REMEMBERANCE OF DYLAN THOMAS
So, as we enter the election climate with the same mindset of a sporting event including pep rallies and cheer leaders. “Lock her up” was repeatedly shouted in a convention. This is in light of the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the free world. “Build a wall” was chanted as a solution to the economy doldrums at the same time as a release of a report stating home-grown terrorism is the biggest threat to the safety of our citizenry. I am tired of being embarrassed, lied to, manipulated, and ignored. This is insulting. It is time for us to make our presence known. Let the rulers be aware that we are watching, and we expect better of them. Get active at the congressional and state levels. Don’t fear being labeled as stupid. Those are the ones doing the labeling. Hit the social media with demands that the candidates talk about real issues rather than amuse us. Get angry. Get involved. Stop bullies. Stop corporation power. Quit worshipping toxic business ethics. Tell the other candidate to concern herself with all the people and society rather than corporations and children.
Justice and Law (B.N.) Before Nixon
Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D, June 2016
Like many of my colleagues, I hung out at bars and coffee shops and talked to people, even today. However, there are some significant differences that merit comment about “the good old days.” The only thing good about them was that they warrant discussion. So, I rewrote an excerpt from my Memoirs of a Drug Warrior to see if anyone understands it, or, more to the point, if anyone cares. It is my hope that some nostalgic well-connected acid freak might even line up a publisher or an agent.
One of the many advantages of trying cases in numerous jurisdictions is the benefit of comparing different views of the law and of legal procedure. Before I started traveling, I assumed law in the United States was pretty much the same all over however, that’s not the case. The only consistency is when people in the system view it as a methodology rather than a body of knowledge. There have, over the decades, substantial changes in both the law and the perception of the law. Here is an example of the good old days.
One of my first cases out of state was in Laramie, Wyoming. Both Laramie and Boulder, Colorado were college towns with travel between the student bodies at each institution. Laramie is on a wind-swept plateau is cold. The town is much less active and much smaller than Boulder and, other than romancing sheep, I there’s not much else to do there. But, the cowboys do have money. And that’s where my clients, newly returned from Vietnam to enroll at the local University here enter the picture. They were contacted by someone in Laramie who wanted to purchase marijuana. He drove down to Boulder to beg the clients to deliver the product to Laramie, which the clients were reluctant to do at first until the price offered was so high, they couldn’t refuse.
An interesting fact about my client’s back then was that the majority of them were first introduced to marijuana in Vietnam, by superior officers. So, as long as they were killing Commies for Christ, everything was cool. But when they came home things changed. There were newspaper articles at the time about how soldiers returning from Vietnam had become addicted to heroin and the government wasn’t doing anything about it. Later, I found out they were doing something about it. The government was packing heroin into caskets and sending it to the United States with the corpses, but that’s another story.
So, when my clients showed up in Laramie with a couple hundred pounds of marijuana they were surprised to be presented with handcuffs rather than money. I recruited co-counsel, Eugene Dykeman, and we flew to Laramie to see what we could do. We talked to the prosecutor and a date was set for hearing on our suppression motion. The prosecutor was friendly and condescending and offered to go easier on me when I told him I had never done a drug case there before. After the hearing, he accused me of lying to him because of my performance at the hearing.
“I thought you said that you had never handled a drug case before,” he said accusatorially.
“No, Mr. Reese, I said that I had never handled a drug case in Wyoming before. You must have misunderstood.”
During the hearing, I discovered some very interesting facts. First, Boulder was targeted by various agencies as a drug center. In fact, it was a training ground for some agencies. Additionally, the detective on this case specified that the informant had to buy marijuana from someone in Boulder and get them to deliver it across a state line to Wyoming. My clients were nominated and elected at the same time.
When I delved into the phone call made from Laramie to my clients in Boulder, some very interesting facts were uncovered. The officer, listening in on the phone call, heard both sides of the conversation between the informant and my client. But the call was made from a phone that had no extension. It was a pay phone. So I asked the investigator how he managed to hear both sides of the conversation and he said, “well now, I have this neat little gadget that I use. I take my knife and I peeled back the wires and attach alligator clips to them, attached to headphones. there’s no microphone in the unit so the other side couldn’t hear anything from me, but I can hear everything that goes on.”
Well, the detective had just confessed to a warrantless illegal wiretap. He was clueless he had done so. I considered the case won at that point but toyed with him for another hour. Then Dykeman had a go. All was well except the prosecutor didn’t seem to recognize the problem with the search. I concentrated on that and Dykeman concentrated on the enticement by the Government to encourage citizens to cross a state line to commit a crime. I personally believed that it was to help populate the state with one congressman and two senators. Incarceration would ensure that they would be around for a census. After the first hearing, the prosecutor informed me that the U.S. Attorney was interested in my case. He explained that he was a part-time prosecutor and dealing with me took up too much time. He threatened to turn the case over to the Feds if I kept filing motions. I knew that the penalty under Federal law was much less that the state of Wyoming was offering. Immediately, upon returning to Boulder, I filed more motions.
I had some more trips. In one, I got within a mile of the runway when they closed the airport, forcing me to fly back and drive there. Most of the hearings were uneventful, and the prosecutor kept trying to get me to tell my clients to plead guilty to something. I would respond by filing more motions. This was the first wiretap case in Laramie and I don’t think the Courts there were used to them.
Finally, I pissed off the prosecutor to the point he turned the case over to the Feds. We had to wait to celebrate because I didn’t drink if I was flying. However, I made up for it when I got back. Looking back and comparing what happened then with what would have happened now is astounding. It is hard for me to believe or appreciate what four decades has done to the drug laws.
In Cheyenne, we had a judge who had sat form many years and had many years as a practicing lawyer. We both knew about loco weed that the cattle and horses occasionally ate, but there wasn’t a big marijuana problem in the area. Most illicit smoking was trying to burn corn silk behind the barn. The prosecutor made a reasonable offer to dispose of the case. We actually had some discussions about the case, as opposed to today when a recent Law School graduate reads some police files written in a slanted fashion by more experienced police officer and then confers with the officer or agent in order to come up with a “plea bargain.” There is no bargain. There is an offer by some kid on a take it or leave it basis. This arrogance is enforced by long prison sentencings with minimum mandatory sentences of the client balks at the extortion of a plea. It is assembly line case processing. It isn’t fair, but it is efficient. That’s how the courts handle so many cases in a year. It is also why we have ten times more prisoners now than when I started.
Before the clients were to be sentenced on a plea to a reduced charge, the Judge called us back to his chambers before Court. Back then, judges mingled with the peasant lawyers and didn’t hide behind back doors. I think that is not the case now because the judges know that they are unfair, dictatorial and clueless. The judges were more concerned with Justice than processing cases and moving the docket along. The process was fair, but not efficient. Now the process resembles a ritual such as Mass, where a litany is recited which has absolutely no relationship to reality where a judge tells a defendant about rights he theoretically has, which actually don’t exist. The client responds with catechistic answers. The judge asks the defendant if he is agreeing to be screwed of his own free will and there haven’t been any threats. Instead of telling the judge that he was threatened with extremely long sentencing if he didn’t go along, he tells the judge that his plea is voluntary. At that point, the defendant is sentenced according to some chart that any clerk could use with the same result. Uniformity is the buzz word. To get that, judges can’t be independent.
In chambers, the judge had a conversation with the attorneys and prosecutor. He explained his position in advanced and warned the prosecutor that he would have many regrets if he pissed and moaned about the decision. This is the essence of the judge’s position as best as I can remember.
Judge start out by addressing us. Gentlemen, I have been doing some reading about this marijuana situation. I don’t think it is that bad. I read how it became law and am aware that the defendants didn’t start until they were in Viet Nam. I find it unfortunate that the Government isn’t doing something about the situation there. We’re surely spending lots of money to kill and I think some of the money could be used to help these men out. So, I am sentencing them to the indeterminate sentence as required. He told us that he had to do that because the press demanded some kind of punishment because it was the biggest marijuana case in Wyoming so far.
However, he told us, I will entertain a motion to resentence these people in 90 days when the publicity dies down. So if you gentlemen file motions in about 85 days, I will grant them. He also said that the clients had 30 days to turn themselves in at the facility in El Reno, Oklahoma and they could take their cars there. Not a peep out of the U.S. attorney. The defendants were released in 100 days, finished college and have been employed ever since.
I don’t have the vocabulary to describe what occurs today to give all of you a comparison. All I can say is that you should attend some court sessions and compare what is happening today with my story. There hasn’t been just a change in attitudes, there has been a whole change in the culture. Everyone entering the courthouse is suspect. Probability is slim, but that doesn’t matter. We are no longer a free country where we are assumed to be good. We are suspected of wanting to cause harm to the court personnel. Unless you are a member of the police state, you have to submit to surveillance, and searched, either by hand or electronically. I can’t help but observe that the courts weren’t that way until the prosecutors and judges started screwing the people. I have always found the situation to be insulting, but I guess I am one of the few who doesn’t live in a state of fear. Like one famous president said, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and yet another stated confidently, “you have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Also, compare past presidents with the front-running candidates today. It is not hard to see why I write.
We don’t need all those prisoners, except to make corporations wealthy. We do need hospitals to care for the sick. We don’t need vengeance. We do need compassion and understanding. Before Nixon, we were on the way of defining a drug problem in medical terms, not law enforcement terms. The reason for the drug war wasn’t to regulate or decrease drug abuse. It was to destabilize minorities, youths, protesters and any other group that pisssed off my father’s generation There was no law enforcement problem. There was a problem with an administration frustrated that it couldn’t kill Asians. That’s bad enough, but certain parts of the government wanted drugs controlled because it kept the price of drugs high. They wanted that because the Government, who declared war on drugs, meaning hippies and yuppies, also wanted to profit from controlling drug supply. I think back on the thousands of clients who got a felony charge and, maybe, a conviction at the start of their lives and it makes me angry and depressed. What makes me more frustrated is that, even with all the material available on the history and damage that the drug war does to youths, we still continue. It frustrates me when a state amends its Constitution reflecting the will of the people, that Government official do all within their power to negate our vote. I don’t blame the public for being resistant. Sputnik, which provided me years of post-high-school education for free is old history. Instead, after brainwashing the citizenry that business can run governmental institutions better and exploit the youth of this country with high tuition and outrageous loan policy, we spend the money that should be used for an educated citizenry, a healthy citizenry, a housed and fed citizenry on selling weapons to other countries whom we buy drugs from so they can buy our weapons. We encourage perpetual war while bridges collapse on the people and the ignorant people cheer the politicians on when the screw us. Instead of controlling our public servants, we allow them to kill us to the point that more people are killed by police than in our wars. I have often said in jest that this country should produce more proctologists to treat our rectal-cranial inversion. I still can’t decide if the people are stupid, ignorant, brainwashed, or, just don’t care anymore. This situation isn’t sustainable. People see how agencies band together to get their way no matter what the people or their elected representatives want to thwart or ignore the will of the people. If that doesn’t work, they kill a few of us as an example. We are not governed with our consent, we are ruled in a more and more sinister manner. It will get worse unless we wake up, read, inform ourselves and ostracize the ones who try to screw us or do us harm. Join me in denouncing fear. Tell officials we can no longer be intimidated or made fearful. Quit trying to destroy our freedom, or else.
MAY 30, 2016 LEAVE A COMMENT EDIT
WHO’S THE REAL CRIMINAL? IT ALL DEPENDS UPON THE POWER TO DEFINE.
DENNIS L. BLEWITT, J. D.., May 2016
WHEN I finished law school, there still was stability in the law. There were century old definitions, concepts and principles. There was a respect for precedent. Law was methodology, not a body of knowledge. There were fairly clear lines that defined crime, which developed over centuries. I started in a time of social change and challenge to concepts and ideas. Power was up for grabs. The rulers had divided the population along color lines, class lines and gender lines. But these divisions were being challenged. Loyalty oaths were attacked, the selective service was attacked, separate but equal schools were attacked, and the new generation didn’t know their place. They were restless and questioned authority.
All wrongs weren’t criminal. A person had to intend to be a criminal to commit a crime. However, there were lots of harmful screw ups; ones that hurt others because of recklessness or lack caution. These people weren’t then considered criminal. Yet. But, to get control of thoughts and deeds, the regime believed that more power must be exercised. The people couldn’t be trusted to govern themselves. The law was called upon for discipline and to maintain the status quo. The new generation preached love and the old preached hate. The new wanted change, the old wanted the status quo and stability. Not only was there a war in SE Asia, but there was a cultural war at home. One that was viewed as a matter of life and death by the old guard. Rather than try to understand, force was the weapon of choice, and the war on drugs was the battle ground. The war kept the rabble paranoid, fractured and incapable of coordinated social action. A casualty of that war was the abolition of common law, and the implementation of various degrees of Civil, or Napoleonic law. Power was taken from the people and instilled in the rulers. Debate was stifled and simple mindedness prevailed. If there was a hurt, there was a punishment.
Causation had been defined as intent, now it was equated with knowledge. Defenses dating back centuries which were clear now became confused and blurred. “I didn’t do it, I didn’t mean to do it, it wasn’t illegal to do it, and, the devil made me do it” were the only defenses to crime. Common law held that the act wasn’t relevant. That stopped being a factor with the Druids. What mattered was what was in the persons “soul” or heart. Was he a bad guy or a screw up? Only bad guys were criminals. Crime was behavior that concerned the state and not individuals. Criminal law could not be used for personal gain or revenge, if harm occurred, of consideration or caring. There was a whole area of the law that dealt with these problems. It was not criminal law. However, without intent, there may be grounds for a lawsuit, but not for a prosecution.
Then things started to get blurred. The population wasn’t responding to things in predictable ways. Young people avoided what was considered their duty. They avoid the draft and protested war. Races started to demand equality. Gender equality was next. The powerful took advantage of the unrest to dilute the labor pool and subjugate populations to lower wages. Standard of living declined along with the perceived dominance of the world by the U.S. Law no longer was the exemplar of the culture, through mores, folkways, taboos and customs. Various groups vied for power to impose definitions upon the public. Common law was considered inconvenient and unfair. Power was up for grabs and for sale. The war on drugs was the perfect vehicle to keep the youths, minorities and dissidents under control.
When I started, common law was the law of the land in a substantial part of the English-speaking world. It was the reflection of the people. It existed by consensus. Consensus gave it legitimacy. Power was exercised from the bottom up. “with consent of the governed.” Most of the rest of the world had law based upon recognized or forced power from the top down, called Napoleonic, Roman or Civil Law. It had worked well for centuries until some leaders got greedy and power hungry. Some also got frustrated with the inefficiency of Government and, with the salad bowl concept rather than mixing bowl, definitions were up for grabs.
There have been many definitions of law, government, etc., however most deal with power and who yields it and who is subject to it. Is the subjugation voluntary or not? Where does the power come from? How is it used? The main difference between the two system can be defined in terms of power. In Common Law system, power depends upon the consent of the population. Rulers don’t remain rulers if the people don’t agree. A Napoleonic system has power at the top, going down to the people. It has many forms, the most extreme being Fascism, National Socialism, Stalinism and martial law. When people are fearful, unscrupulous politicians wrest power from the people and concentrate it for their own benefit. That happened in the U. S.
Conservative Presidents wanted power and were afraid of change and of Communists. Younger people had experienced enough duck and cover, paranoia, cold war suspicion and adopted the motto of Mad Magazine, “Quid, me vex are?” They reasoned that if a bomb was going to fall, there wasn’t much they could do about it, so why worry about it. Live, love, and be free was the password of passage.
Indoctrinated by fear of communism, the leaders were convinced that this change in beliefs of the young was inspired by communists. Reds were behind civil rights demands, anti-war demonstrations, draft-card burnings, riots, student protests, and fluoridation. The reds were behind everything. But, we were saved by a president who identified the problem as the young and minorities, led by reds, who needed to be controlled. A perfect way was devised to do this. Drugs were associated with protest and long hair with draft resistance, and vice versa. Our president’s men decided that the situation could be controlled by criminalizing drugs, instead of making it a tax evasion matter which it was considered previously. This policy was embraced by the older citizens who were fearful of change. The propaganda machine went into operation and the powers that be started marketing fear like some companies marketed soap.
However, the rulers were cognizant of the perilous position they were in. So, the legal system had to be changed. Power needed to be concentrated. This was easy to do with a congress afraid to declare war in Viet Nam and left it up to the Executive branch.
Without opposition, the system started to be changed into a Napoleonic one. Power was exerted from the top, not exercised by consent. Since drug cases took up so much court time, the civil cases became backlogged and costlier. Prosecutors, to win elections, tried to convince the people that they could represent the victims of crime and the interests of the state at the same time. This was another power grab. As that developed, the general bad guy theory gave way to the concept that wrongs should be paid for and the state should make sure that happened. All of the sudden, anything that caused an injury or hurt was defined as a crime. Prisons expanded exponentially. By the time of Reagan, privatization was promoted as a cure for big government who had demonstrated that they couldn’t work in instances in which there was no reason for it to work. Crime again got redefined, depending upon the profitability of the situation. Some interest groups organized to have their definitions of crime. New crimes evolved and were defined differently in various jurisdictions, depending upon who could exercise the power to define. We went developed into a legal tower of Babel.
Thus, we evolved into a police state. The vehicle used to do this was the drug war, inflamed with the marketing of fear. There were not enough leaders with integrity to speak up for right and risk public condemnation or ridicule. There were few people with the vision to see what was happening. Intellectuals feared criticism and ridicule. The brightest were either tripping and dying, the rest were quaking and pissing their pants. Whites wanted to keep power, the rich wanted more money, youths wanted to be mellow, politicians wanted war. All this combined to steal freedom and liberty from the citizenry. Freedom was intentionally and premeditatedly stolen from the citizenry. Who is the criminal
MAY 21, 2016 LEAVE A COMMENT EDIT
LIES, COVERUPS AND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF A COUNTRY
dennis L. blewitt, J.D. May 2016
It took a while for me to recover from my grand jury experience. I was still fairly idealistic then. That was to change over time. I still didn’t connect the dots. Sally Denton had published her book, “Bluegrass Conspiracy” and “Smith County Justice,” “Compromised,” “Politics or Heroin in SE Asia,” and other books. I also started seriously research the subject. At first, I wouldn’t discuss my findings, believing that I would be locked up in a looney bin. That soon changed.
In addition to having drug cases in over 30 U. S, state and Federal jurisdictions, I started receiving information anonymously by chance meetings and deliveries to my mailbox. All in all, the experience was surrealistic. It made me question my sanity and ability to think and understand. I was starting to agree with my friends that I was bat-shit crazy. After all, why should a nobody from nowhere Colorado have these surrealistic experiences, when my clients, who were on acid quite often seem perfectly normal. I asked people if two plus three still equaled five. There was agreement. I would describe things I saw, and no one argued. But, when I would speak about what I had observed and how I interpreted events, observations and experiences, I could see the disbelief and skepticism in people’s eyes. The information mysteriously supplied started to make sense and form a pattern. I would run into strangers who would tell me things which would later prove to be true.
At that time, all new clients had to have a reference. I had to feel comfortable with them. I didn’t care about a fee, I only cared about them being a plant to set me up or otherwise harm me. Then came an inquiry from an ex-client. He had been a large-scale distributor with his own fleet of airplanes. I had represented him in Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and S. Dakota. He was arrested east of Denver with about 500 pounds of marijuana on the interstate. He had landed a plane with a confederate and an agent whom he had employed to write his memoirs. He documented the trip on film for his memoirs. Of course, he didn’t know she was a Fed at that time. That came later. At the time of the arrest, she made it a point to try to get me to advise some kind of questionable conduct, but I was too naïve and didn’t succumb to her charms like my client had. In any event, within one hour of his arrest, they told him they would release him on a recognizance bond if he would agree to work for them to try to obtain anything usable against me. If he could set me up for something, they would dismiss his 500-pound marijuana case. We had a jury trial, and he was convicted. I appealed the case. The Government spent all the money investigating and capturing him. However, the agents took the film from the camera to a corner drug store for developing. The contact prints showed people unloading marijuana from a plane, but wasn’t good enough to identify anyone. When the jury asked for a magnifying glass, I suspected that the case was lost. And, sure enough, two hours later a guilty verdict was announced. The judge sentenced him to one year per 100 pounds. He also stated that the main reason wasn’t the marijuana, but the fact that he had fathered several children and didn’t pay any support. The judge said he was obligated to stop a one-man population explosion. This was the last of several matters that I had handled for this defendant. He seemed to have lost confidence in me after his 5-year sentence. Or at least so it seemed at the time.
However, I was not to have been so lucky. Although this particular client had great entertainment value, he was also a pain in the ass. Additionally, he had a monumental ego, reflected by the fact that he had hired a federal agent unknown to him at the time, to transcribe his memoirs, which turned out to be a confession of great significance however for some reason this document never seem to have gotten into the court files or records I suspect because he had significant ties to the intelligence community.
Out of the blue, his new lawyer contacted me and informed me he was filing a post-conviction case for the defendant based upon ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. That didn’t particularly surprise me, because many choose to do that when their lawyer loses a case. However, the grounds that this defendant used were unique. At that time, there been several cases of prosecutorial misconduct including planting spies and Jim Garrison’s office while he was trying to indict people on the Kennedy assassination, and planting spies on the Russell means defense team. I knew that the secretary, recording the client’s memoirs was employed by the drug agency, which I thought was outrageous enough, but, curiously, that wasn’t the grounds for his appeal.
It seems, that when my client was arrested and in the custody of the federal agents, they told him that his case could be dismissed if he was able to get any evidence against me. Although he tried he was unable to do so, for which he blamed me. Had I done something illegal or unethical, and he would be a freeman today. They told him that it be fairly easy to do. They also said they would be greatly appreciative. So under his theory, he couldn’t tell me everything about the case that I needed to know to defend him, because to do so would incriminate him in a way that might be leveraged against him if he were to get something against me. Follow? I sure as hell didn’t. So, because he couldn’t tell me what I needed to know to defend him he had inadequate representation of counsel. All I needed then was the white rabbit and the red queen. I considered using this in a class I talk about postmodern criminal defense. It was a scenario that could rival that of Umberto Eco. However, since I realized that I wasn’t anywhere near the writer that Eco was, I decided not to. Additionally, I couldn’t determine whether to style it as Eco or Kafka or maybe a synthesis of the two. So, I bumbled along, blissfully ignorant of the swamp in which I had chosen to play.
I then started to sociogram my experiences again. I did that before I ran for DA, and sort of stopped while I was reeling from attack. I had a tip from an agent in Aspen, a case in Chicago and one in Milwaukee that enlarged my paranoia and, eventually understanding. But that took a while. Soon, I was about to be inundated with information, and with it, misinformation. In my book, I detail these delusions, but I already get enough criticism of the length of my missives. So until I find a publisher, this is it.
MAY 20, 2016 LEAVE A COMMENT EDIT
THE OBJECT OF MY PROJECT: Who’s in Charge
DENNIS L BLEWITT, J.D. May 2016
I digress from the sequence if my narrative to answer some observation, questions and revelations I’ve discovered since my first article of my war with the CIA. Many readers have expressed the attitude “so what else is new, that’s interesting, what did you expect, etc.” I have had comments from all over the political spectrum. From that, I see a pattern evolving. Both sides are suspicious of both the Government and the elite. Most readers now accept that the Government or at least a Government agency is behind the drug trade and has been for quite some time. “If [we] all know this, why are your writing about it?”
Well, the reason is that it is still going on. People are still going to jail. The police state is advancing, and our rights are still jeopardized. It is frustrating that with so many people aware of the situation, that it is still allowed to exist.
When I first became aware of the CIA involvement, I questioned my conclusions. I questioned my sanity. I questioned my suspicions. It was too unbelievable. Our Government couldn’t be involved. Sure, maybe there are a few rogue elephants out there, but I was watching a stampede. This couldn’t be true!
It took a lot for me to overcome my provincial small-town view of the world and people. I was on a cruise ship that held more than the population of my home town. My father was a state employee and a local business man. He was active in the VFW and other organizations. I was slated for Annapolis as a political appointee. My younger brother was a career military pilot. I was not taught, but indoctrinated to support the Government, right or wrong. The Government paid for almost 10 years of school beyond high school. In short, I represented the views, beliefs and values of small-town America. Even as late as law school, I still held onto these delusions. Then I started defending drug cases.
My first drug cases were all ex Viet Nam vets, returning from the war. They were introduced to drugs by their officers and commanders. I did drug cases because I didn’t expect to practice law long and was killing time until I could find an academic slot. I took a drug case because no one else in town wanted to soil their hands or risk the social ostracism associated with drug use. I knew about drugs somewhat because at one time I enrolled as a pharmacy major and held an apprentice certificate from the state. I also knew chemistry and lab procedure. I had even toyed with the idea of going to University of Kentucky’s program for a graduate degree in narcotics social work before deciding on law school. I grew up in a time of building bomb shelters in the basements, witnessing crosses being burned on people’s lawns, and loyalty oaths demanded of university professors. It was extremely difficult for me to believe anything bad about our Government.
I look back on those days as extreme naiveté and ignorance, which, I assume made me a perfect patsy. So, for four decades, I learned, researched, reflected and codified my thinking.
At first, I was branded a “conspiracy theorist,” a label placed upon people who expressed ideas contrary to the propaganda machine. The logic seemed to make sense. Conspiracies are extremely hard to keep concealed. Then came the Watergate burglary. A senate select committee held hearings and issued a report about all the violations of the intelligence agencies. I believe the purpose of the committee was to find leaks and plug them. There was very little change in structure, but lots of new security regulations. But, people still believed that there could be no conspiracies. It is hard to keep information sequestered. At least until WiKi leaks by Assange and Snowden’s revelations about the NSA.
In my view, there are no conspiracies. We should be looking at the structure of our Government and how it works. We should look at who has power and how it is distributed. We should pity the preachers of conspiracy for their lack of vision and understanding. We should fight corruption on all levels and examine policy makers and policy bribers. If we don’t wake up, our society cannot survive.
No one likes to be labeled as a conspiracy nut. That is the way the ignorant can dismiss unpleasant facts without having to engage a thought process. However, these things still exist and operate without original players. It is systemic. So, in my humble way, I try to explain to people what is, not what is perceived. There should be some real consequences of lying to the citizenry. We confiscate property of marijuana merchants, but reward death merchants. We allow two branches of Government to ignore their obligations and default to the executive who engage in wholesale war crimes and violation of the Constitution. We allow the rich to build a police state to protect their status gained at the expense of the people. We allow power groups divide us and so dissent to strip the people of power. We allow the greedy to strip our national treasures, steal our resources and enslave our population.
It is time to realize who, if anyone, is in charge or did we create a self-perpetuating fascist machine, relying upon the media to perpetrate. We seem to forget that all Corporations are the creation of Government and serve at will of Government. The corporate rulers believe that they can act with impunity they have immunity as long as small shareholders can be held hostage. If we dissolve a few corrupt corporations and make the executives’ pay for their robberies, I believe things will change. Drug money is forfeited, why not executive salaries? After all, fair is fair. We could use the confiscated funds to fight the police state. When a pension is robbed, all who profit from the robbery should be made to indemnify the workers that were cheated or robbed. Corporations are not people. They are run by people. Why should a corporation, run by a board of directors and executive officers be able to bribe officials with massive campaign contributions, when individuals can’t? It is too bad that we don’t have titles in this country like they do in Europe. Then we could identify the guilty more readily. Why should corporations, who benefit by our government protection and laws, be allowed to leave the country, shifting burdens to the people when the people have no benefit? Companies extort tax breaks by making promises which they rarely keep. If a company pulls up stakes, it should return the benefits given from the community that were promised. If companies destroy land or communities, this should be accounted for. Executives that don’t operate as fiduciaries for the public policy should be barred from holding office. Bullshit insider trading fines should not be allowed to mislead the public that regulators aren’t controlled or bought off. It is time for change.
I digress and ramble. I apologize, however not for what I say, but for the presentation. It is time to resist. It is time for change. It is time to be heard.
IMAGE MAY 10, 2016 LEAVE A COMMENT EDIT
M Y LOYAL CLIENTS– HOW I SURVIVED THE IRS CRUSADE OF DESTRUCTION
The audit wasn’t without its moments of levity, at least in retrospect. It gave me lots of things to talk about, ridicule and use as examples of how not to govern. It also gave me something to talk about in bars. But I mostly enjoyed watching how the agents with whom I had to deal transitioned from crusading ass-holes to guilt-ridden toadies during the several years in which they had to deal with me. It is interesting to see the bureaucratic mind in action. At first, it was obvious that all with whom I had to deal had preconceived ideas about me. They all believed they had god on their side in a war against evil. They, unlike my worldview, believed everyone was a miscreant, selfish criminal. I was burdened by having been partially raised by an ecclesiastic, who believed all people were basically good. He took the English common law view based upon religious doctrine. Others took anti-Christian original sin view, reflected in Roman law. It was the paranoid view of a conqueror who viewed everyone as a potential enemy.
I often wondered how much of that view was a projection of their own selves. Since I started out representing underdogs with little power or standing, I had many clients that couldn’t pay me or for whom it would be a horrible burden. I never dreamed they were out to get me or wanted to cheat or steal. They just were not fortunate enough to have inherited money, or believed in the Age of Aquarius beliefs of the young at that time. The flower children had arrived in Boulder and most of us didn’t think about money. There wasn’t a public defender’s office when I started and most lawyers with whom I associated took turns representing indigent arrestees. I thought it was a good system, but that was before the advent of billable hours and turning the practice of law into a mercantile endeavor. In fact, legal ethics prohibited turning down a case or abandoning a client for not paying at that time. Most of us honored that tradition. I remember reading William Jennings Bryant’s statement in his biography that he was unable to make a living in the practice of law, so he entered politics.
So, I found it almost hysterical when the auditor expressed how shocked he was after he interviewed twelve of my clients in a row whose conversations I will consolidate and try to portray.
Agent Stice, “I’m here to ask you a few questions about your lawyer, Mr. Blewitt.”
Hippie client, “Far out. It is about time that someone is finally recognizing him. He is a really far out dude and helped me a lot.”
“How much money did you pay him?”
“What do you mean?
“How much did he charge you?”
“Man, like you know, I always meant to lay some bread on him, but never could get around to it.”
“What did he do when you didn’t pay him?”
“Nothing. He never pressed me for it. He told me to give him something if I ever got some money.
“What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing, he just told me to pay when I could.”
“How much?”
“He said whatever I thought I could afford. If I couldn’t afford it, don’t worry about it.”
“Did he send you a bill?”
“Yes, but he said ‘don’t’ stress,” so I sort of spaced it out. I want to lay some bread on him sometime, but I just haven’t been able to, you know. Someone told me that he sent bills so that his clients wouldn’t be embarrassed.”
I have to admit that he must have skewed his sample somehow, but I never asked Stice about it. I got my information from my clients who clued me in when he talked to them. One of my client’s conversation was remarkable. He had 80 arrests without conviction, but was constantly targeted by various agencies. I took his racketeering all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also appealed a gun possession to the Supreme Court, but it was combined with two others. His conversation was amusing because he was reporting live from the IRS agent’s interview.
“Hello,” I said, answering my phone after my assistant told me my client was on the line.
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
“Go ahead and ask,”
“It concerns one of my attorneys,” the client informed me. “There is an IRS agent here to interview me about one of my attorneys and I told him that I wanted to talk to an attorney.”
“Is the interview about me?”
“Yes. What should I do?”
“Well, you always told me that you wanted to tell one of them to go fuck himself.”
I heard my client tell the IRS agent he was talking to, “My lawyer told me to tell you to go fuck yourselves.” I assume that the interview ended because the line went dead after that.
That really brightened up my day. This client had worked for Jack Ruby in the fifties running guns to Cuba. He didn’t take sides, but delivered to both Castro and Batista. He and his partner were paid in heroin, which was back to Dallas in armored trucks. The Warren Commission forgot to mention this as well as the fact that Ruby had been with Army Intelligence prior to the time of the Kennedy assassination. I wrote quite a bit more about this character in my memoirs. He was among my most colorful clients.
There were similar incidences, but that was the only one that I heard in progress. They didn’t find any unreported income, but they sure scared away lots of clients. Finally, after a year and a half, where I barely made my overhead, I was assessed for not keeping mileage records. Since I couldn’t pay the money, they took all my office furniture and seized my rent deposit on my office. I did have one client offer to pay with a side of beef. I had him deliver it to the local IRS office and then called the health department to report a health hazard at their office. Also one of my clients called the agent’s wife, telling her I had assigned her offer to take a fee out in trade to her husband and asked when it would be convenient for her to service him. They laid off of my family after that, but I had to close my office. I became a trophy husband at that point and listed my occupation as “odd jobs.” It left me with lots of time for reading and learning. Additionally, I started to get information from weird sources. The whole ordeal was like a bad trip, except I never took any drugs. Everyone else had all the fun. I was under too much surveillance to take any chances. My identity grew from the razzing that I took from friends and colleagues for being so paranoid.
Another amusing incident occurred when my youngest daughter noticed tape all over the house, notifying people that the house had been seized for back taxes. She tore the tape down and was extremely embarrassed over the ordeal. However, I didn’t own the house. My wife did. The IRS wasn’t embarrassed and never apologized, but they wrongfully seized the house. I can say from my experiences with the Government and its representatives that they are arrogant, ignorant, vindictive, self-righteous and never admit mistakes. Although they took oaths to uphold the Constitution, they believe that they can do so selectively, if they approve of the person. Otherwise, its “let them eat cake.” Like soldiers of the third Reich, they just follow orders and never question them. However, some had consciences and discussed my plight with friends, explaining that they were powerless. Since agencies have the power to classify information, the public rarely learns about the transgressions, except during a scandal. Secrecy is the real enemy. It works because we are a nation of cowards, afraid of manufactured dangers, designed to keep us under control. We are not the home of the brave, nor are we the land of the free. We are a nation of ignorance and brainwashing, conditioned by an inferior privatized system which we have been conned into supporting because we are too lazy to think. We can’t make informed or logical decisions, because we are denied information and facts which are essential to the preservation of freedom and justice. It is time to put the liars in jail and take away their methods to harm us. Strip them of status, respect, and funds.
The audit wasn’t without its moments of levity, at least in retrospect. It gave me lots of things to talk about, ridicule and use as examples of how not to govern. It also gave me something to talk about in bars. But I mostly enjoyed watching how the agents with whom I had to deal transitioned from crusading ass-holes to guilt-ridden toadies during the several years in which they had to deal with me. It is interesting to see the bureaucratic mind in action. At first, it was obvious that all with whom I had to deal had preconceived ideas about me. They all believed they had god on their side in a war against evil. They, unlike my worldview, believed everyone was a miscreant, selfish criminal. I was burdened by having been partially raised by an ecclesiastic, who believed all people were basically good. He took the English common law view based upon religious doctrine. Others took anti-Christian original sin view, reflected in Roman law. It was the paranoid view of a conqueror who viewed everyone as a potential enemy.
I often wondered how much of that view was a projection of their own selves. Since I started out representing underdogs with little power or standing, I had many clients that couldn’t pay me or for whom it would be a horrible burden. I never dreamed they were out to get me or wanted to cheat or steal. They just were not fortunate enough to have inherited money, or believed in the Age of Aquarius beliefs of the young at that time. The flower children had arrived in Boulder and most of us didn’t think about money. There wasn’t a public defender’s office when I started and most lawyers with whom I associated took turns representing indigent arrestees. I thought it was a good system, but that was before the advent of billable hours and turning the practice of law into a mercantile endeavor. In fact, legal ethics prohibited turning down a case or abandoning a client for not paying at that time. Most of us honored that tradition. I remember reading William Jennings Bryant’s statement in his biography that he was unable to make a living in the practice of law, so he entered politics.
So, I found it almost hysterical when the auditor expressed how shocked he was after he interviewed twelve of my clients in a row whose conversations I will consolidate and try to portray.
Agent Stice, “I’m here to ask you a few questions about your lawyer, Mr. Blewitt.”
Hippie client, “Far out. It is about time that someone is finally recognizing him. He is a really far out dude and helped me a lot.”
“How much money did you pay him?”
“What do you mean?
“How much did he charge you?”
“Man, like you know, I always meant to lay some bread on him, but never could get around to it.”
“What did he do when you didn’t pay him?”
“Nothing. He never pressed me for it. He told me to give him something if I ever got some money.
“What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing, he just told me to pay when I could.”
“How much?”
“He said whatever I thought I could afford. If I couldn’t afford it, don’t worry about it.”
“Did he send you a bill?”
“Yes, but he said ‘don’t’ stress,” so I sort of spaced it out. I want to lay some bread on him sometime, but I just haven’t been able to, you know. Someone told me that he sent bills so that his clients wouldn’t be embarrassed.”
I have to admit that he must have skewed his sample somehow, but I never asked Stice about it. I got my information from my clients who clued me in when he talked to them. One of my client’s conversation was remarkable. He had 80 arrests without conviction, but was constantly targeted by various agencies. I took his racketeering all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also appealed a gun possession to the Supreme Court, but it was combined with two others. His conversation was amusing because he was reporting live from the IRS agent’s interview.
“Hello,” I said, answering my phone after my assistant told me my client was on the line.
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
“Go ahead and ask,”
“It concerns one of my attorneys,” the client informed me. “There is an IRS agent here to interview me about one of my attorneys and I told him that I wanted to talk to an attorney.”
“Is the interview about me?”
“Yes. What should I do?”
“Well, you always told me that you wanted to tell one of them to go fuck himself.”
I heard my client tell the IRS agent he was talking to, “My lawyer told me to tell you to go fuck yourselves.” I assume that the interview ended because the line went dead after that.
That really brightened up my day. This client had worked for Jack Ruby in the fifties running guns to Cuba. He didn’t take sides, but delivered to both Castro and Batista. He and his partner were paid in heroin, which was back to Dallas in armored trucks. The Warren Commission forgot to mention this as well as the fact that Ruby had been with Army Intelligence prior to the time of the Kennedy assassination. I wrote quite a bit more about this character in my memoirs. He was among my most colorful clients.
There were similar incidences, but that was the only one that I heard in progress. They didn’t find any unreported income, but they sure scared away lots of clients. Finally, after a year and a half, where I barely made my overhead, I was assessed for not keeping mileage records. Since I couldn’t pay the money, they took all my office furniture and seized my rent deposit on my office. I did have one client offer to pay with a side of beef. I had him deliver it to the local IRS office and then called the health department to report a health hazard at their office. Also one of my clients called the agent’s wife, telling her I had assigned her offer to take a fee out in trade to her husband and asked when it would be convenient for her to service him. They laid off of my family after that, but I had to close my office. I became a trophy husband at that point and listed my occupation as “odd jobs.” It left me with lots of time for reading and learning. Additionally, I started to get information from weird sources. The whole ordeal was like a bad trip, except I never took any drugs. Everyone else had all the fun. I was under too much surveillance to take any chances. My identity grew from the razzing that I took from friends and colleagues for being so paranoid.
Another amusing incident occurred when my youngest daughter noticed tape all over the house, notifying people that the house had been seized for back taxes. She tore the tape down and was extremely embarrassed over the ordeal. However, I didn’t own the house. My wife did. The IRS wasn’t embarrassed and never apologized, but they wrongfully seized the house. I can say from my experiences with the Government and its representatives that they are arrogant, ignorant, vindictive, self-righteous and never admit mistakes. Although they took oaths to uphold the Constitution, they believe that they can do so selectively, if they approve of the person. Otherwise, its “let them eat cake.” Like soldiers of the third Reich, they just follow orders and never question them. However, some had consciences and discussed my plight with friends, explaining that they were powerless. Since agencies have the power to classify information, the public rarely learns about the transgressions, except during a scandal. Secrecy is the real enemy. It works because we are a nation of cowards, afraid of manufactured dangers, designed to keep us under control. We are not the home of the brave, nor are we the land of the free. We are a nation of ignorance and brainwashing, conditioned by an inferior privatized system which we have been conned into supporting because we are too lazy to think. We can’t make informed or logical decisions, because we are denied information and facts which are essential to the preservation of freedom and justice. It is time to put the liars in jail and take away their methods to harm us. Strip them of status, respect, and funds.
Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D. April 2016
Most parents with more than one child has heard the following,
“Why did you hit your brother?”
“He hit me first.” Or,
“Why did you steal that candy?”
“Everyone else is doing it and they don’t get punished. Why are you picking on me?”
Most children can’t differentiate between degrees of bad, or severity of their acts. Typically, many offenders rationalize their behavior by claiming that others also offend in various ways. For some reason, many are unable to outgrow this childish behavior. This often serves a dilemma for disciplinarians, which has caused various response from superiors. Unfortunately, many persons in power can’t differentiate severities either.
One of the first things that a student of criminology and corrections is to analyze criminality. It is basic corrections theory that some people can’t put things in perspective and think in dichotomous terms. Amateur psychologists refer to this as the “criminal mind.” Only, it isn’t that simple. Crime is complex and is a function of a given society, not the individuals in it. In order to address crime, one has to address the society and culture. This is something the press and the public don’t seem to grasp.
There are some simpletons who believe that all crime is voluntary and caused by moral flaws. Other blame crime on stupidity, impulsivity, and immaturity. The problem is that it is complex and that there is no one answer. But since I believe that crime is a function of social organization or society, that occupies the majority of my thinking. Comparing our society with that of the government is a logical extension of that theory. Almost.
A basis theory of corrections is that a criminal must be made aware that murder is much more serious than running a stop-sign. I have heard clients rationalize their behavior by blaming others for also breaking the law. Thus, they can claim discrimination, play martyr and not accept the results of any decision or conduct. The role of the correction officer in this instance is that of teacher.
With that in mind I observe the election process going on right now. I have been waiting for months for the candidates to exhibit some maturity. Looks like I will have to keep waiting. The most amazing attack is the attack on Hillary Clinton. She is not my favorite candidate, but the dumbass critics in the Republican party have focused upon some miniscule offense to call for her disqualification and as a reason that people shouldn’t vote for her. She sent emails through a private server, not a Government one. Oh, the horrors!
The irony of the situation is that these same critics support extraordinary rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, torture, and even assassination or murder, performed by members of a different party for a different President. Obviously, many cannot tell the difference between bad and evil. These people bitch about government, but criticize a candidate for not using a government email system These people claim to be religious, but favor committing war crime. They claim to support the Constitution, but flagrantly ignore the violations by various officials I could go on, but I think I have made the point.
I have with-held my opinion and ridicule long enough. It is time to point out to the idiots that they are idiots. It is time to show these people that murder is indeed more serious than running a stop sign. At the very least, don’t let these people be put in charge of anything that might affect us. Please don’t make the public resort to the Hitler solution of eliminating the “sub-humans.” Tell them to get a clue. Tell them what you think. Tell them to stop. Better yet, laugh them out of our presence.
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NO MORE TRADITION, JUST BUSINESS
Once I was proud to be a lawyer. I was a member of an old and honorable profession that had many Blewitts on the roles as Bishop of Lincoln, Chancellor of England and Judiciar to Henry I. The name appeared as a signatory of the Magna Carta, as Lord Mayor of London, Sheriff of London. and on the rolls of Lincolns Inn. I was steeped in the tradition of ten centuries law tradition. Unfortunately, the practice of law was nothing like what I assumed from family history. I wasn’t surrounded by noble knights, scholars, clergy and others concerned with the welfare of the citizenry or their rights. When I first started practicing, law was a calling. I believed that my primary obligation was to help others, then help society and maintain the dignity of the law. Money was secondary. Over the years, I have witnessed a drastic change where most, not all lawyers, are motivated by greed, avarice and exercise of power, without social conscious.
Many who started with me were similarly motivated. Most of us took our oaths seriously and were genuinely concerned with the welfare of our clients. We also believed that we had an obligation to make things better. I met with prosecutors at least on a weekly basis concerning cases. There was discussion and mediation between positions, with a true belief that all parties should be concerned with policy and justice. Image was subordinate to perception. Punishment was an end in itself, but just one of the possible outcome. Case processing may have been efficient, but justice was highly inefficient. Like English barristers, prosecutors used to serve a stint in the DA’s office and venture into private practice, knowing that they couldn’t be arbitrary and dogmatic and be able to establish or maintain a practice after the left the prosecutor’s post. The sides didn’t agree generally, but accommodations were made. That was what lawyers were trained to do. Prosecutors would then educate the officers or investigators, who would quite often complain, bitch and moan or otherwise display their ignorance or bigotry, but it did them very little good. Justice didn’t take a back seat to image.
Things radically changed in the 70’s. The politicians discovered that they could sell protection to the electorate by trading in fear, ignorance, and bigotry, fueled by a propaganda machine which would have been the envy of Goebbels. Excuses concocted by the press and officials is a really drastic paradigm shift. Justice is no longer equated with fairness. Law was no longer about advocacy, but protection of superstitious beliefs, curtailment of popular power by the zealot fundamentalist paranoids. In my book I addressed these issues in more detail, but my health and lack of funding make it somewhat unlikely that I will finish either of life opus’s. So, I will try to break things down, not for lawyers, but for people. I will try to explain the attack on the social contract by a collective of individuals who believe that each one is unique and doesn’t need a society or civilization to exists. As Nietzsche postulated, “God is Dead.” The new god is business and efficiency. Society and Government must be restructured along business principles, all of which are incompatible with a Court System and separation of powers. /Executives should rule and others in a political should be support staff for the executives. Management by Objectives is the Prime directive. Have an objective and let nothing stand in the way of accomplishing it. Get with it or die!
With the push to promote privatization, government was slandered, and an ignorant citizenry was taught that government was bad and efficient business principles could save us from harm (code for minorities) The Constitution became an impediment to the business interests and had to be destroyed. Every major event involving publicity was used to destroy another part of the Constitution. Complete disaster occurred with sentencing “reform.” All the factors that defendants could argue to mitigate their situations were abolished. Policy decisions were made by a herd of prosecutors under the age of 30’s based upon publicity value to policy. Justice had to take a back seat. Consequently, a ten ford increase in prisoners. Fear was marketed to the people applying Madison Avenue public relations technique. Although the criminals in the Nixon administration had law degrees, they were not practicing lawyers. Many worked in the area of Public relations
The ignorance was also inculcated into legal education. Many law trained crime warriors don’t see anything wrong with abolishing habeas corpus, renditions, torture, and committing war crimes in general. A corrupt system employed lawyers that would write opinion letters condoning war crimes which allowed the administrations to do essentially anything that the executive branch desired, all without any repercussions. A Nixon administration lawyer Ehrlichman recently confessed that the “Drug War” was contrived to harass leftists, blacks and anti-war activists. In a state of perpetual war, we now operate under a system of Martial Law. Like the ignorant masses of Germany after WWII, were taught that Germany was sold out and not allowed to win, many in the US complain that we were not allowed to win in Viet Nam. We gradually became accustomed to a war mentality in which victory was the only objective. The result is a police state with a public too shell shocked or fearful that there is no opposition.
So as our roads deteriorate, bridges crumble, rivers overflow, assets of the People confiscated from the People for privatization, and at war with the world, we blithely cheer our own destruction, rushing like lemmings to the sea, to be murdered by our self-created police state. Roosevelt pegged it when he said, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Now with only fear left, we have nothing.
We are told that the only thing that matters is business and trade. Bullshit. We are told that social contract must be destroyed in the name of trade. Bullshit. We are told that there must be free trade like the old days. Bullshit. We are told that we must be efficient. Bullshit. We are told that Government should be run like a business. Bullshit. The asses that are espousing this Bullshit know absolutely nothing about history. There never was free trade. The Lords franchised mills, markets, shops, etc. The Guilds organized to keep out non trained workers. Leagues formed to control competition. Even the most stupid peasant in medieval times knew that the function of his master’s castle was to protect him from others. Governments were formed for protection and advancement of the citizenry, or at least the rulers, not corporate interests.
The people dumbed down to intellect of Neanderthals believe the bullshit. It is time to exit the caves and start thinking in terms of societies, not corporate police or fascist states. Business principals don’t work when you have collective decision making. Corporations don’t have courts to decide proper or improper conduct. Free governments don’t have dictators to make everything run effectively. It is time for Government of the People, by the People and for the People, and to put corporations in line. If not, uncharted them or ban the corrupt officers and directors from holding positions which can harm society or people. It is either that, or eventually cease to exist.
WHO’S THE CRIMINAL?
APRIL 27, 2016 DENNIS COMMENTS 1 COMMENT EDIT
Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D. April 2016
Most parents with more than one child has heard the following,
“Why did you hit your brother?”
“He hit me first.” Or,
“Why did you steal that candy?”
“Everyone else is doing it and they don’t get punished. Why are you picking on me?”
Most children can’t differentiate between degrees of bad, or severity of their acts. Typically, many offenders rationalize their behavior by claiming that others also offend in various ways. For some reason, many are unable to outgrow this childish behavior. This often serves a dilemma for disciplinarians, which has caused various response from superiors. Unfortunately, many persons in power can’t differentiate severities either.
One of the first things that a student of criminology and corrections is to analyze criminality. It is basic corrections theory that some people can’t put things in perspective and think in dichotomous terms. Amateur psychologists refer to this as the “criminal mind.” Only, it isn’t that simple. Crime is complex and is a function of a given society, not the individuals in it. In order to address crime, one has to address the society and culture. This is something the press and the public don’t seem to grasp.
There are some simpletons who believe that all crime is voluntary and caused by moral flaws. Other blame crime on stupidity, impulsivity, and immaturity. The problem is that it is complex and that there is no one answer. But since I believe that crime is a function of social organization or society, that occupies the majority of my thinking. Comparing our society with that of the government is a logical extension of that theory. Almost.
A basis theory of corrections is that a criminal must be made aware that murder is much more serious than running a stop-sign. I have heard clients rationalize their behavior by blaming others for also breaking the law. Thus, they can claim discrimination, play martyr and not accept the results of any decision or conduct. The role of the correction officer in this instance is that of teacher.
With that in mind I observe the election process going on right now. I have been waiting for months for the candidates to exhibit some maturity. Looks like I will have to keep waiting. The most amazing attack is the attack on Hillary Clinton. She is not my favorite candidate, but the dumbass critics in the Republican party have focused upon some miniscule offense to call for her disqualification and as a reason that people shouldn’t vote for her. She sent emails through a private server, not a Government one. Oh, the horrors!
The irony of the situation is that these same critics support extraordinary rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, torture, and even assassination or murder, performed by members of a different party for a different President. Obviously, many cannot tell the difference between bad and evil. These people bitch about government, but criticize a candidate for not using a government email system These people claim to be religious, but favor committing war crime. They claim to support the Constitution, but flagrantly ignore the violations by various officials I could go on, but I think I have made the point.
I have with-held my opinion and ridicule long enough. It is time to point out to the idiots that they are idiots. It is time to show these people that murder is indeed more serious than running a stop sign. At the very least, don’t let these people be put in charge of anything that might affect us. Please don’t make the public resort to the Hitler solution of eliminating the “sub-humans.” Tell them to get a clue. Tell them what you think. Tell them to stop. Better yet, laugh them out of our presence.
AT WAR WITH THE CIA—A SMALL TOWN N LAWYER’S VENTURE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
I KNOW THIS IS LENGTHY, BUT I FEEL IT IS RELEVANT TO THE PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION AND MAY HELP MY READERS BETTER UNDERSTAND ME. D.L. BLEWITT, Mar 30, 2016
(This was a subject of a History Channel series in summer of 2017)
One of the first cases I had involved two people who moved to Colorado from Chicago. These two defined my practice and my career. I was told that I should never disclose this story and was harassed by various Governmental agencies for many years as a result. My mail was “accidently” delivered to the FBI and other strange events.
However, in making powerful enemies, I made powerful allies, including David Wise, Sally Denton, Sam Hart, Jack Anderson and others. Smith, Ken Cummings, Peter Dale Scott, Fed Gillies, Bryan Abbas, Mike O’Keefe, Gary Webb, Sen. Gary Hart.
For years, I felt like a Kafka character. My perception and milieu were that of a small-town hayseed, struggling to adjust to living with his social and educational superiors. The question I asked myself for 40 years was, “Why me?” I still don’t know the answer, but discovering some facts and some history has helped. A ran for public office in 1971 and my life hasn’t been normal since then. In order to make some sense of this I am relaying some of my story in serial form. I apologize for both length and lack of clarity, but I am trying. What I have seen from a small-town perspective is corruption beyond belief and deliberate blindness and amnesia to the problem and results. I realize now that running for office accusing the CIA of being behind the Viet Nam war and Drug Trafficking may have been a mistake, but I think blindly ignoring this unpleasant reality like most of my colleagues and the citizenry would have been too frustrating for me. I am a nobody. I had no family or history to put me in the position in which I found myself, and I was in denial of the situation for a long time. I had to adapt and develop survival skills, which results in these article. Little did I know that my activities would cause the scuttling of the Huston plan to combine all intelligence agencies into one, cause the FBI and the CIA to go to war with each other, cause a clandestine group dubbed “The Plumbers” to be formed and topple a President of the United States of America.
If I get enough response, to this, I will publish the story. It involves two clients, Professor Thomas Riha and Galya Tannenbaum. Please help in evaluating my situation and tell me if the story is worth telling.
Thanks, Dennis L. Blewitt
BOULDER DAILY CAMERA (COPIED IN ENTIRETY WITHOUT PERMISSION AS FREE AS COMMENTARY)
Thomas Riha’s disappearance has never been solved
Silvia Pettem, for the Camera
Posted: 07/24/2010 AM MDT
Thomas Riha was photographed on his wedding day, in October 1968, five months before he disappeared from Boulder. Camera file photo.
C) n March 15, 1969, University of Colorado associate Russian professor Thomas Riha vanished without a trace. Tied to his disappearance was Gayla Tannenbaum, a self-proclaimed confidante, who took her own life, in 1971, by swallowing cyanide pills in the state mental hospital in Pueblo.
Tannenbaum’s death left many unanswered questions, especially as to whether Riha is dead or Alive. To this date, no one knows if he was the victim of a murder, kidnapped as a counter-spy, or if he dropped from sight of his own free will.
Prior to Riha’s disappearance and Tannenbaum’s death, both had left paper trails. According to the Camera, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been compiling reports on Riha for nine years, beginning in 1960.
Riha, a native of Czechoslovakia, was 40 at the time of his disappearance. He had come to the U.S. in 1947, received a master’s degree at the Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, and a doctorate from Harvard Univ.
He also served in an intelligence capacity in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. From 1960 to 1967, he taught at the Univ. of Chicago, then moved to Boulder.
Meanwhile, embezzlement and forgery accusations had followed Tannenbaum around the 20untry as she lived under various names. She spent three years in an Ill. prison and was paroled in 1962. Both Riha and Tannenbaum moved to Colo. in 1967.
[n Boulder, Riha married a young Czechoslovakian woman, and Tannenbaum attended the wedding. She was also at Riha’s home one night when Riha’s wife, smelling like ether, was rescued by neighbors after she screamed from a bedroom window.
Several months after Riha’s disappearance, Tannenbaum was arrested by Boulder police for forging a check.
The opinion of the court was delivered by: Judge MATSCH, U. S. District Court, Colorado
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
MATSCH, Judge
Thomas Riha has been a missing person since an abrupt departure from his Boulder, Colorado, residence and teaching position at the University of Colorado in March 1969. None of his family, friends or colleagues has had any information from him since that time. “The mysterious disappearance of Professor Riha has been the subject of news media activity and considerable speculation has been generated about the possibility that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were involved. An initial impetus for such conjecture may have come from a conversation between officials of the Denver FBI and CIA offices which resulted in a statement that Professor Riha was safe and that he had departed voluntarily because of a personal problem.
The manner in which this matter was handled between the Denver offices of the FBI and CIA resulted in a complete termination of any communication between those two agencies at the national level.
The Select Committee on Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate heard testimony from a former CIA official and a former FBI official in November 1975. The staff of that committee prepared a written report about the Riha matter in February 1976. That report referred to inquiries made of the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. United States Senator Gary Hart (Colorado) then released the following public statement about the Riha case:
Thomas Riha, is, most probably, living somewhere today in Eastern Europe, possibly in Czechoslovakia. He was sighted there in 1973. Why he left the United States remains unclear: personal reasons were probably the basis for his decision to leave.
Thomas Riha was never employed, nor in contact with, the CIA, the FBI or military intelligence. At one time the CIA had a general counterintelligence interest in Riha, but this interest was never pursued. There is no indication of any kind that the CIA, the FBI or military was involved in Riha’s disappearance.
The breaking off of formal FBI-CIA relations in 1970 resulted not from a dispute over Riha himself but from the bureaucratic handling of the Riha case by local FBI and CIA officials in Denver.
Proceedings had been commenced in 1970 in the Probate Court in and for the City and County of
Denver, Colorado, to recover and preserve the assets of Riha’s estate and Zdenek Cerveny was appointed conservator of the absentee estate. Colorado law provides a presumption of death after a continuous, unexplained absence of seven years. Because of the Select Committee Staff report and the statement of Senator Hart, Mr. Cerveny caused a letter request to be made of the CIA on February 17, 1976, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking for any information concerning the disappearance or whereabouts of Riha and all agency documents on the subject. That request was an act undertaken in the performance of Mr. Cerveny legal duty to make diligent inquiry as a requirement for application of the presumption of death. The CIA responded to the request by releasing copies of two memoranda. Memorandum 7-74, dated January 31, 1974, was provided, with deletions based on claims of exemptions under (b)(l), (b)(2), (b)(3) and (b)(6) of the FOIA. The second document was a copy of Memorandum 21-74, dated March 13, 1974, with deletions based upon the same four exemptions.
Mr. Cerveny then filed his complaint in this court on July 12, 1976 to require further disclosure. Jurisdiction has been invoked properly under 5 U. S.C. 552(a)(4)(B). After the complaint was filed, the CIA Information Review Committee affirmed the claims of exemption.
At a pre-trial conference held on September 22, 1976, it became apparent that the plaintiffs primary interest was to learn the identity of a person who reportedly had seen Professor Riha in Czechoslovakia in late 1973. That sighting was the subject of the two released memoranda. Counsel for the respondent agreed to request the CIA to submit affidavits in support of the claimed exemptions, following the procedure suggested in Vaughn v. Rosen, 157 U.S. App. D.C. 340, 484 F.2d 820 (1973).
On November 8, 1976, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, accompanied by four affidavits of CIA officials. They described additional releases of 174 pages of newspaper clippings and 38 documents released with deletions. Seven additional documents, withheld in their entireties, have been characterized as cables, dating from October 20 to November 9, 1971 which were generated as a result of an individual contacting a CIA representative overseas for the purpose of obtaining information for a newspaper story about the Riha disappearance. According to the affidavits, no agency activity was involved. Exemptions of those cables are asserted under (b)(l), (b)(2), (b)(3) and (b)(6) and it has been claimed that there are no reasonably segregable relevant portions of them. Additionally, the defendant disclosed that it had 14 documents which had originated with the FBI and that there had been a response made by the
CIA to a set of interrogatories from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in November 1975. The affidavits also indicated that the CIA had taken the extraordinary step of requesting permission from its source to release identifying information, which request was denied.
Additionally, it was reported that the personal safety of the original source would be threatened if identification were made.
Additional affidavits were filed in answer to some of the questions raised in the plaintiff’s memorandum brief. A hearing on the motion for summary judgment was held on August 1, 1977.
At that hearing, the court noted that since this suit had begun a new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had been selected, personally, by a new President who had directed a new policy of openness in that agency. Accordingly, the court suggested that the Director take the extraordinary action of making a personal review of the CIA material relevant to this case.
Phat suggestion was accepted and by a letter to the court, dated October 8, 1977, Admiral
Stansfield Turner reported the result of his personal inquiry into the matter as the Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency. After his assertion that the disclosure of the intelligence source
reporting the hearsay information on the sighting of Professor Riha would be contrary to his statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure, he Director wrote concerning the sighting memoranda:
Additional affidavits were filed in answer to some of the questions raised in the plaintiff’s memorandum brief. A hearing on the motion for summary judgment was held on August 1, 1977. At that hearing, the court noted that since this suit had begun a new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had been selected, personally, by a new President who had directed a new policy of openness in that agency. Accordingly, the court suggested that the Director take the extraordinary action of making a personal review of the CIA material relevant to this case.
That suggestion was accepted and by a letter to the court, dated October 8, 1977, Admiral Stansfield Turner reported the result of his personal inquiry into the matter as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. After his assertion that the disclosure of the intelligence source reporting the hearsay information on the sighting of Professor Riha would be contrary to his; statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure, he Director wrote concerning the sighting memoranda:
The actual identity or reliability of the original source of the information is not known to this Agency, nor does the Agency have sufficient information upon which to base an informed judgment as to the accuracy of the information provided by that individual. As I have indicated, the information contained in Documents Nos. 1 and 2 is third-hand information and the Agency has made no attempt to verify the information.
Admiral Turner also wrote that he had reviewed the seven documents which had been withheld n their entireties and that he agreed with the characterization of the information contained herein as having no probative value with respect to the Riha disappearance or whereabouts.
At a hearing on December 16, 1977, the plaintiff renewed his request for an in-camera inspection the CIA documents and files. Particular concern was expressed about the adequacy of the
search for relevant documents in the CIA files. In justification of that concern, plaintiff’s counsel reported that Mr. Cerveny had recently received an unsolicited communication concerning information within the files of the United States Army Intelligence Agency, an organization within the Department of Defense. A copy of the Army document had been in the CIA files, which had not been disclosed in the affidavits filed in support of the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. That failure was explained satisfactorily by counsel for the defendant at the hearing.
Given the volume and complexity of the records kept by the CIA, there can be no absolute
certainty that everything touching and concerning any specific subject has been located. The
CIA does not require an absolute guarantee of an exhaustive exhumation of records. The duty is to make a good faith effort to conduct a search using methods which can reasonably be expected to produce the information requested. From the affidavits submitted, it is apparent that the officials of the CIA have performed that duty in this case.
5 U.S.C. 2552(b)(1) exempts from disclosure all matters that are in fact properly classified under criteria established by an executive order in the interest of national defense or foreign policy. While the 1974 amendments to the FOIA expressly authorized an in camera inspection of documents claimed to be exempt under (b)(l), the legislative history reflects the expectation that the courts “will accord substantial weight to an agency’s affidavit concerning the details of the classified status of the disputed record.” Conf. Rep. No. 93-1200, 93rd Cong. 2d Sess., reprinted in 1974 U.S. Code Cong. & Administrative. News 6285, 6290. It has been recognized in other cases involving the CIA that the courts have little competence in evaluating intelligence information because of a lack of cognitive context. The role of the court was articulated in Weissman v. Central Intelligence Agency, 184 U.S. App. D.C 117, 565 F.2d 692, (1977) in these words:
If exemption is claimed on the basis of national security the District Court must, of course, be satisfied that proper procedures have been followed, and that by its sufficient description the contested document logically falls into the category of the exemption indicated. In deciding whether to conduct an in-camera inspection it need not go further to test the expertise of the agency, or to question its veracity when nothing appears to raise the issue of good faith. (565 F.2d at 697 Revised)
5 U.S.C. 2552(b)(3) excludes application of the Act to matters which are specifically exempted from disclosure by another statute without discretion or with definite criteria for withholding or references to particular types of matters to be withheld. The Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, establishing the CIA, holds the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency responsible “for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure,” 50 U.S.C. 403(d)(3), and specifically exempts the agency from “the provisions of any other law which require the publication or disclosure of the organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency. ” 50 U.S.C. 403g. These statutory provisions have been held to be within the scope of the (b)(3) exclusion in the FOIA. Weissman, supra; Philippi v. Central Intelligence Agency, 178 U.S. App. D.C. 243, 546 F.2d 1009 (1976); Baker v. Central Intelligence Agency, 425 F. Supp. 633 (D.D.C. 1977); Bennett v. United States Department of Defense, 419 F. Supp. 663 (S.D.N.Y. 1976); Richardson v. Spahr, 416 F. Supp. 752 (W.D. Pa.), affd., 547 F.2d 1163 (3rd Cir. 1976).
Here, Admiral Turner has explicitly informed this court that disclosure of that which has been deleted and withheld would constitute a violation of this specific statutory duty. There is no reason to question the expertise or the good faith of Admiral Turner. Some deletions have been made on the basis of the exemption for internal personnel rules and practices under 5 U.S.C. 2552(b)(2). More specifically, these are markings and reference numbers which were placed on the documents for internal purposes. While the applicability of is questionable under Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 48 L. Ed. 2d 1 1, 96 S. Ct. 1592 (1976), the plaintiff has taken the position that he is concerned with such markings only if they would assist in the location of other relevant documents or information. There is no reason to question the response in the supplemental affidavits that the deletions would not provide such assistance.
Some information, including the names of individuals, has been withheld upon the conclusion that there would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, exempted by 5 U.S.C.2552(b)(6). The affidavits and the Director’s letter advised that what has been withheld includes unsubstantiated information which is derogatory and which concerns persons not connected with the Riha matter. Additionally, it is realistic to recognize that the mere mention of the names of individuals as being the subjects of CIA files could be damaging to their reputations.
The application of the privacy exemption requires a balancing of the interests of the public in obtaining disclosure and the preservation of the integrity of an individual’s reputation and right to privacy. Campbell v. United States Civil Service Commission, 539 F.2d 58 (10th Cir. 1976). The particularized need of Mr. Cerveny for information relevant to his duty of inquiry is not a factor in the balance. The plaintiff here is no different from any other person seeking public disclosure of the information. A moment’s reflection upon recent political history and the excesses of the internal security investigations in the 1950’s should be sufficient to signal caution in dealing with unverified derogatory material within the files of an intelligence gathering agency of government. Indiscriminate public disclosure of such material in response to a citizen’s FOIA request would be as much an abuse of agency authority as an intentional release designed to damage persons. The impact on the individual is the same. The deletions here are appropriate applications of the privacy exemption.
The developments in this FOIA case are sufficiently unusual to be characterized as unique. The classified information within the CIA files relevant to the Riha inquiry has been reviewed by a committee of the United States Senate. Because that committee has continued to keep the information classified, it is a fair inference that the Senators and staff share the concern for the national security and national defense interests reflected in the classification. Additionally, the subject material has been reviewed by a person who holds the highest authority and responsibility for foreign intelligence matters within the executive branch, with the exception of the President himself. I am satisfied with the sufficiency of the responses made in the course of this proceeding and the plaintiff is entitled to nothing more.
A claim for an award of attorney’s fees has been made. 5 U.S.C. 2552(a)(4)(E) authorizes the assessment of reasonable attorney’s fees and other litigation costs in any case in which the complainant has substantially prevailed. Other considerations used in determining an award of attorney’s fees are whether the litigation has resulted in a substantial contribution to the public interest; the commercial benefit to the complainant and the nature of his interests in the records sought; and whether the United States had a “reasonable basis in law” for withholding the records. See Campbell, supra, at 62; Cuneo v. Rumsfeld, 180 U.S. App. D.C. 184, 553 F.2d 1360 (1977); Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council, Inc. v. Usery, 546 F.2d 509 (2d Cir. 1976); Conf. Rep. No. 93-1200, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1974 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 6285, 6288.
In this case the parties have not yet been given an opportunity to be heard on the issue of attorney’s fees and, accordingly, the entry of judgment will be deferred pending a hearing on attorney’s fees.
Upon the foregoing, it is
ORDERED that the defendant’s motion for summary judgment is granted, and it is
FURTHER ORDERED that entry of judgment upon this order is deferred pending hearing on attorney’s fees.
BY THE COURT:
Who knew what this case meant? It had far reaching consequences which none of us could have predicted. From my small-town perspective, I was overwhelmed. I still haven’t quite managed to appreciate the gravity of the situation, or the historical significance. I do appreciate, however, how it affected my life and the lives of those around me. In addition to scuttling the Huston plan and scuttling a presidency, it exposed the CIA activities at the University of Colorado, the various agencies there, the conduct of the war, the establishment of the Edmond Teller Center for Science, Technology and Political Thought, and other things kept secret until then. It was not a matter of privacy or National Security, there was a coverup to hide embarrassing facts about our paranoid government from us.
From The U.S. Senate regarding my clients and the impact on Watergate Scandal
APRIL 23 (under authority of the order of April 14), 1976
NATIONAL SECURITY, CIVIL LIBERTIES, AND THE COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE: A REPORT ON THE HUSTON PLAN
INTRODUCTION
The Scope of the Investigation
On January 27,1975, the United States Senate, meeting early in the 1st Session of the 94th Congress, established through Senate Resolution 21 a Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence
The “New” Hoover
Counterintelligence specialists throughout the government were dismayed when undercover FBI operations important to them, and carried out for several years, were suddenly suspended by Hoover in the 1960s. 19 The new emphasis in the Kennedy Administration on investigations into organized crime and civil rights had already drained manpower from security and intelligence operations, according to an experienced FBI counterintelligence specialist. 20
Then by the mid-1960s, Hoover began to terminate specific security programs. In July 1966, for example, Hoover wrote on a memorandum that henceforth all FBI break-ins — or “black-bag” jobs — were to be cut off. 21 By its refusal to use rigorously a full array of intelligence collection methods, Huston strongly believed the FBI was failing to do its job. This belief was shared widely among intelligence professionals. Helms, Bennett, and Gayler all expressed this view, as did — privately — key intelligence officers within the FBI itself. 22
Intelligence professionals were dismayed by Hoover’s reluctance now to order what he had allowed before on a regular basis. Some suggested that the wiretap hearings held by Senator Edward V. Long in 1965 had turned public opinion against the use of certain intelligence-gathering techniques, 23 and that the Director was merely reading the writing on the wall. One seasoned CIA intelligence officer recalls:
Mr. Hoover’s real concern was that during the Johnson Administration, where the Congress was delving into matters pertaining to FBI activities, Mr. Hoover looked to the President to give him support in terms of conducting those operations. And when that support was lacking, Mr. Hoover had no recourse but to gradually eliminate activities which were unfavorable to the Bureau and which in turn risked public confidence in the number one law enforcement agency. 24
Others pointed to the increased risks involved in break-ins because of new and sophisticated security precautions taken by various Bureau targets. Hoover, according to this theory, was unwilling to engage in past practices when faced with the new dangers of being caught. 25
The fact that Hoover reached age 70 in 1965 was also significant in the view of still others, since he then came within the law which required mandatory retirement. Henceforth, he served each year in a somewhat vulnerable position, as his Directorship was now reviewed for renewal on an annual basis. So he became, according to an FBI official, “very conscious of the fact that any incident which, within his understanding might prove an embarrassment to the Bureau, could reflect questionably on his leadership of the Bureau.” 26
Several highly-placed observers in the intelligence community also believed the Director was simply growing old and more wary about preserving his established reputation — a wariness nurtured by the protective instincts of his close friend and professional colleague, Clyde Tolson, who held the second highest position in the FBI. Dr. Louis Tordella, the long-time top civilian at NSA, speculated in conversations with William C. Sullivan in 1969 that Tolson probably had told Hoover something to the effect: “If these techniques ever backfire, your image and the reputation of the Bureau will be badly damaged.” 27
Tordella, Sullivan, and others in the intelligence world grew increasingly impatient with the “new” Hoover and with what they considered to be his abstinence on the question of intelligence collection. If they were to expand their collection capabilities, as they and the White House wished, the new restrictions would have to be eased. Yet no one was willing to challenge Hoover’s policy directly.
Tordella and General Marshall Carter, when he was Director of NSA, tried in 1967 and failed. 28 Their 15-minute appointment with Mr. Hoover in the spring of that year stretched into two-and-a-half hours. The communications experts first heard more than they wanted to about John Dillinger, “Ma” Barker, and the “Communist Threat.” Finally, they were able to explain to Hoover their arguments for reinstating certain collection practices valuable to the National Security Agency. Hoover seemed to yield, telling the NSA spokesmen their reasoning was persuasive and he would consider reestablishing the earlier policies.
The news came a few days later that Hoover would allow FBI agents to resume the collection methods desired by NSA. Tordella and Carter were surprised, and gratified. Then three more days passed and the FBI liaison to NSA brought the word that Hoover had changed his mind; his new stringency would be maintained after all. William Sullivan called to tell Tordella that “someone got to the old man. It’s dead.” That someone, Sullivan surmised, was Tolson.
Hoover added a note to his message for Carter and Tordella, indicating that he would assist the National Security Agency in its collection requirements only if so ordered by the President or the Attorney General. Tordella, however, was reluctant to approach either. “I couldn’t go to the chief law enforcement figure in the country and ask him to approve something that was illegal,” he recently explained (despite the fact that he and General Carter had already asked the Director of the FBI to approve an identical policy). As for the President, this was “not a topic with which he should soil his hands.” For the time being, Tordella would let the NSA case rest.
Nor was Richard Helms going to be the man to urge Hoover to relax the newly imposed restrictions. He and Hoover had little patience for one another for several years. Hoover distrusted the “Ivy League” style of CIA personnel in general; according to Sullivan “Ph.D. intelligence” was a term of derision Hoover liked to use against the Agency. 29 Gayler and Bennett, newcomers to the intelligence community, were warned immediately by their assistants not to challenge the Director of the Bureau directly on matters relating to domestic intelligence. 30
It would take the pressure of events, skillful maneuvering by a group of FBI counterintelligence specialists, and Huston’s strategic position on the White House staff to focus the attention of the President on the problem of intelligence collection.
The Pressure of Events
Events encouraged action. Riots and bombings escalated throughout the country in the spring of 1970. In his official statement on the Huston Plan, issued while he was still in the White House, President Nixon recalled that “in March a wave of bombings and explosions struck college campuses and cities. There were 400 bomb threats in one 24-hour period in New York City.” 31 The explosion of a Weatherman “bomb factory” in a Greenwich Village townhouse in March particularly shocked Tom Huston and other White House staffers. 32 The response of the President was to send anti-bombing legislation to the Congress.
Moreover, in the spring of 1970 the FBI severed its formal liaison to the CIA in reaction to a CIA-FBI dispute over confidential sources in Colorado. 33 Though hostility between the two agencies had surfaced before with some frequency over matters such as disagreement regarding the bona fides of communist defectors, this particular dispute was “the one straw that broke the camel’s back.” 34 The incident in Colorado, now known as the Riha Case, involved a CIA officer who received information concerning the disappearance of a foreign national on the faculty of the University of Colorado, a Czechoslovak by the name of Thomas Riha.
The information apparently came from an unnamed FBI officer stationed in Denver. Hoover demanded to know the identity of the FBI agent; but, as a matter of personal integrity, the CIA officer refused to divulge the name of his source. Hoover was furious with Helms for not providing the FBI with this information and, “in a fit of pique,” 35 he broke formal Bureau ties with the Agency. 36 To many observers, including Huston and Sullivan, the severance of these ties contributed to the perceived inability of the Bureau’s intelligence division to perform their task adequately.
In this context, a special meeting was called on April 22, 1970, in Haldeman’s office. In attendance were Haldeman, Krogh, Huston Alexander Butterfield (who had responsibility for White House liaison’ with the Secret Service), and Ehrlichman. The purpose of this gathering was to improve coordination among the White House staff for contact with intelligence agencies in the government and, more importantly, as Huston remembers, to decide “whether — because of the escalating level of the violence — something within the government further needed to be done.” 37
A decision was made. The President would be asked to meet with the directors of the four intelligence agencies to take some action that might curb the growing violence. The intelligence agencies would be asked by the President to write a report on what could be done. The meeting was planned for May. In addition, Tom Huston was given a high staff position in the White House; henceforth, he would have responsibilities for internal security affairs. 38 He was now in a strategic position to help Sullivan reverse existing Bureau policies.
The meeting between President Nixon and the intelligence directors was not held in May, because plans for, and the reaction to, the April 29 invasion of Cambodia in Southeast Asia disrupted the entire White House schedule. In the aftermath of this event, the meeting “became even more important,” recalls Huston. 39 The expansion of the Indochina war into Cambodia and the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State had focused the actions on antiwar movement and civil rights activists.
As soon as the reaction to the Cambodian incursion had stabilized somewhat, the meeting between President Nixon and the intelligence directors was rescheduled for June 5th. It was to start a chain of events that would culminate in the Huston Plan.
COURTS, EFFICIENCY, AND THE DEMISE OF HUMANITY
DENNIS COMMENTS DECEMBER 29, 2015
Her husband called. He was in jail for armed robbery. He was an addict and desperate. His wife, an addict, had been kidnapped by a group of sex traffickers and rescued by the FBI. However, there was a failure to appear warrant from Ft Collins, and rather than being protected, she was jailed. The initial charge was for introducing contraband into the jail, not intentionally, but because she couldn’t toss it before her arrest, for a disturbance at a motel. She too was an addict. While incarcerated in Ft. Collins, she tried to enter rehab programs, but she was homeless, with a jailed husband, and was held as a material witness for the FBI with a bounty on her by some very bad guys. She had been sold as a teenager, had no High School diploma, suffered from Hepatitis C, Epilepsy, Delayed Stress Syndrome, and other ailments. The District Attorney was tough on crime and prosecuted, not just merely for possession. Rehab programs, all private, wanted payment, which was impossible. After 6 weeks’ confinement, a judge put her on probation. He also added about $2000 in fees. He knew or should have known this was impossible, but, like a good marionette, followed orders. This relieved the judge of any responsibility. Also, as an ex-prosecutor, he knew that addicts were scum, anyway. Everyone at the country club says so.
She tried to stay clean, but, since she was homeless and at the mercy of strangers she met on the street, she relapsed. These same judges are the first to lecture the peasantry about taking responsibility for themselves, even though it has been almost 100 years since scientists discovered that environment was a large factor in creating a criminal. Again, shifting blame away from a corrupt and anonymous system is a good way for the simple mind to ignore humanity. It is easy to apply “the spirit of Capitalism” described by Max Weber in this instance. It goes like this: “God has rewarded me with a fairly good life and money. You are poor and homeless. God is punishing you because you are bad. If God can punish, so can I. Therefore, I don’t have to consider how privatization, and specialization has affected you. Go prostitute yourself for money, drugs, and, most importantly your court costs. You can always find a dumpster to sleep in.” How can this happen? It has been over 50 years since I took my first graduate course in criminology. At that time, there were courses in corrections, counseling, budgeting, support group building, etc. The curricula ended in a master’s degree in correction. That degree is no longer offered because there are no jobs for such trained people. Since privatization, skilled, trained empathetic people have no place in the Court Supervision system. The probation officer’s job is not to help people and cut recidivism, but to increase the bottom line of corporate profits. Correcting isn’t profitable, is costly and labor intensive. Ignoring problems and applying policy is cheap and easy and has the effect of built in obsolescence, guaranteeing future profits, explaining why a rate that was constant for 40 decades, exponential growth in prison rates from 100, to 450 prisoners per 100,000 persons, since the election of Richard Nixon. The largest private prison system had $1.65 Billion in revenue last year. Essentially, the District Attorneys and Judges have become shills for greedy, profiteering business enterprise. Since officials market fear, this is sold as the cost of a safe society. Complete and utter horseshit!
So, we must ask ourselves. Do we want to continue putting judicial robes on Prosecutors? Is the purpose of the third branch of Government; to punish and benefit corporations, or to benefit society? Should we continue to allow judges to cop out and blame everything on the legislatures, rather than use their inherent supervisory powers to correct things? Should we tolerate officials that promote a police state, or rid ourselves of them. Do we want to continue to train police to murder us or to help us? Do we ignore research, common sense, and justice or demand that justice and betterment of society take priority over profits? Do we hold the corporations liable for the damage they cause by not insisting that they hire trained staff instead of goons, or do we make waterboarding and torture the new norm? Do we make the Attorney Generals of the country personally liable for the murders by police resulting from the police training? Do we want efficiency, or do we demand justice? Please let me know.
Fellow citizens aren’t commodities. Citizens don’t exist for the benefit of business or corporations. Profit motive supremacy has no place in a caring society. We Should: Reinstitute Corrections as a career and valid area of study. Re-emphasize fairness instead of efficiency. Make judges seek fairness, not expediency. Don’t go gently into oblivion. Do as Dylan Thomas mandates and “Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”
- Posted in: 2d Amendment
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It needs to be a book…
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