Sen. Lindsey Graham appeared to confirm this week one of the greatest fears for civil libertarians in the aftermath of the burning of the Qu’ran (Koran) by Rev. Terry Jones. With Muslims murdering innocent people as a protest to the book burning, Senator Graham has called for Congress to go hold people accountable for such acts. The message is clear and predictable: if someone’s exercise of free speech has caused problems, limit the free speech.
In the video above, Graham states “I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable.” He stresses “[f]ree speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, neither he nor his colleagues ever bothered to declare war. Likewise, Obama did not even consult with Congress before going to war in Libya.
Fortunately, the Constitution still exists to bar such impulses against free speech. Notably, however, China is arresting people who are viewed as destabilizing the country with their art and ideas. Now some members of Congress want to join countries in a type of criminal blasphemy law — an idea that Obama appeared to accept in supporting a resolution under pressure from Arab allies on protecting religion from critics.
Free speech is designed to protect us against our own leaders — like Sen. Graham. It is not enjoyed at the whim of the U.S. Senate. And, by the way, the diaper genie is a “great idea.” Free speech is what defines us as a people.
Jonathan Turley
That is how the Holocaust started. Contempt of court.
The prisons are run by the Attorney General not the courts. The USMS is a DOJ agency not a court agency.
What if Judge Nottingham had ordered me to sign over the deed to my house to him. He had no more authority to order me to go to jail for pursuing a lawsuit in another court than he had authority to order me to go to jail for not giving him my house.
The Supreme Court ruled in Tory v.Cochran that a court order can be tested in court through contempt. That was before Nottingham ordered me to go to jail for refusing to do what he wanted in other courts. I quoted that in court too or tried to but he cut me off in the middle saying that my 5 minutes was up.
Did you ever hear of the AntiInjunction Act?
Nottingham actually dictated to me what I should file and told me that I would be reimprisoned if I didn’t write what he told me when he told me and file it in the other court. He could just have easily ordered me to plead guilty to money laundering or counterfeiting or being a terrorist.
Did you ever hear of the Limitations to Detention Act?
a) No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.(b)(1) The control and management of Federal penal and correctional institutions, except military or naval institutions, shall be vested in the Attorney General, who shall promulgate rules for the government thereof, and appoint all necessary officers and
employees in accordance with the civil-service laws, the Classification Act, as amended, and the applicable regulations.
(2) The Attorney General may establish and conduct industries, farms, and other activities and classify the inmates; and provide for their proper government, discipline, treatment, care, rehabilitation, and reformation. 18 USC section 4001
metrocowboy:
I do to know what I am talking about. So there.
Kay,
You miss the premise…the judge jailed you for not doing something he under lawful command had the authority….if you do not like his order/ruling…your only avenue is to appeal…period…if you do not appeal the ruling….you are stuck with the order….period…no amount of whining is going to change the outcome…you were in fact held in contempt…for not either doing something the judge commanded or to not do…and because you did not do it…you went to jail…does that make sense? It is your action of not appealing it that resulted in your actual incarceration…how much plainer is it than that….You did not get a stay from enforcing the judges order right? So what are you complaining about…your own lack of action…right?
@ Buddah
The feds will not pay damages for constitutional violations except thru Bivens. According to the Cornell Legal Institute caselaw on federal immunity is contradictory and confusing. DOJ pled “immunity” to my claims under 42 USC 1985(2). The statutory way to get damages from the government is The Privacy Act. And the good thing about the Privacy Act is that it addresses the way the government works. Whether you consider the Privacy Act to be a primary or secondary authority it was passed by Congress and signed by the President.
As said by the USMS, former Judge Nottingham held me in contempt of court for filing a lawsuit in a different court. The lawsuit was a right guaranteed by the First Amendment, whether you agree with it or not. That was already decided by the District of Columbia in a case involving DOJ and The Privacy Act and posted by DOJ on its own website.
Using the same principle, a judge could hold a party in contempt for filing a lawsuit related to an election.
Congress regulates the power of contempt. U.S. judges don’t have authority to willy nilly hold people in contempt. In fact, DOJ published in the Federal Register that it doesn’t even jail people for contempt, that that is obsolete and people are only jailed for criminal acts. I can go find the Federal Register citation for you and you can read it for yourself since you choose to believe that anything I write is incorrect.
See Federal Rules Criminal Procedure Rule 42
Graham should read the writings of Sayd Qutb; he would perhaps then understand that from the viewpoint of the radical Islamists, no criticism of the religion, no denial of the Prophet or the truth of his Revelation, is tolerable. Cartoons of Muhammad, burning the Koran, attempting to convert a Muslim to Christianity, Judaism or atheism – it’s all the same thing. Be assured of this, then: if the West yields on Koran burning, it won’t satisfy the radical Islamists. They’ll riot over cartoons, or The Satanic Verses, or women’s schooling.
They don’t get to decide what is permissible free speech in our country. I don’t approve of what the nutty pastor did, but I will defend the right of Americans to burn any book they want (so long as they own the copy they burn), or the flag.
kay,
“What difference does it make whether The Privacy Act is a primary authority or a secondary authority?”
Again, demonstrating that you don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to the law. To be clear, by excerpts you yourself posted, you were jailed for contempt of court, not for exercising your free speech. A right that you regularly abuse here by trying to turn every thread’s subject into you and your case.
DECLARATION OF STEPHEN D. WALLISCH
I, Stephen D. Wallisch, declare as follows:
1. I am employed by the U.S. Marshals Service (“USMS”) as a Deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of Colorado, in Denver, Colorado. I have been employed as a Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of Colorado for 6 years and was employed as a Deputy U.S. Marshal for 11.5 years prior to that. My primary responsibilities are to oversee prisoner and court operations in the District of Colorado.
2. The information set forth in this declaration is based upon my personal knowledge and information obtained in the course of my employment. In the event that I am called as a witness, I could competently testify to the facts contained in this declaration.
3. On September 25, 2006, Judge Edward W. Nottingham of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Kay Sieverding for contempt of court.
4. The USMS is responsible for the execution of all lawful orders of the federal courts, including bench warrants. In this case, Deputy U.S. Marshal Roberto Rodriquez was assigned apprehension responsibilities for the bench warrant and the initiated the arrest of Ms. Sieverding
for the District of Colorado. In accordance with USMS policy, the bench warrant was entered into the USMS Warrant Information Network system of records and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center (“NCIC”) records.
5. Plaintiff sued the Colorado Bar Association (D. Colo., Civil Action No.02-CV-1950- EWN). She was taken into custody by order of Judge Nottingham on September 2, 2005, under a civil contempt violation until “she purges herself of the contempt of court by agreeing to voluntarily to dismiss the lawsuits.” She also had lawsuits in the District of Columbia and in the City and County of Denver.
6. Plaintiff spent her time in custody at Clear Creek County Jail, a local jail under contract to the USMS to house federal prisoners, from September 2, 2005, until January 4, 2006, a period of 124 days. On January 4, 2006, Judge Nottingham ordered her released that day after she agreed to the conditions of dropping her lawsuits.
7. Plaintiff was also arrested and released on February 8, 2006, when she turned herself in to the USMS in Madison, Wisconsin, for further contempt violations ordered by Judge Nottingham.
8. Plaintiff was arrested again on May 10, 2007, on further contempt violations ordered by Judge Nottingham. The USMS transported her back by commercial airline on May 31, 2007.
On June 1, 2007, she appeared before Judge Nottingham and was then released.
9. Relevant and necessary records regarding Ms. Sieverding were prepared and maintained in the USMS Warrant Information Network (WIN) and Prisoner Population Management/Prisoner Tracking Systems (PTS) of records.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true
and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Dated: May 29, 2009 /s/ Stephen D. Wallisch
STEPHEN D. WALLISCH
Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal
District of Columbia Federal Court case 09-cv-0562
document 8-4 available on PACER
Dear M.S.Huiner
I am sorry that you think it is “boring” that I was imprisoned by our government for exercising rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Maybe you will be thankful that I engaged in this boring work if it protects you.
I am the ONLY person on this blog who has been studying and referencing The Privacy Act. It is the ONLY mechanism to stop the federal government from unauthorized possession of our First Amendment Records — whether they are lawsuits, letters, or picketing.
To be perfectly honest, I think it is boring too but I feel that it is so important that I have to pursue it even though it is boring.
Dear Kay,
I read this site every day. I learn quite a bit from the discussions here, but I rarely post as I am here to learn. I may just be speaking for myself here, but I doubt it, when I ask you to quit rehashing your case over and over every chance you get. I do not find it productive that you seem to take Mr. Turley’s very interesting blog and make it all about you. It’s BORING. Stop it. Thank you.
M.S.Huiner
Buddha,
Right, he’s wrapping himself in the symbol, not the thing.
Rcampbell,
We haven’t been involved in a War since WWII.
A wee bit OT but I thought it kinda relevant … and pretty damned funny …
Tuesday, Apr 5, 2011 08:30 ET
War Room The right just doesn’t get journalism
By Alex Pareene
Oh, good, Karl Rove started his own WikiLeaks. A conservative WikiLeaks. This WikiLeaks is about “transparency” and exposing malfeasance by the Obama administration. It’s also not about “leaks,” at all: It is made up of documents obtained via FOIA requests, that citizen journalists (vetted by Rove’s Crossroads GPS group, obviously) will sift through and analyze. It is called “Wikicountability.”
And it’s gonna bring down this corrupt administration with bombshells like these:
The site is clearly a work in progress: while it publishes new articles each day, they come from only a few contributors. It began with some documents that set the tone: a list of union leaders who were met in 2009 by the secretary of labor, Hilda Solis, and the production costs for an advertisement for Medicare featuring Andy Griffith ($404,000).
The Labor secretary met with labor leaders? Stop the electronic presses!
So many professional conservatives don’t really understand how journalism works, when it works. They really only “get” its cousin, propaganda.
I am always in favor of more document dumps and FOIA requests and damning information about our government, but the obvious purpose of Wikicountability is to foment misleading talking points.
Well, actually, the point of Wikicountability is to allow Rove’s nonprofit “educational” 501(c)(4) to maintain its nonprofit status by pretending to be doing something nonpolitical with 50 percent of the money they’ve raised from secret donors. And, yes, it is painfully ironic that a Rove’s anonymously funded independent shadow-RNC is now launching a make-believe “transparency” campaign.
It’s a half-baked idea that will either fizzle out entirely (filing FOIA requests is boring work, especially for non-professional journalists) or simply exist as yet another source of the memes and myths that make up the fever-swamp that is the alternate conservative media. If a Wikicountability piece ends up forming the basis of some overhyped pseudo-scandal that Megyn Kelly can sneer about for a week before dropping it entirely once it’s outlived its usefulness, then: Mission Accomplished.
I’m not looking for noble goals from political hacks dabbling in journalism (or scare-quotes “journalism,” no one is entirely sure of the difference anymore). But I do detect a fundamental difference between the way (most) liberals and (most) conservatives play the entire rigged game: For way too many conservative outlets, the attempt to figure out the truth about a situation takes a decided back seat to the real goal, which is “point-scoring.”
This is epitomized, of course, by Andrew Breitbart, who publishes an astounding amount of poorly written garbage on his various sites while railing about the poor standards of the dreaded MSM. But even the “respectable” right-wing sites — National Review, cough cough — regularly publish patent nonsense about creeping sharia law and the New Black Panther Party.
The problem is that right-wingers — especially campaign hacks like Rove and true believers like Breitbart — have internalized the “liberal media” attack line. In their imaginings, simple bias has mutated into active malice. So when right-wingers form their own media, they use the model that they imagine the MSM works under. Advance your cause by any means necessary.
It is such a classic right-wing hack response to seeing the successes of a site like WikiLeaks to think to yourself, “What we need is a ‘conservative version’ of that that exists to manipulate FOIA documents into compelling attacks against Barack Obama.'”
And that name! Wikicountability. Finally, a Wiki devoted to … counting things. A database of user-generated information about Count von Count. Restoring “icountability” to the White House. You get the idea.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More: Alex Pareene
http://www.salon.com/news/karl_rove/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/04/05/rove_wikileaks_journalism
Graham’s nonsense is yet another example of the fact that many, if not most of our Congress has little idea of what the Constitution stands for and that this ignorance includes our Executive & Judicial Branches. Do they even care for that matter? They are in the D.C. bubble which deems itself made up of “serious” and “knowing” people, with more information than the rest of us innocent, simpletons.
The macabre joke is that inside that self congratulatory bubble, they lack any rational idea of the world that surrounds them. I think most of them are decidedly not Machiavellian (a much misunderstood political philosopher), but simply ignorantly drunk on power and their own ridiculous suppositions.
As for the war’s necessity part of the equation, George Orwell was again prescient, though he got the dates wrong as to 1984 (on the other hand Reagan was in power), in that totalitarianism maintains control if it creates a permanent state of “war” and
xenophobia to justify its excesses and keep its people in a
permanent state of fear.
@ Buddha
What difference does it make whether The Privacy Act is a primary authority or a secondary authority? DOJ claims it has immunity for claims under 42 USC 1985(2) and immunity for First Amendment Retaliation Bivens claims. However, there is statutory authority to sue them under The Privacy Act and if they want they can join 42 USC 1985(2) defendants.
What “got me into trouble” was former judge Edward Nottingham who did not issue a memorandum opinion when he dismissed my case and who claimed an injunction without a Rule 65 motion and who claimed Rule 11 sanctions without a Rule 11 c. 6 order or an order to show cause. According to an affidavit discussed on 9 News of Denver, when he was in charge of my case he was getting a quantity discount on prostitution services. And according to the 10th Circuit he was calling prostitutes on his court cell phone. And according to articles all over the mainstream media his wife found one and only one receipt for the Diamond Cabaret and for porno but no receipts for prostitution or other visits to the Diamond Cabaret where AP already reported that the manager, a Mr. Frankell, recognized him as a a repeat customer. USCourts published his financial disclosures which show him as having no investment income. His after tax income must have been about 100K so how could he afford prostitutes? The U.S. Attorney in Colorado is currently prosecuting a Brenda Stewart for income tax evasion for managing the Denver Players brothel. According to 9 News they served a search warrant on Microsoft to get the email records of the Denver Players and they got Nottingham’s cell phone number, he was a customer, and the credit cards of various lawyers.
The other problem that I had was naming my tort — First Amendment Retaliatory Criminal Prosecution. That was recognized by the Supreme Court in Hartman v. Moore in 2006, three years AFTER I filed my complaint. In 2007, the 10th Circuit recognized the tort of First Amendment Retaliation in a NonEmployment Context. The only caselaw they cited besides Hartman was a very old prisoner rights case. By 2005 I did use the term First Amendment Retaliation. I relied on The Law of Torts by Dan Dobbs, Prosser and Keeton on Torts, and Causes of Action journal when I wrote my original complaint. None of those used the succinct term “First Amendment Retaliation”.
Quoting a legal authority is not at all the same as “pretending to be a legal authority”. Look at all the lawyers who quote authorities about finance and medicine. Are they pretending to be financial authorities or medical authorities? I am standing up for my rights the best I can.
I saw a law firm website that specializes in the cases of people who were imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. They only take a few cases from around the country. Obviously there are a lot of people with that problem and that claim that they don’t take. Are those people to get no remedy?
AY,
“I wonder if the same can be said when the good Senator spits…”
Lol … I don’t even think I want to know!
kay,
I said they are distinct rights in and of themselves. I then referred you to the appropriate sections of the Constitution. What you are referring to is evidentiary and procedural, not the fundamental source of the rights proper. The difference being I cited primary authority and not secondary authority. You should really quit pretending you’re a legal expert when by your own admission you are not. If you were, you’d know the difference between primary and secondary authority. I recall that it was thinking that you are a legal expert that got you in trouble in the first place.
My question is….Is there anybody in our government that believes in our constitution? I would never know it by the words and actions of our elected officials…from the top down.
OH! and Rump Wrangler As a out gay man I think your an idiot and shouldn’t speak unless you know what your talking about..
SL,
I wonder if the same can be said when the good Senator spits…
@Buddha
Actually Bill, lawsuits are recognized as First Amendment acts. I didn’t make this up. For the purpose of suing the government under the Privacy Act’s subsection (e)(7) that has already been decided and is on DOJ’s own website in its case law entitled “OVERVIEW OF THE PRIVACY ACT OF 1974, 2010 EDITION”. It’s on a http://www.justice.gov website. That is a long document about the Privacy Act, which is a long law with 24 subsections all with many clauses. In DOJ’s case law report there is a long section about e (7), which concerns unauthorized government possession of First Amendment records. It says
Krieger v. DOJ, 529 F. Supp. 2d 29, 51-52(D.D.C. 2008) (finding that documents announcing speeches to be given by plaintiff and complaints filed by plaintiff against his former law firm described how plaintiff exercises First Amendment rights)
A 5 USC § 552a (e) (7) claim doesn’t require that the lawsuit records be in a system of records either. All it has to be is unauthorized possession of the records.
I am not a lawyer, but I have by now read the Privacy Act many times, plus the DOJ case-law report is really useful in understanding the law.
Henman – to quote the late, much needed now, George Carlin: “PULL OUT? I don’t know Bill, it doesn’t sound manly to me.”
Totally ignored by the geniuses that led us into this catastrophe (or just cheer-led – in a manly way of course – from the sidelines) is one simple fact; 10 years ago Iran was held in check by hostile regimes on both its East and West borders. The US has kindly removed both those obstacles to their dominance of the Middle East. Another giant flustercuck from Boy Blunder and His Super Friends.
O/T Very funny
Victory Lapse – Obama Transparency Award
The media is not allowed to attend the meeting where President Obama receives an award for transparency. (04:20)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/