimony and a lack of physical evidence, Superior Court Judge Warren Granville believed Bisbee’s accuser and found Bisbee guilty on two counts of child molestation, resulting in a sentence of 11 years in state prison.

But the case had holes in it, and things started to come apart after Bisbee was convicted:

In 2007, Jon’s elder brother Nik recanted his testimony against Bisbee in a sworn affidavit; he accused his mother and his brother of concocting the tale to establish grounds for a lawsuit.

Since the trial, other witnesses have maintained that Jon lied about Bisbee. Numerous individuals have communicated this information to County Attorney Andrew Thomas, to no avail. The conviction took place under Thomas’ watch, and legal experts assert it is Thomas’ duty as a seeker of justice to investigate this new information.

As I see it, the evidence was there all the time, but people like Thomas who already are fundamentally-dishonest run from the truth like a vampire runs from a cross. And when Thomas left office for his ill-fated run for attorney general of Arizona, his successor was no more willing to take a hard look at the Bisbee conviction than was Thomas.

Unfortunately, prosecutors and judges tend to take convictions as hard-and-fast and in their minds, innocence cannot be a defense, since all accused people MUST be guilty, otherwise they would not have been accused in the first place.

Tiffany. (Photo by Nick Ulmer.)

So last Thursday was the benefit show for my friend, local Nashville musician Chris Tapp, and Cold Stares guitarist and singer Chris Tapp.

It was a magnificent night. We had a full venue, a ridiculously talented lineup of artists, and a house band that meshed with each act like they’d been playing together for years. It was a little surreal at times to watch, then remember back to just a few months ago when we came up with this idea over drinks at the Irish bar down the road.

Jamie Kenney, a producer, songwriter, musician and enormously gifted guy put the band together. Jamie and the great singer/songwriter Matthew Perryman Jones assembled the talent. We also got some great auction donations from the Nashville Opera, Merchants restaurant, Nashville designer Manuel, Dave Johnson photography, and others. We raised a nice little sum of money for Chris, mostly due to the time and talent of people who have never met the guy. That says a lot about this town.

The surprise of the night was 80s pop star Tiffany. First I guess that she showed up. She’s a cancer survivor, and asked to play when she heard about the event. The second surprise—and I mean no disrespect by calling it a surprise—is that Tiffany can wail. She started off with a righteous cover of Etta James, then closed the night with the finale, along with some backing from the night’s other artists. The song was Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools.” It was grand.

Here’s a rough video of her performance of “Sunday Kind of Love,” starting with my awkward introduction:

There really wasn’t a down moment the entire night. Jeremy Lister and Gabe Dixon kicked the show off off with CCR’s “Down on the Corner” and Freddy King’s “Tore Down,” respectively. (Dixon is an insane keyboardist, by the way.) And only in Nashville will a nurse (in her day job) step on stage and do what Besty Ulmer does here:

That wasn’t even her best song. Her “Bring It on Home to Me” had a few people in the crowd dancing. That’s amazing, because nobody dances in Nashville.

The crowd favorite was probably Emily West. She got a standing ovation after her soaring rendition of Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High.”

Emily West

Personal favorites: The fetching Courtney Jaye unleashed some sultry Dusty Springfield. Perryman Jones had the place entranced with the old spiritual, “Motherless Child.” Jason Eskeridge’s soulful, stripped-down ode to Stevie Wonder was magnificent. Mailie Misajon’s strutting, sexy “Love Me Like a Man.” Thad Cockrell and Jaye singing Cockrell’s beautiful song “Rosalyn.” The raspy, Americana blues of Mark Huff, pictured here. (Photo by Nate Ulmer.)

Mark Huff

Here’s a shot of your humble Agitator, playing host. I’m comfortable with public speaking. But I usually say things like, ” . . . and then the cops killed him.” This was a little different.

Radley Balko

A few more of my own photos from the show:

I’ll leave you with Lee Broderick, a Brit with amazing pipes you’ll likely be hearing more of soon.

Can’t say enough how gracious a lot of people were in helping put this thing together. A number of people told me after the show it was one of their favorite nights out in Nashville. That’s saying something in a city where there are a couple dozen live music shows every night. Chris is reaching out to the artists himself to thank them, but I don’t think he’d mind my saying that he’s humbled and grateful. He suggested we make this an annual event, though obviously for a different cause next year. I think it’s a great idea. The Cold Stares could open the show.

You can still donate to help Chris out. Details here.

(Thanks to Nick Ulmer for the videos.)

Eapen Thampy

Hi Folks– Lenore from Free-Range Kids, just alerting you to a big to-do going on over at my blog. I posted a question from a mom about whether dads still routinely — or ever — drive the babysitter home anymore, and 150 comments later, the topic is still on fire. Some fear the man, some fear the teen, but plenty, I am happy to report, fear neither! If you have some thoughts on the topic, or simply wonder why it is even an issue, come visit! Back to weightier topics anon!

Who will drive the teen girl home?

Eapen Thampy, Americans for Forfeiture Reform

WMUF 104.7 FM in Henry, Tennessee, reports:

Henry, Tenn.- At the Henry Mayor and Board of Alderman meeting on Tuesday, board members decided to allow police chief David Andrews to institute a K9 program for the Henry Police Department.

Andrews told board members that the city is missing out on possible revenues that a K9 would bring. He said when you make traffic stops and the driver refuses to allow a search, their hands are tied. If a drug dog alerts on a vehicle, its gives officers probable cause to search a vehicle for drugs or illegal proceeds from drugs. More drug arrests and drug, cash, and vehicle seizures lead to more revenues coming in for the police department and city.

Andrews said the military has a drug dog program and he could get a dog for the city at no upfront cost. The dogs are usually labs and are very gentle, and come trained as drug dogs. Andrews said four hours per week of training is required but the officers will work that into their regular hours. The dog would stay at the officers residence at night and any monies for food, water, and vet care would come from the drug fund.

The board of alderman also approved to allow city recorder Sonya Clayton to call in Jessica Lucas for some part time help in the office whenever needed.
Mayor Joe Qualls said the workload on Clayton has become very heavy and some part time help is needed certain days of the month and to allow backup for sickness and vacation for the city recorder.

Lucas has worked with the city part time before, and was called in a couple of weeks ago when they really needed some help. Lucas never quit or was terminated, but the new budget never allowed for the part time help so she didn’t come back on a regular basis.

The part time help will be at the city recorder’s discretion, brining her in an average of a couple days per week and training her on court paperwork, water bills, deposits, and all aspects of the office. This will be part time, temporary help for the rest of this budget year. It would be up to the city whether or not to budget it again once the new budget year starts next July.

The Institute for Justice reports that Tennessee’s asset forfeiture law rates a “D”:

Tennessee has broad civil forfeiture laws that fail to protect the rights of property owners. There, the government must establish by only a preponderance of the evidence that property is related to a crime and subject to forfeiture. Tennessee also effectively presumes owners are guilty, as the property owner bears the burden of proof for innocent owner claims. And, while it cannot be used to supplement salaries, local drug enforcement nonetheless keeps 100 percent of property forfeited, and there is no requirement to collect or report data on the use of forfeiture or its proceeds in Tennessee.

Update:

Turns out there previously has been misuse of forfeited vehicles, cash, and drugs by law enforcement in Henry County:

A state comptroller’s special investigation of West Tennessee’s 24th Judicial Drug Task Force turned up instances of theft by the agency’s administrative assistant and jail trustees smoking seized crack cocaine.

It also reveals that District Attorney General Hansel McCadams and Henry County Sheriff Monte Belew had a penchant for using a confiscated BMW Z-3 car for their personal use.

The examination of drug task force operations was conducted by the Comptroller’s Division of County Audit with aid from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Auditors said items from drug seizures were stolen or misused with a task force administrative assistant and her ex-husband admitting to taking drugs and other seized items, including utility trailers and a flat-screen television, from the task force.

The report from the Comptroller’s Division of County Audit said McCadams and other directors of the task force were lax in reviewing the agency’s operations. The task force itself didn’t have adequate record-keeping or inventory management practices.

Auditors said they found a group of jail trustees on a work detail had access to seized items without sufficient supervision. Because of that, the report says, some trustees gained access to drug case files, smoked crack cocaine and marijuana while at the Drug Task Force headquarters and stole cash, old coins and other equipment.

According to auditors, McCadams sometimes used a variety of confiscated equipment including a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a golf cart, a go cart, a four-wheeler and a trailer for his personal use. He flew on Drug Task Force airplanes and a helicopter on non-official business, according to the report.

Hat Tip: Orin Kerr at Volokh.

Adam Ozimek touches on a theme that’s close to my heart every four years:

[W]here in my post arguing for more immigration does [Brad DeLong] find evidence that I “carry water for a Republican Party that simply does not exist in modern America”?

This is very puzzling to me. Nowhere in my article do I praise Republicans or their policies….

Mr. Ozimek goes on to catalog several posts in which he has disagreed with Republicans and their policies. He insists that he’s not carrying water for them. I sympathize. I even believe him.

Demurral though will not solve his problem. Now, having written what he has, and having called attention to his criticism of Republicans, he will stand accused of carrying water for the other side, whether or not he wants to be.

My reading of him suggests that he’s primarily trying to talk about how economics works, for example in a post like this one — and not trying to boost one party or the other. Hard to believe, I know.

This is not to say that he doesn’t have a preference. I presume he does, and he’s entitled to have one, though if he’s published an endorsement, I’ve missed it. But I think any fair impression of Mr. Ozimek would at some point have to include noting the obvious difference between him and, say, Sean Hannity.

Nevertheless in an election season there is virtually no way to be nonpartisan while simultaneously writing anything at all about public policy. Someone has always figured you out, and they’re always intent on laying bare your secret partisan heart.

This would be amusing to me — if I could convince anyone of my sincerely nonpartisan alignment. And then maybe we could commiserate. I really am nonpartisan, in that I dislike both parties about equally. I think a change in political culture is needed — in both parties — before we can reliably start seeing the kind of government I prefer.

I do like the Democrats for some things, some of the time — mostly cultural and civil liberties issues. But I know perfectly well that their deeds aren’t what you might infer from their rhetoric. I like the Republicans for some things, some of the time — mostly that they often do speak up for free market economics, for keeping taxes low, and for cutting government spending. Though again, their deeds typically don’t match their rhetoric, either.

I meant that last paragraph to be balanced, but I know — I know — that someone is going to suss out some subtle bias in it, which will reveal to all the world what a partisan hack I really am. And they will post a comment about it in 3… 2…

In my previous post about how the Sacramento County District Attorney continues to push the prosecution of Robert Adams for child molestation even though there is no evidence, I said that it was part of the typical “bleed ‘em and plead ‘em” strategy employed by most American prosecutors. However, after doing some digging, I have found that there very well could be some other motivation for government officials in that county, and specifically the city of Citrus Hill.

No doubt, the district attorney wants to “win” because prosecutors are all about getting convictions, guilt or innocence be damned. However, some developments after the arrest of Adams and his subsequent demonization by local officials and the local news media, including the Sacramento Bee, raise the possibility that this whole affair may help the City of Citrus Heights meet some of its own development goals. Furthermore, a conviction via plea bargain also would save the city from having Adams and his family sue the police and others for fabricating the case.

Adams was the headmaster of Creative Frontiers School, a private school which Citrus Heights officials closed down after Adams was charged. Later, some people associated with Adams wanted to re-open the school with others in charge, but the city shot down that request, claiming that it essentially would be the same school. While that argument really did not make sense, given that no one else had been accused, nonetheless the decision stood.

The property went into foreclosure, but it was to be sold to nearby Bayside Church for $1.2 million, which would have covered the $1 million principal owed to Zions Bank. However, the bank suddenly balked (claiming the price was too low) but then a few months later sold it to Bayside Church for only $700 thousand. Now, this would not make sense at all, except the City of Citrus Hill also would like to have the property.

In its Action Plan of November, 2011, the city outlines a number of services that it wants to provide, but bemoaned the fact that there is “very little vacant land available for development.” The report continues:

Non-governmental barriers include the availability and cost of land. The primary barrier to the creation of affordable housing in Citrus Heights is a very small supply of vacant land. As the vacant land supply decreases, the availability and cost of suitable vacant land for housing development becomes a barrier to the development of affordable housing.

Creative Frontiers School’s former property has seven acres, which is a huge amount of land for a place like Citrus Heights, and there is no doubt that when a disgruntled former employee made what turned out to be outlandish accusations, as outlined by Christian Peet in his blog post and detailed in my previous post, Citrus Heights officials sensed an opportunity for a land grab. As readers of this blog and other sites, such as Reason Magazine, have come to know, city officials in this country are notorious for stealing private land under flimsy pretenses.

For the most part, the land seizures, such as what happened in the infamous Kelo case in New London, Connecticut, where city officials took private property in order to sell it to a private firm that supposedly would “develop” it and ultimately create more tax revenue for the city. However, in the situation with Citrus Heights, it turns out that it would like to use at least part of that property for a homeless shelter.

Ordinarily, that would not make sense, given that one does not associate homeless shelters with “development.” However, the county and specifically the nearby city of Sacramento have been under fire for what has been called “inadequate” facilities for homeless people. Furthermore, using that property for housing and homeless-related activities would bring in millions of dollars of federal government money, and given the sorry state of California’s economy, federal money probably is the only game in town when it comes to injections of new funding.

In other words, continuing the prosecution of Robert Adams not only would financially ruin Adams and his family, leading to a plea bargain that would keep Citrus Heights and others from being sued, but also would further justify the land grab activities that have been going on behind the scenes. Ironically, government officials have called Adams a “predator,” but it seems that the real predatory activities are those being pushed by Citrus Heights and Sacramento County.

Eapen Thampy

Over at Keep Columbia Free, my friend Mark Flakne has a post up about how the Columbia, Missouri police department targeted Matt Akins, a mutual friend and activist in Columbia. Akins runs a small nonprofit organization, Citizens for Justice, that records the cops. From Akin’s Facebook page:

          This poster was prominently displayed in several locations throughout the Columbia Police Department during the Fall of 2011 while a group of Shepard Boulevard Elementry School students were given a tour of the department.
cfjweb.ssos.us was the original home of Citizens For Justice (now located at www.CFJComo.com). This site was never public, but had been being tracked by the CPD/CPOA(Columbia Police Officers’ Association) as they sent emails letting us know this (Scare tactic? Maybe).

The arrest being referred to occurred in May of 2010 and was one of the primary reasons I started Citizens For Justice.

I was LEGALLY carrying a concealed weapon on my person within the confines of my vehicle (as defined under Missouri’s Peaceable Journey Statute), but the arresting officer didn’t agree with me and went so far as to supplant evidence against me by loading a round into the chamber and reporting he had recovered it from me this way.
My car was impounded, I was booked for unlawful use of a weapon, and had to hire an attorney for the 6 month legal battle that would ensue.

After repeatedly asking for the footage of the arrest to show the officer engaging in misconduct, I was told that it either had been deleted, disappeared, or never existed AND MY CASE WAS DROPPED.

I believe that makes this a closed record(and therefore a HUGE violation of my civil rights), but I’m not an attorney so I could be wrong.
Either way, the poster was used to make me look like a wanted criminal to a bunch a elementry school kids and I couldn’t even get an answer as to who created it or put it up.

Thanks a lot CPD!

Eapen Thampy

At around 13:40 (edit: substantive discussion doesn’t begin till 20:30) in this video, the Springfield, Missouri City Council discusses the proposed marijuana decriminalization ballot initiative that they now must approve at the City Council meeting on Tuesday or send to the voters in the November general election. Leave a comment if you notice any incorrect information about marijuana and the drug war. it would be much appreciated.

Hat Tip: National Cannabis Coalition

Eapen Thampy

Al-Jazeera:

Hat Tip: Tom Angell, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

You pig-fucking coward. You shit-eating child born from a buggered arsehole. You piss-colored pile of carrion. You dung-fly. You prickless and ball-lacking catamite. You son of a street-walking widow who never had a man except for money. You cock-sucking arse-licking defiler of sacred shrines, you brainless heartless gutless cockless offspring of an imbecile and a deformed cow, you flea-bitten child-robber who poisoned your father and raped your mother and sold your sisters to the Dutch and carved up your brothers for sale in a butcher’s shop, you gutter-hugging trader in second-hand excrement, why won’t you give this girl her high school diploma?

By David Bratzer, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

I worked yesterday (and I’m working later today) so my ability to post comments is limited. I am still following the Ask a Cop thread and I will (eventually) answer all the questions. As always, please note that my posts and comments on The Agitator represent my personal views only.

• For Twitter folks, #copchat is happening tonight at 9pm EST. Each week has a themed topic and there are some house rules so check out the link before participating. This is an opportunity for police officers and members of the public. The officer who co-founded #copchat is from Toronto. He runs it while off-duty.
• The British Columbia Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has rejected a one day suspension of a police officer for this incident. The case will now move to a formal disciplinary hearing, to be held on October 5th.
• An external investigation has been called into allegations that two Vancouver police officers did not warn a pregnant woman that she was at risk of being murdered.
• We’ve talked a bit in the comments about Freedom of Information requests. A few weeks ago I filed these FOI requests, and then a complaint. Here is the result. The goal of these requests is to examine how public funds will be spent to provide police services in my hometown. The details are not super exciting, but it does reinforce my point: If you don’t file a request, nothing happens.

Hi Folks! Lenore Skenazy from Free-Range Kids, alerting parents to a horrible danger that could be lurking in your living room: The Bumbo Seat!

As I explain on my site: 

Bumbos are little seats that look even safer than normal seats because there’s a big, hmmm, I guess “bumbo” in front of the crotch, wedging the child in. (See below.) About 4 million — that’s 4,000,000 — have been sold. A few years ago, they were recalled because if you placed them on a table, sometimes they’d fall off. So a warning was added. Now they are being recalled for retooling — basically adding a safety belt — after reports of 2 baby skull fractures. (Two, that is, while the seat was on the ground.)

Now, look, nobody wants a baby’s skull fractured. (Do they?) But listen to this quote in USA Today:

“Too many children were injured while using this product,” says Consumer Federation of America product safety director Rachel Weintraub. “The fact that the manufacturer is changing the product by including restraints is incredibly significant.”

It is INDEED significant, in that it indicates that any manufacturer can be coerced into a product recall if someone insinuates that without it, the manufacturer DOESN’T CARE ABOUT BROKEN BABY SKULLS. The specter of a lawsuit, or boycott, or just a glaring TV talk show host is enough to make any company quake in its booties.

But when something is safe 99.999475% of the time, is that not SAFE ENOUGH? Apparently not to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Read (a little more) here. – L

Ye gads! Won’t someone save that poor endangered baby?

This is a bit surprising, given where it’s taking place.

But credit where credit is due. This is a truly wonderful program.

(–Radley)

The State of California, which gave us such outrages as the McMartin Case and the Kerns County prosecutions, claims to have learned its lesson, and the Sacramento Bee has solemnly assured its readers that the Bee no longer runs over the cliff when someone is accused of child molestation. That self-congratulatory statement came as the Bee once again stood on the edge of the cliff and jumped.

As of this writing, Robert Adams, the former headmaster of the now-shuttered Creative Frontiers School in Citrus Heights, is charged with child molestation, although the State of California still has not turned over its “evidence” to the defense, despite the fact that it has had this case for more than a year. (This is part of the “bleed ‘em” strategy that prosecutors employ. When they don’t have a case, they lie and hide evidence so that the proceedings will drag out and the defendant will plead to something just to get this thing behind him. It is a smarmy strategy, but most American prosecutors fall into the “smarmy” category, so it all fits together perfectly.)

So it was that the Bee triumphantly claimed that since McMartin, everyone in the system now is careful not to make false accusations. Really. The Bee proclaimed:

The legacy of the notorious McMartin Preschool case of the 1980s is playing out this week in Sacramento.

As the principal of a private elementary school in Citrus Heights stands accused of molesting his students, authorities are warning the school’s parents against aggressively questioning their children about the man they affectionately know as “Mr. Bob.”

It is the exact opposite of what police asked parents to do during the McMartin case, in which members of a Southern California family who ran a highly regarded preschool in Manhattan Beach were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse.

The Bee continued:

The state Department of Social Services, in a complaint filed in support of revoking the preschool’s license, accuses Adams of “inappropriate physical and sexual contact with female children” on “numerous occasions” beginning in 1997. The complaint cites two specific allegations, including the one by Mertens, and other more general accusations. Those include Adams touching children’s bodies under their shirts and down their pants, and lying with female children on a mat in a secluded area.

However, the article went on to describe how much better investigators do than they did 30 years ago when the McMartin allegations broke out. I must admit, having been involved with a number of faux child molestation cases against innocent people, that the following statement from the newspaper is a howler:

In response to the McMartin debacle, authorities across the country established “child advocacy centers” with special rooms where youngsters can be questioned by trained psychologists or law enforcement specialists.

Sorry, folks, it does not work that way. Most Child Advocacy Center interviewers are poorly-trained, and often are people with an agenda. The two CACs that were involved in the Tonya Craft case had interviewers asking leading and manipulative questions and admitted proudly on the stand that they could not be bothered to have more training or to read any relevant academic and research literature that dealt with their interviews and interviewing techniques. I include the transcript of an interview of Tonya Craft’s six-year-old (at the time) daughter so that readers can see a CAC “expert” at work. It is pretty disgusting.

(Chris Arnt, the lead prosecutor in the Craft case, managed to get six indictments against Craft from this interview.)

Here is what the executive editor of the Bee, Joyce Terhaar, wrote right after the investigation began and the school was closed:

The shadow of the McMartin Preschool fiasco hung over Sacramento law enforcement and media last week.

You likely followed the news of the abrupt closure Monday of a private elementary school in Citrus Heights because of allegations the principal molested students beginning in 1997.

Just as law enforcement learned from the McMartin molestation allegations in the 1980s, and changed its investigative approach in such cases, the media learned to be more skeptical.

Yes, the Bee was so skeptical of the charges that soon after Terhaar’s column that it ran a story claiming that Adams had faked his credentials, thus helping to cement in the minds of its readers that the guy was a fraud, which meant he must be guilty of child molestation. However, when Adams produced the documentation that showed he had the educational credentials that he had claimed, the Bee was too busy to run a correction. (I would add that the Sacramento television news stations have been no better than the Bee, but since the Bee claims to always have a reasoned and correct perspective about nearly everything, I figure that this paper should be held to higher standards than the makeup-slathered folks we see on the evening news.)

Lest anyone think the Bee has simply tried to objectively cover this case, this lead in an article from Sam Stanton should put things into perspective:

On a chilly December day when Bob Adams normally might be thinking about a holiday pageant at his family’s school, he found himself walking into court again to deal with charges that he is a child molester.

He goes on:

Adams faces six felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and one misdemeanor count of annoying or molesting a child under 18.

Court documents indicate Adams was first investigated in connection with molestation allegations in 2000, but it was not until September that charges were filed accusing him of molesting girls as young as 6 or 7 in alleged incidents dating back to 1996.

Yes, everything Stanton wrote is true, but the way he puts it leaves little doubt he believes Adams is guilty.

At this point the reader might ask me, “Why do you think this guy is innocent?” I use the word “innocence” carefully, but I have no doubt. And neither does the writer, Christian Peet, who has published a number of excellent blog posts that go into this case — and the accusers — into detail. It is Peet, not the faux journalists at the Sacramento Bee, who has done the digging and done the due diligence that the ancients once called research. (They are too busy to do research at the Bee, instead being satisfied with repeating the press releases from the police and Sacramento County prosecutors.)

Peet has an excellent post from last May, and I include a few excerpts:

Prosecutors’ decision to build a case against Adams even in the wake of the public implosion of their original star witness (and, by her own account, their “only witness“), Irma Mertens, has only solidified public doubt about the veracity of the State’s case.

Mertens, a volunteer at Creative Frontiers, who was passed over for paid employment prior to making her felony allegations against Adams in July 2011, went on to embarrass social services and police by giving a string of newspaper and television interviews in which she embellished and contradicted previous statements released to the media, providing sudden new “details” such as watching Adams stick his thumb in a child’s rectum,3 all within 48 hours of authorities having released her original allegations in a press packet that was unblinkingly trumpeted by local papers and recycled by major media across the US and into the UK, destroying the names of the prestigious 35-year-old school and branding its founder, for the rest of his life, an accused child molester.

I would urge readers to go through Peet’s account of the lurid tales that Mertens told the media — and how those tales later fell apart, although one never would guess that from reading the Bee or watching the news in Sacramento. Peet also debunks the notion that the police were careful in their investigation:

Just three days after Creative Frontiers was closed, an article at the Sacramento Bee, as if written by the prosecution itself, sought to reassure the public that city and county authorities, despite appearances, weren’t repeating the same mistakes. Declared the headline: “McMartin Preschool abuse-case fiasco led to new child interview techniques.”

“In [the Mcmartin Preschool] case,” write reporters Hubert and Stanton, “following an initial accusation from one mother, police sent form letters to more than 200 parents at the preschool, urging them to question their children about possible sexual abuse.” The difference, however, between these troubling aspects of McMartin and those of Creative Frontiers, is scarcely any difference at all. Instead of Judy Johnson making false allegations in 1983, we have Irma Mertens making false allegations in 2011. Instead of a telephone-tree panic between parents, we have online comments at the Sacramento Bee and other digital newspapers.

Likewise only updated technology separates the ill-advised tactics of the police departments in each case. In 1983 police in Manhattan Beach mailed parents 200 form letters. In 2011, Citrus Heights police set up an online form, making the reporting of allegations as easy as clicking of a mouse.

At this writing, the defense STILL does not have the prosecution files on the case, which places the State of California in violation of the Brady ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Not that prosecutors ever have worried about obeying the law, but it should be noted that the Bee has not reported on this legal transgression.

Peet’s blogging on this case has been extremely valuable, as he has put it into perspective and, like me, he points out the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the Bee’s coverage. He takes apart the allegations and the statements by police and accusers better than I could do. So if you want to better understand why I believe that the State of California is perpetuating a fraud and is being aided and abetted by the Sacramento Bee, read Peet’s work.

– William Anderson

Eapen Thampy

Been watching this story over the weekend and enough credible sources have picked it up that I’m interested. From Carlos Miller:

Law enforcement officials said they did not arrest Brandon Raub for his anti-governmentFacebook postings, even though they slapped handcuffs on him and forced him into a car before transporting him to a psychiatric hospital where he will remain for at least 30 days.

No, they merely went to “interview him” last Thursday, the FBI told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“Our office had received a complaint about threatening posts,” said Dee Rybiski, spokeswoman for the Richmond FBI office. “As we would do in any circumstance such as this, our office along with Chesterfield Police (Department) officers went to interview Mr. Raub.

“The FBI did not arrest him,” Rybiski said. “We are not commenting any further.

Meanwhile, Raub is locked away in a psychiatric ward in John Randolph Medical Center outside Richmond, Virginia where he was allowed to be interviewed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch via telephone.

“I’m currently in John Randolph in the psychiatric ward being held against my will,” Raub said in a telephone interview.

Raub said Secret Service, FBI and Chesterfield police officers came to his home Thursday. “They were concerned about me calling for the arrest of government officials,” he said.

He was taken to the Chesterfield police station and then to the hospital, he said.

“I talked to a Secret Service gentleman for 20, 30 minutes,” Raub said. “I was very cooperative and answered everything honestly.

“I really love America, and I think that idea that you can be detained and sent somewhere without due process and a lawyer … is crazy.”

Raub said he has been raising questions about 9/11 and signed a petition to reopen investigation of the terrorist attacks.

The Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil rights organization, has come to the defense of Raub, a retired U.S. Marine who served from 2005 to 2011, including stints in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to a statement the Rutherford Institute sent to Cop Block:

The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a former Marine, 26-year-old Brandon Raub, who was arrested, detained indefinitely in a psych ward and forced to undergo psychological evaluations based solely on the controversial nature of lines from song lyrics, political messages and virtual card games which he posted to his private Facebook page. Although the FBI and Chesterfield County police have not charged Brandon Raub, a resident of Chesterfield County, Va., with committing any crime, they arrested Raub on Thursday, August 16, 2012, and transported him to John Randolph Medical Center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook (FB) posts were controversial and terrorist in nature. In a hearing held at the hospital, government officials disregarded Raub’s explanation that the Facebook posts were being interpreted out of context, sentencing him up to 30 days further confinement in a VA psych ward. In coming to Raub’s defense, Rutherford Institute attorneys are challenging Raub’s arrest and forcible detention, as well as the government’s overt Facebook surveillance and violation of Raub’s First Amendment rights.

Raub’s statements might seem far-fetched to many people, even to those who don’t normally buy into government rhetoric.

But they’re not much different than what many people have been posting on the internet, especially after 9/11 when a small but vocal movement began spreading their views that the government somehow played a role in the terrorists attacks.