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Hosting a Highly Inflammatory Document?
IndianaKim writes "I have been asked if I can host or assist in hosting a highly inflammatory document that reflects poorly on a Police Department. I want to help, but I also do not want the headache and possible subjection to search warrants and/or illegal searches. The document is so inflammatory that it could interest the FBI and DoJ and cause them to investigate the government officials involved. I live in the same county, but not the same city, and therefore could be subject to a search (legal or not) by some of these government agencies. I have been asked to host it on a server outside of the US. At this time, I do not have the ability to do that, but I could set it up if I needed to. My question is: would you host it if you were asked? How would you go about protecting the document and yourself?"
If this document is so inflammatory, why not print up several copies and slip them under the local news building front doors? They will be shielded relatively well from legal abuse.
That, or Freenet.
"Some say that power comes with responsibility, but this is not correct. Freedom is responsibility, and if one fails to be responsible for their own freedom then those who claim 'power' will become responsible for your freedom, and both will be taken from you." - me
So basically because you fear the ability of law enforcement to abuse their powers in ways that may harm you personally, you are afraid to host this document that I have to presume relates to revealing some potentially illegal police activities? The press refuses to carry this story? And people say they live in a free society, when they are free only to be afraid of the power of government??
Let me say this. If I had such documents, well, speaking from their presumed perspective and content, I would choose to host them. I would do so proudly. And I would share them with others to host as well, openly, without question. I would make sure they were also mirrored of course on something outside the U.S. as I do have resources for that. But I would happily apply my own resources to host them also.
Fascism happens when the efficiency and fear of the state becomes more important than the freedom and rights of the people.
This document is "so inflamatory it might interest the DoJ or FBI"?
Then send it to them. Or, if it's valid at all, send it to the closest trustworthy newspaper you can find. Or if nothing else, HIRE A CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER so you know where the line is where you need to stop -- and so you know what to do if an illegal search comes up.
A random document on the internet means NOTHING to an investigative agency. You might as well walk up and make a random phone call from a stolen cell phone. It's not even probable cause to investigate if you don't have a name to go with the charge.
Go home, read the Constitution again, and decide if you want to help someone throw mud for zero effect, or if you want to actually see change. Our forefathers fought and died for our right to speak what we believe to be true; you are a coward if you will only exercise that when there is zero effect.
(Oh, and for the main question: no, I wouldn't. And I wouldn't try hosting it overseas, either; few countries have as strong a free speech protection as the United States.)
It's all quite easy if you can find an obscure pay phone that still works and will let you make 800 calls. Get yourself an acoustic coupler and find one of those free dial up accounts. Set up some sort of old laptop, that you found in the trash, to dial in using a script. You could also have it dial in to a bunch of different services to keep them off your track for awhile. Next set up a dyna DNS account and set up the laptop to update it. Hide the laptop somewhere in the phone booth. You will also need to steal power for the laptop from somewhere so get a dc-dc converter and steal the power off of the phone line going to the booth. No one ever uses pay phones anymore but you might want to leave something nasty in the booth to keep the homeless out.
Certain lawyers have faced a very similar issue. They have learned to live outside of cities and counties that they sue. They have also learned to use drivers and never, ever drive in those cities and counties.
I also had one friend whose home was burned when her husband ran for county sheriff.
All in all it is better to be rather remote from the people who may feel endangered by your actions. It it involves crime it may be organized and deadly.
paranoia isn't just a psychological problem, it's a protective mechanism. :)
Wrong. Paranoia is a delusion and a "mental illness". Fear of persecution is a "protective mechanism".
Harassment isn't always so obvious. When I was a kid, for political reasons (that I won't go into, but it wasn't directly me), I had my own private escort to and from school by the police. They tried to not be obvious, but they weren't very good at it. I was pulled over in "routine" traffic stops at least once a week.
Once, with my mom in the car, I noticed a patrol car pull behind me. I told her, "We're going to be pulled over.", and she said we weren't doing anything wrong. They followed for about a mile, and when we stopped in a mall parking lot, the officer told us to wait with the car. It wasn't his call, he was just told to keep us there until further notice. There wasn't even an ID check. We were just held for 15 minutes, before the harassing officers radioed over to say to let us go this time. They were busy with something else. I was just an easy target that day.
It became a game with me. I'd spot them before they'd get close behind me, so I'd pull nice polite evasive maneuvers (3 signaled turns on side streets to get out of view, then park and lay the seat down). They may have slowed down my trip by a minute or two, but it was better than being ID'd, personally searched, vehicle searched, questioned, and finally let go.
Once an officer followed me for 5 miles. Very obviously, because he followed my lane changes, turns, etc. I even made some nonsensical turns, like off of the main road, loop through a neighborhood, and back onto the same main road in the same direction. I pulled into a parking lot with a store, and we got out. He parked several rows over and did the same thing. We were slow about getting out of the car, so he didn't want to be obvious, and walked into the store. Once he was in with his back turned, we got back into our car, and drove away. From the exit of the parking lot, we saw him running for his car. He got caught up in traffic, where we made a clean exit (before the traffic), so we had a 2 minute advantage to get out of sight.
I grew up thinking that's how the police treated either kids or drivers in general. It happened until I moved out of the area. I was amazed that I wasn't pulled over for anything for years after that.
I recommend against anything that will make a law enforcement agency want to harass you. If you do, do it very very quietly. In this case, photocopies of the document mailed to the appropriate investigative agencies anonymously are a good idea. Scanning and emailing (from a dummy webmail account in a public location through proxies is good) is a good idea also. Submitting to wikileaks and other similar places is good. Is it interesting enough for the ACLU, EFF, or AlterNet to be interested in?
The big question is, is the risk (continued harassment for years) worth the gain (busting one cop for smoking pot, or whatever?)
You could distribute to be redistributed. It's not hard to my online info (look at my profile), and I can give a hint if it's worth the trouble. Contact me through a dummy account, but remember to check it for my response.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Sure they can, that is why 'probable cause" is such a wide open standard. I had it happen to me for about a year. The girl I was dating at the time did a lot of babysitting jobs, including a cops kid. The kid thought I was the coolest thing since sliced bread since I had the 80s feathered hair(which was in at the time, thank you very much) along with the leather jacket and a 68 Mustang. I got a feeling after the third stop the cop was hoping to catch me with "something" just to show the kid that "long hairs are bad" or some such shit.
The funny part was he got caught taking a bribe to sneak some evidence out of the evidence room to throw a case. He didn't know that a buddy of mine that worked bail bonds got so tired of his customers jumping through hoops only to get to court and find "missing evidence" that he talked the judge into installing a hidden camera in the police evidence room. Mr. Asshat cop and a couple of his buddies got busted but good for using the evidence room as their own personal stop n' shop.
So don't believe for a minute that the supreme court means shit. If he was in a small town the cops pretty much can do what they please. They are all asshole buddies with the judges, prosecutors, lawyers, etc and unless they do something SO outrageous that all the BS in the world won't cover it up, they will get by with it. All you can do is move or do like the above poster did and put up with it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've got a permanent scar from the police beating I got after lying down in the snow and putting my hands behind my head. Police can do anything they want, just like you can, and they can get away with it just fine. According to the police report, I got the scar while trying to climb a fence and escape, and three officers attested to that in writing.
Cops are thugs who happen to work for the most powerful gang of all. That's it, that's all.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Back in the 1970s, my nextdoor neighbour got harrassed like that. No good reason, he just looked like a victim, I guess. (He worked as a garbageman.)
Anyway one day the cop who'd done most of the harrassing came on my neighbour's property without a warrant, just to give him shit, and my neighbour came out with a shotgun and ran off the cop. And that was the end of the problem -- no more harrassment.
In the 1980s I had a bad cop move in next door. To cut to the chase, one night at 2am he and his buddy drove past and repeatedly shined their spotlight into my window, just to dick with me. I got up, flung on a coat and boots over my nightgear, and hitailed it into town, where I banged on the sheriff's contract-station door til someone finally opened it... complained to the guy on duty and got a confirm who was out in the car (my idiot neighbour and his buddy). I then drove to the main sheriff's office and complained again.
What got the bad cop in trouble wasn't the stupid harrassment, but the fact that while on duty he was out of his jurisdiction, which was strictly the airport. (We lived on the next road over, but it still counted.) Anyway, shortly afterward he was fired, his wife left him, and his house got repo'd. I stood outside and cheered as the bank hauled off his stuff. :D
Later another neighbour (who'd known this guy since he was a little kid) told me he'd been cashiered from the Navy "for the good of the service".
So, yeah... there are bad cops. And given a sampling of two, seems the best reaction is to stand up to them, and raise hell with their superiors (assuming they're not corrupt).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Fear not, every stop had a legal basis.
Once I was driving a suspicious car. Oddly enough, it was the only one like it in the area that I knew of.
Once it was that I kept looking in the mirror. Of course I was. A patrol car was following me around.
Once I was told "I observed you tailgating a red truck at through ___ intersection." I clearly remembered that I was following a black car, becuse he was driving slow. I was following at 20mph (in a 35 zone) at about 8 car lengths.
Many were "random" traffic safety stops.
And the hold I mentioned, the officer detaining me did not have any information on why I was being detained, but to keep the situation peaceful, he politely requested me to stay with the car. He was actually very polite, because he had no clue what it was about. He did say that he didn't have legal authority to detain me, but it would likely be escalated by the local PD (he was county). Rather than cause an incident by refusing to stay, I stayed. He sat in his car waiting for further instructions. I stood by my car, and until just before he said we could leave, he wasn't on the radio. This was before the days of laptops in every patrol car, so I know he wasn't doing anything more nefarious.
A lawsuit wouldn't go far. In the area, the "good ol' boy" system was well in place, which is why this was happening in the first place. Me, being a 16 through 19 year old boy during the period, I made enough money to buy gas for my car and a few other things. I definitely couldn't afford a lawyer. I did have several opportunities to speak with lawyers on the subject (on my side). I was advised that I would never beat them. The most I would do would be to upset them more, and find myself in more "random" trouble. My options were to:
1) File lawsuits, and keep appealing up beyond the local "good ol' boy" system. That would be somewhere in the high 6 figures, which it was doubtful I'd ever recover.
2) Get a different car. This worked for about 2 months.
3) Move out of the area. I did this at about 19.
But hey, I don't care if you believe me or not. I know most of the "harassment" stories I read are total irrational paranoia. I thought it was just me for a while, until friends and family started getting annoyed by it, especially when they were in the car with me.
I was informally accused of several crimes. The "where were you on __ day" question was kind of hard. 6 months ago, at 10pm, where were you? I had no clue. At home asleep? At a friends house? At the movies? As the interrogation continued, it became clear that I was the only suspect in a tv/stereo store robbery. As it turned out later, it was insurance fraud, and I was just a good candidate to harass. Maybe it would have been better if they could have solicited a spontaneous confession. I was so clueless on the whole matter that I couldn't even say something wrong that would match the crime. I've since learned (now being older and wiser), STFU. If they want you to confess, even idle conversation will come back to bite you. The smart ass answer "Ok, you've seen my car. How many TV's did I fit in it?" didn't help the situation at all. Luckily, there were no stolen TV's in the crime, but they did use it to continue questioning me on being there. I wasn't.
It would probably help if I explained more of their motive, but ... well ... honestly, I don't want to tell. It was absolutely nothing criminal in nature though.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
This actually sounds very familiar; a similar thing happened to my family when I was in high school.
My dad, doctor in a small town, had a run-in with a cop on the road (pulled over & ticketed while racing to a medical emergency). Then he went to a public meeting where he complained to the chief of police. Chief of police told him he wouldn't rest until he was in handcuffs someday.
So my dad was followed kind of routinely. So was I, and so were my cousins. I got harassed one time sitting in an unmoving vehicle in my uncle's driveway -- cop pulls in behind me and and accuses me of illegal hunting, of all things. (Do I have any hunting gear whatsoever? No, a notepad, pencil and some D&D books.)
Didn't last as long as your story, but same deal -- harassing a guy's children because he's politically offensive. Real classy.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Upon being stationed back in the US after being stationed over-seas the last 10 years, my father found himself with no U.S. drivers license. So, one day, still in his BDU (battle-dress uniform, aka "cammies" or camouflage) he gets in a staff vehicle and drives to the DMV, where he takes and fails the written drivers exam: the German philosophy of rechtsfahren or, "drive right", was not quite compatible with Georgia laws at the time.
So, having failed the driving exam, my father walks back out to his car, gets in his, starts the motor and is preparing to drive off when the rookie cop who was hanging around shooting the shit with the girl at the DMV office comes flying out of the building, runs up the drivers side door screaming "GET OUT OF THE CAR! GET OUT NOW!" and draws his
Now, I'm sorry, but anyone who pulls a gun on a soldier in uniform is an idiot. My father, a veteran of four combat tours as a forward observer looks over, raises his hands as is expected, and in the process neatly relieves the officer of his weapon (I've since learned the trick, it's rather useful), pulling the officer by the wrist head-first into the vehicle and introducing him to his friend, a service issue M1911A1 Colt
Long story short(er), it turned out the girl in the DMV office - who was fortunately tired of the rookie cop hitting on her all day - later admitted he had said to her that he was going to wait until he got the keys in the ignition so he'd have enough of an offense to throw my old man in jail (driving without a license) and get his first real arrest. Unfortunately for said cop, my father was a duly authorized U.S. Army officer going about official military business in a U.S. Army staff vehicle and was in possession of a valid U.S. Army Drivers license which permitted him to drive said vehicle on any any all U.S. territory, domestic and abroad. The rook's excuse for drawing his gun - that he assumed my father, as a soldier, was also armed, even though up to that point his firearm had remained in his vehicle - didn't fly in state court and he found himself without a badge very quickly. No wonder my dad liked the movie Tank so much when it came out a few years later.
Sometimes you can only fight fire with fire, and occasionally one must make a stand against harassment: most especially when it comes in the guise of a government or government official trying to abuse his standing. The same way I don't feel sorry at all for the Atlanta cops who executed a wrongly issued (complete lack of evidence of real justification) no-knock warrant on an ~80 year old grandmother who lived in a somewhat bad part of town. A couple of them got shot by an old lady trying to defend herself, thinking she was being robbed, and the cops of course blew her away. I pity the old lady and her family. The cops not at all - sadly these bunch of crooks were only injured, but it serves them right. They were just lucky it wasn't someone with better aim and a weapon bigger than a
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson
As a result the city of Atlanta is much much more cautious about issuing no-knock warrants, and that whole department was reviewed rather critically, a number of people let go, and their procedures altered. I rather suspect that cops in a certain small Georgia town aren't quite so likely to pull their guns on uniformed soldiers driving Army staff vehicles, either.
As to whether pulling a gun is always a bad idea... I've had to use threat of deadly force to run off scum four times myself... twice saving someone's life (one being my own). IMO, getting beat up or robbed or killed because you won't defend yourself is a worse idea. :)
My point
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
If only it were so easy to assign the blame elsewhere. Nope, I'm a good white boy, who would blend in statistically with their demographics.
But, blacks didn't have a great time. Unrelated to any of my stories, there was a shooting in one of the towns. I had to go hunting online, but found a transcript from the grand jury on the incident. (ahh, gotta love the Internet)
2 officers were dispatched to a disorderly conduct call at a bar. One black guy was handcuffed, and taken to a patrol car. He resisted inside the back of the car, kicking at the doors.
A total of 7 officers showed up.
He was taken out of the car, and while he was resisting, he attacked an officer (by the police accounts of the incident). By the coroner's report, he had skull fractures, crushed testicles, and finally a point blank gunshot wound to the back of the head.
1 guy in handcuffs vs 7 armed police officers.
In the end, the ruling came down that it was justifiable.
Ya, things would have been different if I was black. I probably wouldn't be here to write this.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.