Eric of IN
New member
Short Take: Jack-booted censors?
Dateline: 7/12/00
from: http://civilliberty.about.com/library/briefs/bl071200.htm
In 1996, a giant (almost 1,000 pages) novel penned by a St. Louis investment advisor and grandson of President Harry Truman's press secretary hit bookstore shelves. Although the book didn't register on the New York Times bestseller list, it immediately made a splash in gun owners' circles with its tale of brutal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents triggering an armed uprising against the U.S. government. Now, says author John Ross' lawyer, the ATF is seeking a little revenge.
In a letter addressed to ATF director Bradley A. Buckles, Attorney James H. Jeffries III alleged that "in 1997 the book's publisher became aware that individuals purporting to be BATF agents had threatened vendors of the book in at least three different states with 'problems' if they did not cease their sales of the book." He says the threats stopped after a reward was offered for identity of the guilty parties.
Unable to stop sales of the book, says Jeffries, the ATF has targeted Ross himself.
Now we have learned that in late May of this year agents from your St. Louis field office have engaged in an official effort to enlist Mrs. Ross, who is amicably separated from her husband as an informant against her husband. ... An agent, using the pseudonym of Peter Nettleson, and pretending to be a great fan of Unintended Consequences, sought Mrs. Ross's agreement that the book was, in fact, "a manual for the murder of federal agents."
Adds Jeffries:
As an experienced federal prosecutor I am fully aware of what is going on here. Disgruntled former spouses are a prime source of intelligence for law enforcement, having as they frequently do both a strong bias against the subject of the investigation and the proximity and intimacy to know many things not available to others. A structured approach such as this required, according to your manuals, formal agency approval.
Contacted at his office, Jeffries declined to add to the information in the letter, except to emphasize that his thirty years in federal law enforcement make it apparent to him that the targeting of John Ross by ATF agents could not be a matter of individual or local initiative. "This approach was structured and was done officially and formally."
For their part, officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had little to say. A public information official, who asked to be identified only as an ATF representative, expressed familiarity with the controversial novel and told me that, "we're not going to respond to any allegations from John Ross' attorney."
There has long been bad blood between American gun owners and the federal agency that regulates the acquisition and ownership of their firearms. Many gun owners (including yours truly) consider the laws enforced by the ATF to be, at their heart, fundamentally illegitimate violations of individual rights. Moreover, the ATF has aquired a reputation for brutality and illegality, inspiring Democratic Rep. John Dingel's oft-repeated comment that ATF agents are "jack-booted thugs."
The ATF's reputation may have hit bottom in the wake of the lethal 1993 siege of Mt. Carmel, the Branch Davidian settlement in Waco, Texas. A violent ATF raid triggered the armed confrontation in which four agents and six Davidians died. The Bureau's conduct has been harshly criticized, with even its warrant derided by Independence Institute scholar David Kopel, who found that, "[t]he arrest and search warrant applications both misapplied the law. ... compounded by much more serious factual errors."
If the ATF has moved on from abusing gun owners and dealers to actually targeting writers who criticize the Bureau in print, then matters are getting worse, not better. Such overstepping is bound, eventually, to turn Unintended Consequences from fiction into reality.
------------------
Teach a kid to shoot.
It annoys the antis.
Dateline: 7/12/00
from: http://civilliberty.about.com/library/briefs/bl071200.htm
In 1996, a giant (almost 1,000 pages) novel penned by a St. Louis investment advisor and grandson of President Harry Truman's press secretary hit bookstore shelves. Although the book didn't register on the New York Times bestseller list, it immediately made a splash in gun owners' circles with its tale of brutal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents triggering an armed uprising against the U.S. government. Now, says author John Ross' lawyer, the ATF is seeking a little revenge.
In a letter addressed to ATF director Bradley A. Buckles, Attorney James H. Jeffries III alleged that "in 1997 the book's publisher became aware that individuals purporting to be BATF agents had threatened vendors of the book in at least three different states with 'problems' if they did not cease their sales of the book." He says the threats stopped after a reward was offered for identity of the guilty parties.
Unable to stop sales of the book, says Jeffries, the ATF has targeted Ross himself.
Now we have learned that in late May of this year agents from your St. Louis field office have engaged in an official effort to enlist Mrs. Ross, who is amicably separated from her husband as an informant against her husband. ... An agent, using the pseudonym of Peter Nettleson, and pretending to be a great fan of Unintended Consequences, sought Mrs. Ross's agreement that the book was, in fact, "a manual for the murder of federal agents."
Adds Jeffries:
As an experienced federal prosecutor I am fully aware of what is going on here. Disgruntled former spouses are a prime source of intelligence for law enforcement, having as they frequently do both a strong bias against the subject of the investigation and the proximity and intimacy to know many things not available to others. A structured approach such as this required, according to your manuals, formal agency approval.
Contacted at his office, Jeffries declined to add to the information in the letter, except to emphasize that his thirty years in federal law enforcement make it apparent to him that the targeting of John Ross by ATF agents could not be a matter of individual or local initiative. "This approach was structured and was done officially and formally."
For their part, officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had little to say. A public information official, who asked to be identified only as an ATF representative, expressed familiarity with the controversial novel and told me that, "we're not going to respond to any allegations from John Ross' attorney."
There has long been bad blood between American gun owners and the federal agency that regulates the acquisition and ownership of their firearms. Many gun owners (including yours truly) consider the laws enforced by the ATF to be, at their heart, fundamentally illegitimate violations of individual rights. Moreover, the ATF has aquired a reputation for brutality and illegality, inspiring Democratic Rep. John Dingel's oft-repeated comment that ATF agents are "jack-booted thugs."
The ATF's reputation may have hit bottom in the wake of the lethal 1993 siege of Mt. Carmel, the Branch Davidian settlement in Waco, Texas. A violent ATF raid triggered the armed confrontation in which four agents and six Davidians died. The Bureau's conduct has been harshly criticized, with even its warrant derided by Independence Institute scholar David Kopel, who found that, "[t]he arrest and search warrant applications both misapplied the law. ... compounded by much more serious factual errors."
If the ATF has moved on from abusing gun owners and dealers to actually targeting writers who criticize the Bureau in print, then matters are getting worse, not better. Such overstepping is bound, eventually, to turn Unintended Consequences from fiction into reality.
------------------
Teach a kid to shoot.
It annoys the antis.