Ben Swann: Police Chief Calls “Free State Project” Members Domestic Terrorists

[muzzled dogg]

Ben Swann: Police Chief Calls “Free State Project” Members Domestic Terrorists

Police Chief Calls “Free State Project” Members Domestic Terrorists
3 hours ago | Politics, US | Posted by Joshua Cook
August 15, 2013

The government’s treating citizens as potential terrorists threats have been on display for the past couple months with a series of revelations about the NSA, IRS and DOJ. In March 2009, a leaked secret report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) profiled third-party supporters, homeschoolers, people who know the U.S. Constitution and people who have related bumper stickers on their cars, fly the flag or even invest in gold as potential domestic terrorists.

In April 2009, a Department of Homeland Security published Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, a report which expressed many of the same sentiments and targeted the same people. It wasn’t too long afterward that the [email protected] scandal emerged, in which the White House asked people to report their friends, acquaintances, colleagues and neighbors who disagreed with Obamacare.

In January 2013, Arie Perliger, the Director of Terrorism Studies at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, published a paper titled Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right. In the document, he identifies racists/white supremacists, anti-federalists and fundamentalists as the three far-right groups who are responsible for a “dramatic rise in the number of attacks and violent plots” in America. He identifies anti-federalists as those who discuss and object to a “New World Order,” and who feel that the federal government is corrupt and tyrannical, infringing on Constitutional rights.

It’s in this political environment – where profiling citizens who want more freedom and less government is the “new norm” – that Concord, New Hampshire Police Chief John Duval filed an application to the Department of Homeland Security asking for over $250,000 to purchase a BearCat armored vehicle. After the ACLU submitted a public records request, shocking political profiling was revealed.

“We are fortunate that our state has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges. Outside of the officially organized groups, there are several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.” – From Concord, New Hampshire’s application to the DHS for an armored police vehicle.

The Free State Project is an organization trying to persuade 20,000 or more “liberty loving people … neighborly, productive, tolerant folks from any and all walks of life” to move to New Hampshire. The end goal of this is to help more people who may want to move – but who feel unsure that New Hampshire will maintain its small government attitudes – feel more secure in their decision to move to the Granite State. New Hampshire is the last swing state in the North East and New England and makes it a very attractive destination.

Though the Free State Project is not a political action organization – it does not run or endorse political candidates or legislation – and though only seven members of the project live in Concord, the organization was targeted. Occupy Wall Street and Sovereign Citizens movements are more politically active, their actions are far from “terrorism,” which in most people’s minds means ideologically motivated violence against innocents.

The DHS approved the grant application, but people are now calling for the funding to be removed. Some reference funding issues, saying that Concord is nonviolent and does not need a $250,000 tactical armored vehicle which it wouldn’t buy with its own money, so why should the federal government pay for this. Mostly, though, the opposition is due to blatant and unfair political profiling. The grant specifically states that “funding may be suspended or terminated for filing a false certification in this application.”

The Free State Project has demanded a retraction and amendment of the grant application to remove references to the organization and its members, an “itemized list by calendar day of the ‘daily challenges’ presented by ‘Free Staters’ to the CPD,” and a written letter of apology from both the city and the CPD. Concord’s City Council has delayed the decision on whether to accept the grant, and so far the demands have not been met. At a City Council meeting after receiving no response, Carla Gericke, the president of the organization, demanded the resignation of all officials involved.

An estimated 200 people came out in protest against the BearCat.

Carla Gericke president of the Free State Project at the public hearing stated , “We are here today in great numbers to raise our voices to protest the manufactured, false, misleading, fraudulent AND SECRET claims made by Thomas Aspell, the city manager, and John Duval, the chief of police in the federal grant application for Concord’s Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack vehicle. As president of the Free State Project, I have publicly called for a retraction and amendment of the Department of Homeland Security grant. I also asked for a list of ‘daily challenges’ presented by Free Staters. Lastly, I requested a public letter of apology for the defamation of 14,600+ Free State Project participants. None of these requests have been met, although Chief Duval has since backpedaled in public statements, saying we do not present a ‘domestic terrorist threat.’ (See video below).

Randy Balko states in his white paper, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, that “over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work.”

Randy Balko, in a report for the CATO Institute, provides a number of policy recommendations, found here, for states seeking to stem police militarization.

The South Carolina Policy Council, who is battling similar issues states, “Police are not soldiers; they aren’t there to win wars or defeat enemies but to keep people safe. Citizens shouldn’t have to fear those members of society whose stated purpose is to preserve their safety.”

They recommend that all legislative bodies that have the power at the state or local level should reject appropriations of federal funds (such as Homeland Security funds) intended for use in purchasing military-style weapons.

http://benswann.com/police-chief-calls-free-state-project-members-domestic-terrorist/

 

[jkr]

my response:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

 

[Paulbot99]

^

Reported.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Randy Balko, in a report for the CATO Institute, provides a number of policy recommendations, found here, for states seeking to stem police militarization.

*Radley

 

[muzzled dogg]

Oath keepers picked it up

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/08...e-state-project”-members-domestic-terrorists/

 

[Anti Federalist]

$20 says it was a cop that wrote you.


A Tankless Job

Butler Shaffer at 23:24 pm EDT on August 14, 2013

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/a-tankless-job/

A reader has taken issue with me over my use of the word “tank” to describe the vehicle the Concord, N.H. chief of police wants his city to buy to help resist the threat allegedly posed by libertarians. The reader accused me of being “hyperbolic to the point of being misleading” in my characterization of this machine. ”The vehicle is called a Bearcat,” the critic informs me, “and is intended to replace a seriously aging ‘Peacekeeper.’” That “tank” was used by “Mother Jones” in the headline of its story is no defense if, indeed, that word exaggerates the nature of the vehicle. So, I went to the Internet – to the link the reader provided – to see what the manufacturer (Lenco) has to say. The first image I saw was of a heavily-armored vehicle, with at least six SWAT team troops aboard, each wearing a battle helmet, an apparent bullet-proof uniform, and carrying a machine-gun. A link to a company video showed one of these vehicles driving through various terrains, and with a fixed machine-gun at its top. The machine seemed well suited to the purposes of the state’s Special Operations Unit to which it would be assigned. The police chief defended the vehicle as something that would be useful for “rescue” purposes, although it is unclear from what Concordians would need “rescue” when confronting the specter of libertarians! Would the townsfolk be “terrorized” by listening to libertarians talk about “marginal utility theory,” or the “sanctity of life,” or “transaction costs”? It seems to me that the best “protection” anyone has against those who ask questions, or advocate philosophically-based opinions, would be to energize their own minds and respond in what used to be called “the marketplace of ideas.”

The aforesaid reader has fallen into the same anti-intellectual trap of which George Orwell warned: one does not change the fundamental nature of something by giving it a different name. Is it a ‘tank,” or just a cuddly little “Bearcat”? Who cares? The question is what does the machine do, and to whom, and what are the implications it has for living peacefully with one another in a free society? The Strategic Air Command’s motto “peace is our profession,” or the police cars emblazoned with the slogan “to protect and to serve,” reflect the self-contradictory messages Orwell provided in talking about ”war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” and “ignorance is strength.” Perhaps the reader – who is apparently from New Hampshire – might contemplate this proposal by the city for more weapons to be used against its residents in light of the motto contained on New Hampshire license plates: “Live Free or Die.”

 

[TomtheTinker]

my response:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

^^^supported^^