From: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com (roc-digest) To: roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: roc-digest V2 #122 Reply-To: roc-digest Sender: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk roc-digest Thursday, April 30 1998 Volume 02 : Number 122 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 16:02:02 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: IP: Caught and Too Fat to Flee (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 14:05:03 -0400 From: Patricia Neill To: ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: Caught and Too Fat to Flee Another Chapter from The Secret Freedom Fighter by Jefferson Mack Paladin Press, 1986 I got my copy from Amazon for less than $20 (can't remember how much it was). Paladin told me it was out of print, which Amazon will tell you as well, but they managed to find me a copy. Get yours while you can! Mack makes EXCELLENT good common sense. Keep in mind that Mack wrote this amazing book back in the 80s--and things have gotten a lot worse since then. Patricia Neill Caught and Too Fat to Flee What happens when they steal your freedom and you're too fat to run for the hills? It can happen here. It happened in Czechoslovakia, Chile, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Laos, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Cuba, and dozens of other countries around the world. Free people woke up one morning and discovered they weren't free anymore. They lost it through invasion, or the manipulation of crooked politicians, or a coup by some army officers, or more often than we like to admit, through an election. There weren't any atomic bombs, and most of the time, there weren't any devastated cities, executions in the streets, or massive occupation armies. For a good part of the population, it was sort of hard to tell they weren't free, for a while. It takes time for a government to recruit secret police, get them spread throughout a society, and start the insidious process that turns men against neighbors and takes away the one thing humans must have to be happy-freedom. In just about every country that's lost its freedom, there were a few people who have tried to do something about it. They joined resistance movements, fled into other countries, committed personal acts of sabotage, or tried to use whatever legal means were left in place to get some of their freedom back. Unfortunately, almost always, there weren't very many people ready to take any risks to try to get freedom back. Most people in unfree countries decide it's easier to go along. Too often, too many don't see the loss of freedom as that big of a deal. That's the way the people who steal freedom want it. They want the average citizen still at the job, worried about what he is going to put in his mouth more than what he can say with it. The first day they take your freedom away, they are only too happy to let you get up in the morning, eat breakfast with the kids, take off for the office or the factory, and put in a full day's work. It's only when you have gotten used to their being around that they start cracking down, taking a little piece at a time, a day at a time. Every inch of the way they will keep telling you it's all for your own good and safety. That's bullshit. The only reason political leaders take freedom away is for their own good and safety. That's the way they make sure they keep their jobs. TOO MANY PEOPLE DON'T GIVE A DAMN IF THEY ARE FREE OR NOT. In every country that ever lost its freedoms, the men in power rule with the acquiescence of the general population. Ninety percent of the people in all those unfree countries not only tolerate the loss of their freedom, they actively cooperate with the authorities that have taken their freedom away. All too many of them, especially in those countries that lost freedom to clever politicians rather than invasion, think they are getting a good deal. They have bought the propaganda line sold by those who stole freedom. They believe that they really are better off losing a bit of freedom so they can be saved from hunger, political terrorists, Jews, blacks, Christians, commies, Nazis, crime in the streets, or whatever other fear stalks the streets of their own nightmares. If you are living in one of those countries where freedom has been lost and you want to fight to get it back, you have to expect you are going to be in the minority. Most of your friends and neighbors aren't going to want to join you. In fact, most of them will gladly turn you in just so they can earn a little credit with the local boss. If you succeed in winning freedom back, they won't give a damn, they won't thank you, and they will probably hate your guts for taking away the goodies the local tyrant was handing out as rewards for people who would rather be comfortable than free. DON'T SACRIFICE YOURSELF TO WIN FREEDOM FOR SOMEBODY ELSE. All you want is your own freedom. If you do any of the things suggested in this book, you should only do them if it results in making you feel a bit more free. You don't think it can happen here without at least a nuclear war? Don't kid yourself. Washington, D.C., is crammed with politicians who would love to trade large chunks of your freedom for promises to make life a bit easier, safer, or more secure. What's worse, there are a lot of your fellow Americans out there that want that kind of trade, as long as they get to be the ones that benefit. Just make sure it's only the blacks, or the Jews, or the bankers, or the farmers, or the labor unions, or the people that like to wear cowboy boots and carry Winchesters in their pickups that get stomped on, and they'll sign up right away for the great crusade. A couple of years ago some smartass showed several hundred city dwellers a copy of the Bill of Rights and asked them to sign a petition to make it a law. Sixty percent of the people who read it not only didn't recognize what it was, but they said they wouldn't vote for it. One group or another is trying to take away every one of the rights guaranteed in Thomas Jefferson's inspired first ten amendments. They want to terminate your rights to own and use weapons for your own protection. They want to tell you what you can and can't read. They want to control how you spend the money you make. They want to tell you when, where, and how you can drink a can of Coors, and where you can go after you drink it. They want to tell you how to pray and when to pray. Every piece of freedom they want to take away, they'll do it while telling you it's for your own good, or for the good of "everybody." If it's not enough that we have to put up with the vipers in our own country, there are all those other bastards out there, the Soviets, the Ayatollahs, the Red Guards, and the neo-Nazis that won't even bother with trying it through political means. They're waiting for one slip in our defenses and they'll be only too happy to move in and take our freedoms away by force. IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. Maybe it will come after a nuclear war that we lose but you survive. It's just as likely we'll do it to ourselves, voting the bastards in because too many people believe in their politicians instead of themselves. You wake up one morning and find that the mayor has been carted off to a camp for reeducation, and some bearded kid wearing a cap with a red star is sitting in his chair signing orders to confiscate your tractor, your barn, your farm land, and your kid's pet calf. Or maybe the sheriff has come around with a piece of paper in his hand and an apology while he collects your target pistol, two hunting rifles, and your kid's 410. Your favorite bar is selling nothing but Kool-Aid, the federal government has closed the bank and confiscated your checking account, and the only thing you can get on the TV is the mug of the new president appointed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is telling you what great things he is going to do for you. What are you going to do then? You say you are going to take to the hills, that you have a food and weapons stash waiting for just this kind of thing to happen? You're going to do what the Afghan, the Nicaraguan, and the Angolan freedom fighters are doing: you're going to take up open rebellion and try to win freedom back through force of arms. More power to you and lots of luck. You'll need it. Frankly, freedom fighters in the hills haven't been very successful in this century. They get good press and they die glorious deaths, but the countries they are fighting to make free get less free every day. Even so, I applaud you. If given the chance, I'll do what I can to help you. But I'm too honest with myself to try and fool you by promising I'll be up there in the hills with you. I look down at my gut and l'm honest enough to admit I'd just be in the way. YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUN FOR THE HILLS TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM. So what do you do if you love freedom and want it back, but you're like me? You're on the wrong side of forty, you can't run a twelve-minute mile, let alone a five. You've had too many years of the good life which shows in the overhang covering your belt. Or maybe you are in good shape. You hunt and fish every chance you get, you raise a garden in the backyard, you do your own home repairs, and you work on a construction job. The problem is you've got a couple of young kids and a wife that's a homemaker, not a career lady who will keep bringing in a paycheck to feed the family while you play hero. Your job hasn't been abolished, even though your pay's been cut and your hours increased, and you already have heard some not-too-gentle suggestions about what might happen to that pretty wife and the two little boys if you don't show up at the factory on Monday morning. Well, you say, you'll join the underground support mechanism. Work in town as a courier, carry out sabotage missions, help print and distribute secret newspapers, spy on the movements of the government oppressors, and report to the rebels in the mountains. Again, more power and good luck to you, if you can make the connection. That will be the problem, finding the people in the underground. If you already have some ideas about who that might be if things go haywire, the people who take over will know about them, too. The first thing they will do is round up the most popular school teacher, or the commander of the local VFW, or whoever else is a community leader that believes in freedom. Those people will all be in a reeducation center, if they're still alive. You start asking questions about where you can join up and you'll end up in the same camp with them. Believe me, if it happens here, there will be spies everywhere, trying to ferret out your kind of people, people who don't buy the promises, who still want to control their own lives, who still believe the only choice is to live free or die. No, I am not arguing that you have to go along, to keep reporting to work, to cooperate and keep your mouth shut, hoping that some time in the future somebody will give you, or maybe your grandchildren, back their freedom. Unfortunately, that is what most people are doing in all those countries that have little or no freedom. But there is an alternative, and that's what this book is about. The alternative has its risks-fighting for freedom always does-but the things that are described in this book are the kinds of things you can do while cutting down the personal risks you have to take for both yourself and your family. You don't have to get organized; in fact, that is what you want to avoid. You work in secret, letting no one know what you are doing. DON'T TRY TO GET YOUR FREEDOM BACK BY ORGANIZING. Grab every bit of freedom you can on your own and run with it. I know that sounds strange and goes against everything you have ever been told about the importance of organizing, the need to play on a winning team, and how there is strength in numbers. The people who preach organization don't want you to be free, they want to control you so they can be free to do what they want. A truly free society is disorganized. In that kind of society, everyone is doing exactly what they want to do and taking orders froi-n nobody. That doesn't mean you can stomp the other guy for the fun it gives you. He's entitled to freedom too. Because everybody respects everybody else's right, a free society is peaceful, but it is disorganized. Nobody is in charge. Nobody takes orders. You might think such a disorganized society would be easy to conquer, but it is not. Any society in which people refuse to cooperate unless they agree it's to their own advantage to do so can't be governed except by the will of the people, or by the massive application of force. It's the ordered societies where people are used to doing what they are told to do that are easy to conquer. That's why a handful of Spanish soldiers conquered Mexico in the sixteenth century. They lopped off the head of the Aztec Empire and had every Indian in the country instantly obeying the orders of the new rulers. The poor slobs had been so organized by the Aztec emperors that they didn't know how to do anything else but follow orders. If a lot of people all over a country that's lost its freedom did the kinds of things described in this book, then the devil help the people in power, because they are going to need it. If only ten percent of the men and women living in the unfree countries of the world followed the advice in this book, things in those countries would fall apart so fast that the rulers would have to grant a few more freedoms. Unfortunately, this book probably won't be read in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Chile, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Laos, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, or Cuba. (Although let's hope somebody does smuggle a few copies into some of those countries.) This is the kind of book that the freedom stealers fear the most. There will be more than a few politicians in this country that will condemn this book. It is pretty obvious that some of the things I propose could make it difficult to impose their grandiose schemes of social control. Screw them. The more people who buy this book, the more those fancy bastards will be put on notice that they had better not try it here. We still have a few of our freedoms, and the time to prepare to fight to get them back is before we lose them. So read this carefully, memorize the suggestions and programs, but don't get caught with a copy or with any notes you've made if it does happen here. Just be ready to start your career as a secret freedom fighter. That's what this book is about. How to not cooperate, how to secretly carry out a campaign that, when combined with similar campaigns by hundreds and thousands of other people, each acting as a lone individual, will give whoever has taken over so much trouble that they will soon regret the day they stole freedom. If you are the only person in the country who does these things, you get the personal satisfaction of knowing that there was one free man left. If a lot of other people start doing the same things, then you will get your freedom back. A SECRET FREEDOM FIGHTER FIGHTS ALONE. Nobody ever gives an ant an order. Yet, by picking up a single grain of saiid and carrying it away, the ant helps dig the nest in the desert. The secret freedom fighter is like the ant. Working without instruction or orders from anyone, he follows his natural instincts, fighting the oppressor whenever and wherever he can. Yet in a freedom-loving society, he will not be working alone. Others, hopefully hundreds and thousands of others, will also be operating, acting without direction or order. The total sum of thousands of individual acts will give the appearance of a massive organization. That's what the oppressor will think he is facing-an organized rebellion. He will look for leaders that aren't there, secret headquarters that don't exist, and couriers who carry no messages. The organization will never be found. All there will be is a single individual, multiplied thousands of times. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Apr 98 14:21:22 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: House Bill copy and paste message. (fwd) On Apr 29, RHill@MICKEY.GC.WHECN.EDU wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] Got this off the GOA page. Thought some of y'all might want to send it to your representative in the House. Roy Hill Dear Representative: I urge you to cosponsor Rep. Ron Paul's Brady repeal bill (H.R. 2721). This November, when the Brady Law converts over to the Instant Registration Check, federal bureaucrats will begin conducting background checks on ALL gun purchases - shotguns and rifles included. As stated by Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America: Every Federal Gun Law on the Books: When the permanent Brady rules come on line, ALL gun sales - long guns and handguns - will fall under federal control of "national instant background checks." The centralized federalization of all gun-sale records will be complete. I agree with Mr. Korwin. The Instant Registration Check is not only unconstitutional, it gives the federal government the potential to register ALL gun buyers. No matter how many prohibitions are written into the law, the possibility of gun owner registration is always present as long as the Instant Check remains law. Law-abiding citizens should not be required to prove their innocence to government officials before exercising their rights. So I urge you to cosponsor H.R. 2721 - a bill that will repeal Brady and put an end to this dangerous law. Please let me know what you intend to do. [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 07:28:07 -0400 From: Tom Cloyes Subject: Teen Forum: Ethics, not guns, blamed for shootings From the mouths of babes! This is encouraging. Tom >Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 21:45:40 -0400 >From: E Pluribus Unum >X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; U) >To: E Pluribus Unum Email Distribution Network >Subject: Teen Forum: Ethics, not guns, blamed for shootings > >Teen Forum: Ethics, not guns, blamed for shootings >Wednesday, April 29, 1998 >By Bill Steigerwald, Post-Gazette Staff Writer > >Guns don't kill children on the school playgrounds of Jonesboro or at >eighth grade dances in Edinboro, young people do. > >Or, in the case of the horror in Jonesboro, the killing is done by >gun-happy boys with no consciences and clueless parents who don't stress >responsibility. > >The above could be a bumper-sticker argument straight from National >Rifle Association headquarters. > >But it is also an accurate summation of what Keith Bocian, Melyssa >Jenkins, Tom Marvit, Aaron Reed, Jennifer Schaupp and James Ziegler >think when it comes to placing blame for America's continuing scourge of >gun-related violence. > >In their discussion of guns and how to control the damage they do at >last week's Teen Forum, the six high school students made it clear that, >as far as they are concerned, the Second Amendment still rules. For >despite what happened in Jonesboro, Ark., and the death toll elsewhere >from America's love affair with firearms, not one of them says they >would want the Constitution changed to outlaw guns. > >Let's get one thing straight. The six are not, through some quirk of >random selection, sons and daughters of wild game hunters or militia >members. Far from it. Mostly city kids, they've hardly had any >experience with shooting anything more lethal than a Super Soaker. > >Guns do not play an important part in their lives. Most of them don't >like guns and wouldn't use one to kill any living thing. The boys - >Keith, Tom, Aaron, James - say they could get their hands on a gun any >time they wanted from someone they know. But they don't see guns openly >displayed in their neighborhoods or schools. > >Only Tom, a sophomore at Taylor Allderdice, has seen a gun in school. > >Well, actually, he didn't see it himself but one of his friends saw it >when it fell out of a student's backpack. The student pointed it at a >substitute teacher, then threw it out the classroom window. He was a >student who was often in trouble, but he got off without punishment, Tom >says, because of "a technicality."" > >Aaron, a Brashear High School freshman from the Hill District, is the >only one who says he's ever come close to shooting a gun in hot anger. > >It happened after he got jumped by four unarmed kids in his >neighborhood. He went and got his 14-year-old friend's "heat," a >.38-caliber pistol. He was going to "do" them with the pistol, Aaron >says. He was going to make them show him respect. "I just wanted to >shoot them. It was my mentality at the time." But Aaron cooled off and >took the gun back to his friend. "I guess it's not in me to kill >someone," he says. > >Now, none of the six would ever think of using a gun to even a score. >"It doesn't even up the scales, it tips the balance," says Keith, a >Perry Hilltop 18-year-old. Anyway, Tom says, there are lots of other >ways to retaliate against your persecutors - from telling on them to >getting a friend in the library to put fines on their library books. > >Keith is the only one who lives in a house that has guns. His father's >pistol and his brother's hunting rifle hold no special appeal to him, >yet he sounds like a natural-born spokesman for the NRA and others who >uphold gun-owners' rights. > >"The problem's not with guns," he says confidently during a discussion >of the Jonesboro massacre. "The problem was with the kids' ethics." > >Tom is less reluctant to blame guns for violence rather than our >culture. He thinks it's the way Americans have been taught. He knows >that in Israel, as in Switzerland, everyone has pistols, rifles or even >machine guns in their house for purposes of national defense. But in >Israel, he says, you never hear about anyone using their guns for crime. > >Tom thinks everyone should take responsibility for his own actions, >including the Jonesboro boys, whom he says knew exactly what they were >doing and "should be prosecuted as adults." But Aaron thinks adults are >to blame. > >If those boys in Arkansas hadn't been introduced to guns so early by >their parents, he argues, the slaughter would never have happened. > >Meanwhile, Aaron's Hill District neighbor James, a junior at >Pittsburgh's High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, is the >only one of the six who expresses a view that gun-control advocates >could find encouraging. > >"I don't see why people have to have guns," he says. "Hunting and >everything, that's pretty fun. But I don't see why there couldn't be >some kind of renting process where you have the gun all day to go out >into the woods or whatever. I just don't see why you absolutely need to >have a gun in your house. For self-protection, that's OK, but..." > >"It's in the Constitution," argues Melyssa, who shows why she may become >a lawyer some day.. > >"Even if you do take away the guns," Keith says, "how do you enforce the >law? How do say, 'Well, cops can have guns, but nobody else can'?"" > >"Yeah," Melyssa says, "because the cops could take their guns home." > >But James thinks gun ownership should be more limited. For example, he >says, "You shouldn't have guns or ammunition in the house if you have >children." > >Melyssa doesn't buy it. > >"It's hard to single people with children out, or people with anything >out, whenever the Constitution says you have the right to bear arms. > >"It doesn't say you have the right to bear arms if you don't have >children or if you don't have a bad temper. And that's the Constitution. > >If we can't violate freedom of speech or freedom of the press, we >shouldn't violate that one either. > >"It's all about being responsible." >-- >****************************************************************** > E Pluribus Unum The Central Ohio Patriot Group > P.O. Box 791 Eventline/Voicemail: (614) 823-8499 > Grove City, OH 43123 > >Meetings: Monday Evenings, 7:30pm, Ryan's Steakhouse > 3635 W. Dublin-Granville Rd. (just East of Sawmill Rd.) > >http://www.infinet.com/~eplurib eplurib@infinet.com >****************************************************************** > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 07:32:19 -0400 From: Tom Cloyes Subject: Fw: The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror >Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:53:19 -0800 >From: Jon Roland >Subject: Fw: The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror=20 >To: misc-activism-militia@moderators.uu.net >X-Mailer: Z-Mail Pro 6.2-beta, NetManage Inc. [ZM62_10] > > > >------------------------ > From: David Hoffman/Haight Ashbury Free Press > Subject: piml] The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror=20 > Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 00:26:57 -0500 (CDT)=20 > > >My book is finally out! Borders is already stocked with it. Barnes and >Noble seems to be taking their sweet time, but they are discounting the >standard retail price of $18.95. It's 540 pages long, well footnoted, and >has about 40 photos. Please spread the word. Thank you. > > *** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE *** > >In The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, investigative >reporter David Hoffman rips the veil off the cover-up of the worst >terrorist attack in the history of the country. > >The terrible tragedy that shocked the nation is over. Timothy McVeigh and >Terry Nichols have been tried and convicted. Yet Nichols' jury forewoman >Niki Deutchman stated her opinion that the FBI knows of additional >suspects-a fact the government is clearly hiding. Why? Who are these >suspects, and why hasn't the government brought them to justice? > >Reporter David Hoffman, editor of the Haight Ashbury Free Press (based in >San Francisco) is the only reporter who spent two years in Oklahoma City >uncovering the facts of this terrible tragedy. Hoffman examines the very >evidence an Oklahoma County Grand Jury has been charged with >investigating-evidence the Federal Government doesn't want heard. What he >reveals will make audiences' blood boil! > >* The informants and undercover agents who told their handlers of the >impending bombing weeks, even months, before it occurred. > >* The neo-Nazi and Mid-East terrorist cells connected to Timothy McVeigh >and Terry Nichols, and why the FBI hasn't brought them to justice. > >* Why the Oklahoma City Federal Building could not possibly have been >destroyed solely by a fertilizer bomb, no matter how large. > >* An amazing pattern of government duplicity, stone-walling, and cover-up, >even murder! > >"Articulate, factual, sometimes frightening=8A Hoffman hits like a hammer= at >the heart of the Oklahoma City Octopus." - Anthony J. Hilder, host of Radio >Free World > >"How the American people are betrayed by their own covert and law >enforcement agencies, either through gross ineptitude and/or corruption, >would be lost to history were it not for Hoffman's extraordinary research. >A truly incredible read." - Michael Levine, best-selling author of Deep >Cover, The Big White Lie and Triangle of Death. > > ### > >David Hoffman, Publisher >Haight Ashbury Free Press >6118 N. Meridian, #621 >Oklahoma City, OK 73112 >(405) 948-1330 (temporarily in Oklahoma City) > >Pick up my new book, "The Oklahoma City Bombing and the >Politics of Terror," due out in April by Feral House. >To see the book cover and read a sample chapter, go to >our home page: http://www.webcom.com/haight > > > >---------------End of Original Message----------------- > >=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D >Constitution Society, 1731 Howe Av #370, Sacramento, CA 95825 >916/568-1022, 916/450-7941VM Date: 04/29/98 Time: 22:53:20 >http://www.constitution.org/ mailto:jon.roland@constitution.org >=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D > > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:05:52 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: Repealing the Income Tax!!!!! --- (fwd) - ----------Forwarded Message---------- From: Freedom Watch Subject: IP: IRS tactics likened to 'police state' (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:19:21 -0500 From: believer@telepath.com To: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: IRS tactics likened to 'police state' - ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.=20 - ----------------------- Source: Washington Times IRS tactics likened to 'police state' By John Godfrey THE WASHINGTON TIMES John Colaprete sat in church the morning armed special agents from the Internal Revenue Service raided his home and the restaurants he owns. With federal search warrants in hand and accompanied by state and local law officers, the agents held an employee at gunpoint, seized a truckload of records and ransacked his home, Mr. Colaprete, co-owner of the Jewish Mother restaurants in Virginia, told a Senate Finance Committee hearing yesterday. "I used to believe that such things could only happen in a Communist-bloc country, or a police state," Mr. Colaprete recalled. "I don't believe that anymore." Mr. Colaprete was one of three business owners testifying about what they said were IRS abuses at a hearing that also explored charges of rampant racial and sexual discrimination at the agency. The series of critical hearings on IRS abuses continues through Friday. "Should even one of these allegations be true, that's one too many, and I won't tolerate it," IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti said at a press conference held on the steps of the IRS' national office. Mr. Rossotti said he would not discuss the specific cases because of federal disclosure and privacy laws, because some of the cases are still in various forms of litigation, and because little would be served by rehashing the issues. Senate Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth Jr., Delaware Republican, said his investigation found no evidence to soften the picture painted by the witnesses, who included William A. Moncrief, an oilman from Texas, and Richard Gardner, owner of one of the largest tax preparation firms in Oklahoma, as well as NAACP board member Leroy Warner Jr. "It is outrageous that any law-abiding American should have to go through this," Mr. Roth said. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Democrat, noted that the Department of Justice had participated in all the cases, and said it should also be investigated. Mr. Roth and Mr. Rossotti met Friday and agreed "the real objective here is to make fundamental change at the IRS," Mr. Rossotti said. The IRS' criminal investigation division, which conducted the raids on Mr. Colaprete's restaurants, "plays a vital role in ensuring the fairness of our tax system by fighting criminal tax evasion," Mr. Rossotti said. "It is critical that ... its operations be beyond reproach." Charges were never filed against Mr. Colaprete. The bookkeeper whose testimony sparked the March 1994 searches went to jail for embezzling from another employer, according to the Senate Finance Committee. For Mr. Moncrief, it was a disgruntled former employee who led IRS agents in September 1994 to raid the Moncrief family offices in Fort Worth in hopes of proving nearly a decade of tax fraud. Mr. Moncrief's computer system and files were confiscated and stored in a warehouse; his employees for a time had to get IRS permission to use either. In January 1996, the Department of Justice dropped criminal charges and Mr. Moncrief paid a $23 million settlement for the remaining civil case. "I did it for the welfare of my family," Mr. Moncrief told the committee. Mr. Gardner lost business computers, printers and other equipment during a March 1995 raid by IRS agents. After two years, the Department of Justice brought an indictment, but charges were dropped earlier this year. In all the cases, agents carried handguns. In some, they wore jackets with "IRS" printed on the back. Committee members were quick to express their outrage. "The criminal investigation division is out of control. The IRS is out of control," said Sen. Don Nickles, Oklahoma Republican. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said, "I have heard over the years the conduct and actions of the IRS sometimes described as Gestapo-type actions, but I never had heard examples as explicit as this." Sen. Bob Kerrey, Nebraska Democrat, said, "You all have had your Fourth Amendment rights violated." Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat and a former state tax collector, said, "I cannot conceive of a circumstance in which ... this would be justified. It is unfathomable." Only after the witnesses had left did some senators wonder aloud whether they ought to hear from the IRS before drawing conclusions. Lawmakers seemed particularly incensed that the IRS raided Mr. Colaprete's restaurants just 48 hours after hearing the "flimsy claims" of a bookkeeper who later proved to be a criminal. But according to an exhibit filed by federal lawyers in Mr. Colaprete's lawsuit against the IRS agents, Virginia's Alcohol Beverage Commission began the investigation and "the search warrant affidavit makes it clear that the ABC had worked on the case for months and had gathered rather persuasive evidence of underreported income." "I think we all want to resolve problems that we've uncovered ... but that ought to be based on facts," said Mr. Conrad, "and the best way to get at facts is to get both sides of the story." Mr. Kerrey said SWAT-team tactics should be reserved for hard criminals, but "no drug kingpin or money launderer has a big flashing neon light on their forehead saying, 'I'm a drug kingpin and a money launderer.' They wear dark suits and red ties and they look normal. They live in many of our neighborhoods." Copyright =A9 1998 News World Communications, Inc. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** - - ------------------------------ End of roc-digest V2 #122 *************************