

              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4  Num. 55
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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[CN Editor-in-chief: Yes, I'm back. Yes, it was a short vacation 
(due to circumstances beyond my control). It looks like it's just 
as well it turned out as it did, as things seem to be happening.]
 
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The following is from *The Washington Times, National Weekly 
Edition*, April 3-9, 1995. Note that *The Washington Times* is 
almost if not in fact a "mainstream" press outlet. As such, the 
very fact that this has appeared in their newspaper is of note. 
If you can afford $60 for a year-long, weekly subscription, the 
price is well worth it as this paper is extremely well-written. 
Note that I have absolutely no connection with *The Washington 
Times* and that this is just my own personal endorsement; I 
receive absolutely no compensation for doing so. To subscribe to 
*The Washington Times, National Weekly Edition*, phone 1-800-636- 
3699.
 
WHEN THE LAW BREAKS IN...
by Samuel Francis
 
Most Americans who keep up with the news today know about the 
atrocities inflicted by the federal leviathan at Waco and on the 
family of Randy Weaver in Idaho. In both cases, federal police 
deliberately provoked innocent people in ways that led to the 
violent deaths of the innocent. What few Americans know is that 
such horrors are far from rare.
 
In January 1994, several defenders of gun rights and civil 
liberties wrote to President Clinton detailing some of these 
horror stories. Whether he's bothered to reply I don't know, but 
what he has to say about the matter is unimportant. What's 
important is that Americans understand what is happening -- to them 
and their country.
 
On August 25, 1992, the California home of a law-abiding citizen 
named Donald Carlson was invaded by agents of the Drug 
Enforcement Administration shortly after midnight on the claim 
that they were looking for illegal drugs. Mr. Carlson, asleep at 
the time, thought robbers had broken in; he dialed 911 and 
reached for his hand gun. DEA agents riddled him with bullets; 
After seven weeks in intensive care, he survived -- sort of. No 
drugs were found.
 
In October the same year, the DEA paid a similar visit to Donald 
Scott, also in California, this time bringing along the Los 
Angeles Sheriff's Department for extra protection against the 
dangerous Mr. Scott, also a law-abiding citizen. Busting into the 
house while he was asleep, a deputy sheriff shot Mr. Scott and 
killed him. Again, no illegal drugs were found.
 
A year earlier, in September, 1991, a small federal army composed 
of some 60 agents from the DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms (ATF) the National Guard and the U.S. Forest Service 
(where, you have to wonder, were the Boy Scouts and the Little 
League) arrived in the living rooms of Mrs. Sina Brush and two 
neighbors in New Mexico just after dawn. Mrs. Brush and her 
daughter were handcuffed in their underwear and forced to kneel 
while the American gestapo searched the house for drugs. No drugs 
were found.
 
These aren't the only instances of armed invasions and violent 
attacks by federal police. There are other recent cases not 
mentioned in the letter to Mr. Clinton.
 
Last summer, the ATF paid a visit to Harry and Theresa Lumplugh 
in Pennsylvania. The ATF needed only 15 to 20 men, armed and 
masked, to handle the couple, whom they forced to open safes and 
hand over private papers while held at the point of a machine 
gun. One of America's finest kicked the Lumplughs' pet cat to 
death. No charges were brought against the Lumplughs.
 
Last year, four ATF agents raided the bedroom of Monique 
Montgomery at four in the morning. She reached for a gun and was 
shot four times and killed. Nothing illegal was found. In Ohio, 
the ATF raided the house of businessman and part-time police 
officer Louie Katona III, pushing his pregnant wife against a 
wall and causing her to miscarry. Nothing illegal was found.
 
In almost all of these cases, the feds showed up in the middle of 
the night, garbed like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his latest 
thriller and proceeded to bully, beat, humiliate, intrude and 
sometimes wound or kill the victims they'd selected. In none did 
any of the victims violate any law; in several, the police had 
relied on intelligence known to be unreliable. In the Scott case, 
the Ventura County District Attorney's Office found that the raid 
was in part motivated by the desire of the Sheriff's Office to 
seize Mr. Scott's ranch under federal asset-forfeiture laws.
 
Last year, on a TV talk show discussing Waco, I listened to 
caller after caller phone in to report mini-Wacos in their own 
areas that no one else had ever heard of. Maybe some of them were 
cranks and made it up. But the horrors I've just described have 
to make you wonder if we really live in the United States 
anymore. In none of the cases I know about have any of the 
federal agents been charged; few have been disciplined; almost 
none made the national news.
 
What can be done about it? I guess "Write your congressman" 
doesn't quite cut it, does it? What should be done about it is 
that the Congress should forget its "Hundred Days," its "Contract 
with America," its constitutional amendments and its happy talk 
about the "Third Wave." It should find out who authorized these 
and similar raids and who committed these atrocities against law- 
abiding citizens. It should abolish the agencies responsible, and 
it should make certain that the tyrants and murderers in federal 
uniform who planned, authorized or committed these crimes are 
brought to justice.
 
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(Samuel Francis, a columnist for the Washington Times, is 
nationally syndicated.)
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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