Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 11, 2011

Four years before former Penn State Head Football Coach Joe Paterno was told that Jay Sandusky had raped a 10-year-old boy, police had already learned that the one-time assistant coach was preying on children. Yet Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar didn?t press charges. Gricar ? along with information on his laptop computer -- disappeared on April 15, 2005 under mysterious circumstances. He has been declared legally dead.

When confronted by the mother of a previous victim in 1998, Sandusky said: ?I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won?t get it from you. I wish I were dead.? Sandusky also admitted to misbehavior in an interview with police detectives. Yet he wasn?t prosecuted, and was allowed to retire a year later ? while maintaining his ties to the football program and to his Second Mile Foundation, which supplied him with victims.

Investigators are probing claims that Sandusky was ?pimping? children to wealthy donors; is there any truth to that charge? It?s worth remembering that two Pennsylvania judges were recently imprisoned for sending kids to privately run prisons in exchange for kickbacks; is that scandal connected to the Penn State atrocities? Solving the mystery of Ray Gricar?s disappearance might provide some answers.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 10, 2011

Larry Fairfax, a man from northern Idaho who admits to planting a pipe bomb on an SUV driven by Cyndi Steele ? and then lying to investigators about the device -- was sentenced to 27 months in prison for a firearms violation. Cyndi Steele?s husband, attorney Edgar J. Steele, was sentenced to a term of 50 years for supposedly plotting with Fairfax to murder his wife.

The evidence connecting Steele to Fairfax?s crime was a third-generation copy of a digital recording of alleged conversations between the two men. Dr. George Papcun, perhaps the world?s leading expert on voice recognition and a consultant to several federal agencies, concluded that there was ?a reasonable degree of scientific probability that [the recordings] do not represent a true and valid representation of reality and they are unreliable.?

Federal District Judge Lynn Winmill, who presided at Steele?s criminal trial, refused to allow Dr. Papcun to testify.

Steele, a civil rights attorney who often defended neo-Nazis and other unpopular clients, describes himself as a political prisoner targeted for his professional actions. Steele?s wife maintains his innocence, insisting that he was framed by Fairfax ? who stole a large amount of silver from the family ? with the aid of the FBI. The preponderance of evidence suggests that this is exactly what happened.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 9, 2011

Like many others living in Pakistan, Tariq Aziz was infuriated by the push-button war being waged in that country by Washington, in which missile strikes are conducted by remote-controlled drones operated by pilots thousands of miles away. After a drone-fired missile killed several civilians October 28, Tariq volunteered for the dangerous task of taking pictures and gathering evidence from the site on behalf of human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith.

Three days later, Tariq and his cousin Waheed were killed in another drone attack staged against people described as ?suspected militants.? Tariq was sixteen; Waheed was twelve.

Pakistan is riddled with informants and bounty hunters eager to sell out rivals, neighbors ? sometimes even family members ? to the CIA. Most of the supposed terrorist suspects who wound up in Guantanamo were innocent people who had been seized because of accusations made by such loathsome, opportunistic people.

Smith insists that the lethal drone strike that murdered Tariq and his cousin ?was the result of some Pakistani informants who want to show their paymasters they are doing their jobs. So they make up a story and a poor kid dies.?

The U.S. is likewise lousy with informants, and police departments are beginning to acquire drones of their own. You do the math.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 8, 2011

The U.S. Northern Command, which was created in the aftermath of 9-11, is conducting a massive field training exercise entitled ?Operation Vigilant Shield 12.?

Government Security News reports that the exercise is also linked to a Canada Command exercise called ?Determined Dragon,? and runs concurrently with the Arizona?s ?Vigilant Guard? exercise.

Vigilant Shield is based on a scenario involving ?enemy attacks? and similar incidents set in Florida, Colorado, Arizona, and Washington, D.C. It envisions a coordinated effort involving everyone from local ?first responders? ? police, sheriffs, firefighters, and other emergency personnel ? to NORAD and the Pentagon. It will most likely be coordinated with the unprecedented November 9 nation-wide emergency alert system test.

The scope and detail of Vigilant Shield illustrates the extent to which geographically local police agencies are considered appendages of the military ? part of an occupying army, rather than ?peace officers? accountable to the communities in which they live

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution sought desperately to prevent the creation of a standing army that would be used as an apparatus of repression. They would have no difficulty recognizing the militarized American ?homeland? as precisely the nightmare they sought to avoid.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 7, 2011

During a recent summit of European leaders in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel presented a stark and ominous assessment of the continent?s ever-deepening debt crisis.

?Nobody should take for granted another 50 years of peace and prosperity in Europe,? Merkel observed. ?If the euro fails, Europe fails. We have a historical obligation: To protect by all means Europe?s unification process begun by our forefathers after centuries of hatred and bloodshed.?

The project of European integration actually began three centuries ago. In 1712, a political philosopher named St. Pierre devised a plan for ?perpetual peace.? In his model, political leaders would create what he called a ?European Union? in which heads of state would pool their sovereignty for the dual purpose of preventing international conflict and putting down domestic unrest. That design was embraced by both revolutionaries, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and reactionaries, such as the architects of the system that emerged from the 1815 Congress of Vienna.

Every variation on this system is based upon the idea that centralizing political authority and expanding the power to tax and regulate is the only alternative to bloodshed. Merkel?s warning underscores the growing likelihood that this centuries-old project will end in both tyranny and bloodshed.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 4, 2011

Enactment of the so-called Patriot Act ten years ago led to the routine use of what former federal judge Andrew Napolitano calls ?self-written search warrants? ? especially national security letters, or NSLs.

The NSLs are submitted by the FBI to third parties ? such as bank managers, librarians, and internet providers -- who are forbidden to inform the subject of an investigation that the Feds are scrutinizing his affairs. More than 30,000 national security letters are now issued annually.

Nicholas Merrill, who operates a small internet service provider, defied a federal order to describe how, in 2004, ?an FBI agent came to my office and handed me a letter. It demanded that I turn over information about one of my clients and forbade me from telling `any person? that the government had approached me.?

Merrill has been ?allowed to reveal my name to the public in connection with my case.? However, he still faces the prospect of imprisonment if he discloses any of the particulars of the order, including the identity of the targeted individual.

Subjects of the Communist East German regime were legally required to inform on each other, and imprisoned for failing to do so. That differs little from the system inflicted on us through the so-called Patriot Act.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 3, 2011

An American citizen living abroad was kidnapped the secret police and beaten every day for several weeks in a row. He was told to confess that he was a terrorist. Despite the torture, the victim ? who by this time had little to lose ? resolutely protested his innocence.

Finally, the lead interrogator tried a different tactic: ?If you don?t confess, I swear to God I?m going to bring your wife to this room, and you?ll see what we do to her.? That threat broke Lebanese-born American businessman Naji Hamdan. He spent nearly a year in prison in the United Arab Emirates before he was deported to Lebanon.

This torture was carried out at the behest of the FBI, which had investigated Hamdan for years ? and which never produced evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on his part. According to Hamdan, who has never been accused by U.S. officials of a crime, there was an American official present when the threat was made to torture his wife. He is just one of many U.S. citizens who have been tortured by foreign intelligence services on behalf of the FBI through a process called ?proxy detention.?

The perverse inventiveness of our self-appointed rulers is as inexhaustible as it is indefensible.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 2, 2011

A little more than a decade ago, the Legal Officers Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police conducted a nation-wide ethics survey of police officers.

Nearly eighty percent of respondents said that a ?`Code of Silence exists and is fairly common throughout the nation.?? Nearly half admitted that they had witnessed, and concealed, police misconduct.  The most frequently listed consequences for reporting misconduct were ostracism, retaliatory discipline or termination, and official indifference.

That survey confirmed, beyond serious dispute, that the culture of law enforcement is largely defined by an unofficial but binding doctrine of ?professional courtesy.? A conspicuous example of this attitude could be seen in a recent protest outside the New York State Supreme Court, the scene of a trial involving 16 police officers accused of a series of offenses ranging from ticket-fixing to grand larceny and assault. The protest was organized by the local police union, whose president, Patrick J. Lynch, insisted that the corrupt cops had simply done something ?accepted at all ranks for decades.?

Had someone else said the same thing, the police union chief would have condemned him for trafficking in anti-police stereotypes. But those stereotypes obviously come from somewhere.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 1, 2011

A grand jury in Harris County, Texas is investigating problems with roadside blood alcohol testing vans operated by the Houston Police Department. Months ago, former HPD supervisor Amanda Culbertson disclosed that the so-called BAT vans were wildly unreliable. After it became clear that the unreliable test results were leading to unjust convictions, Culbertson resigned from the department in disgust.

After Culbertson continued to speak out, the Harris County District Attorney?s office retaliated against her by cancelling a county contract with her company ? in effect, firing her.

When the Grand Jury sought to hear from Culbertson, and from former County Prosecutor Brent Mayr, the D.A. sent two assistant prosecutors to monitor their testimony. The Grand Jury Foreman instructed the DA?s representatives to leave. When that directive was ignored, the Foreman instructed the Baliff to place them under arrest if they didn?t leave.

Just as a trial jury has plenary authority to rule on both the facts and the law, a grand jury ? as an independent body of responsible citizens -- has unqualified authority to investigate government corruption. What happened in Harris County was not an example of a grand jury going rogue, but rather one behaving exactly as it should.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 31, 2011

Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Officer in Texas describes himself as ?tickled to death? over his department?s acquisition of a ShadowHawk unmanned aerial vehicle. The remote-piloted drone was purchased through a $300,000 grant from the federal department of homeland security.

According to Deputy McDaniel, "It's so simple in its design and the objectives, you just wonder why anyone would choose not to have it.? Since the Feds are literally giving them away, why would any "local" police department turn one down? According to Michael Buscher, chief executive officer of ShadowHawk?s manufacturer, Vanguard Defense Industries, the MCSO is the first local law enforcement agency to buy one. It won?t be the last.  The drone can be used for surveillance, and can be upgraded to a fully functional weapons platform, using beanbag rounds, tasers, conventional ammunition, or even missiles.

Insists Sheriff Tommy Gage: "No matter what we do in law enforcement, somebody's going to question it, but we're going to do the right thing, and I can assure you of that." Similar assurances, we should recall, were offered when tasers became part of the standard police arsenal. On previous performance it?s likely we will soon be barraged with YouTube clips of drone-facilitated police abuse.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.