THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
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Showing posts with label BLM-Bureau of Land Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BLM-Bureau of Land Management. Show all posts
President Trump pardoned the two ranchers whose re-incarceration sparked the 2016 armed takeover of an Oregon national wildlife refuge.
Dwight and Steven Hammond’s pardon was overdue and unjust according to the White House’s press secretary, Sara Sanders.
“The Hammonds are devoted family men, respected contributors to their local community, and have widespread support from their neighbors, local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers across the West,” said Sanders. “Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency.”
The two Hammond brothers were convicted of arson on federal land in 2012 after conducting a controlled burn and served less time than demanded by a 1996 anti-terrorism law.
Later, in 2015, a judge resentenced the Hammond brothers to serve the mandatory minimum sentence of five years which sparked an armed protest in Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge from Jan 2. to Feb. 11, 2016.
The protest was organized by Ammon Bundy and a dozen others who said the Hammond brothers were victims of federal overreach.
A White House official statement did not refer to the fire as arson, but rather a fire that leaked to a small portion of neighboring land.
“The Hammonds are multi-generation cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land,” said White House. “The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges.”
Furthermore, an official from an agriculture advocacy group celebrated the pardon and blasted the decision to force the brothers to return to prison.
“I’ve had great attorneys tell me this is the most malicious prosecution they’ve ever seen,” said the official. “The travesty is what they were tried under. Not whether they started a fire.”
The president has five pardons under his administration that include documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and former Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio.
In
an effort to make defendants from the Bunkerville standoff look as
dangerous as possible, Judge Navarro is allowing the prosecution to
cherry pick and edit social media posts made years after the event —
e.g. redacting any discussion of the importance of vetting dangerous
lunatics like Jared Miller, but taking a mention of McVeigh out of
context and emphasizing his name to smear the defendants. Meanwhile,
anything that would touch on the violence, threats and censorship of the
BLM is omitted by the judge and the prosecutors went so far as to say
militias are illegal.
Roger Stone: Trump's Friend Calls For POTUS To Pardon Obama Admin Political Prisoners
Trump friend and advisor Roger Stone calls for the full pardon of 14
Obama Admin political prisoners. Stone and Infowars are going to launch a
petition to call for President Donald Trump to research their case and
issue a pardon.
Roger Stone's Epic Speech For Bundy
Political Prisoners
Roger Stone speaks from the STAND! Event held in Las Vegas, Nevada on
July 15, 2017. The event sought to bring a greater awareness to the
political corruption suspending the rights of the Bundy family who have
been held for expressing their First Amendment protected grievances for
over 17 months.
Government Agents, Not Bundys, Were The Criminals
Govt Is Not God? Trump Needs To Tell Bundy Judge
Published on Jul 28, 2017
Trump
tweeted “Government is Not God” and he was right to point out the
founding principles of our country in the Declaration of Independence.
We have God-given rights, not govt granted privileges. But those
principles need to be put into practice in the trials of political
prisoners who were exercising their right to peaceful assembly, to
redress grievances, to legally keep and bear arms. The judge, however,
is acting like God — forbidding any discussion of the actions of the BLM
and keeping the jury in the dark.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
“This arrogant act by a lame duck president will not stand,” tweeted
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) in reaction to President Barack Obama
designating two national monuments Wednesday at sites in Nevada and in
Lee’s home state of Utah.
Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on
Environmental Quality, stated that the action will not allow any new
mining or oil and gas development within the monument boundaries.
The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah designation adds even more
land to the control of the federal government, covering 1.35 million
acres in the Four Corners region. While Lee and many other residents of
the states affected by Obama’s latest executive order reacted angrily,
conservationists were ecstatic.
The proposed monument is located in between existing national parks
and the Navajo Indian Reservation. Navajo Nation President Russell
Begaye called it an exciting day for members of his tribe. “We have
always looked to Bears Ears as a place of refuge, as a place where we
can gather herbs and medicinal plants, and a place of prayer and
sacredness,” he said. “The rocks, the winds, the land — they are living,
breathing things that deserve timely and lasting protection.”
Today, the federal government owns two-third of the land in Utah. In
the case of Bears Ears, the federal government will “co-manage” the land
not with the state of Utah, but rather with five tribes: the Hopi, the
Navajo Nation, the Uintah-Ouray Utes, the Ute Mountain Ute, and the
Pueblo of Zuni. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called the action by Obama “an
astonishing and egregious abuse of executive power," which indicated to
him that “far-left special interest groups matter more to him than the
people who have lived on and cared for Utah’s lands for generations.”
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) also expressed his disapproval of
Obama's actions: "The midnight move is a slap in the face to the people
of Utah, attempting to silence the voices of those who will bear the
heavy burden it imposes. It does not have the support of the governor, a
single member of the state’s congressional delegation, nor any local
elected officials or state legislators who represent the area." Such disrespect for the wishes of the population and its elected
officials of the area affected is yet another indication of the low
regard in which the Obama administration holds the principle of
federalism. Utah's Attorney General Sean Reyes has promised to sue over
the action.
In Nevada, the Gold Butte National Monument has been a site of
controversy for more than 15 years. Environmentalists have worked
feverishly to stop the expansion of Las Vegas in order to protect
various indigenous species such as the desert tortoise. Local cattle
rancher Cliven Bundy made national news when he refused to recognize the
authority of the federal government over the land, eventually engaging
in an armed standoff with officials of the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) in 2014. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and U.S. Senator Dean Heller, both
Republicans, contend that it is Congress that should make land
designations, not the president. But Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the
retiring Democrat leader in the U.S. Senate, actually pushed for the
designation for the remote area northeast of Lake Mead, claiming it's "a
wonderful capstone to [my] career of fighting to protect Nevada’s
pristine landscapes.”
Obama said his action will “protect some of our country’s most
important cultural treasures, including abundant rock art,
archaeological sites, and lands considered sacred by Native American
tribes. Today’s actions will help protect this cultural legacy and will
ensure that future generations are able to enjoy and appreciate these
scenic and historic landscapes.”
He defended the legality of his designation of 1.35 million acres as
now off-limits to new energy development and recreation by citing the
1906 Antiquities Act, a law passed during the Progressive Era in which
Congress gave up power to the president to designate national monuments
on his own, without approval from Congress. The Antiquities Act was
passed at the urging of progressive Republican President Theodore
Roosevelt, a strong believer not only in government taking over private
land “to conserve it,” but also in increasing the power of the
president. He argued that a president should be able to do anything that
he is not forbidden to do under the Constitution, and is therefore
generally regarded as the one most responsible for changing the office
of president into what is now called “the Imperial Presidency.”
Interestingly, Homer Cummings, the U.S. attorney general for
President Franklin Roosevelt, issued an opinion in 1938 that while
presidents could remove land from private use under the 1906 law, they
could not reverse such executive actions. Republicans in Congress,
incensed at Obama’s repeated use of executive orders to circumvent the
will of Congress, are threatening to change the law in January.
While Franklin Roosevelt used the law to limit use of land in the
West the most during his 12 years in office, Obama has taken the most
land: 554,590,000 acres. this latest action is the 29th time Obama has
used the power to create national monuments.
Only William Howard Taft has reduced the amount of land taken by the
federal government (only 500 acres). Only four presidents did not use
the power at all — Warren Harding, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and
George H.W. Bush. Gerald Ford added a mere 90 acres.
It appears that Obama is doing his best to take as many actions as he
can to advance his progressive viewpoint in the little time he has left
in office. For example, he has blocked additional mining outside of
Yellowstone National Park, and has stopped new oil drilling in the
Arctic Ocean. Donald Trump is slated to take the oath of office as the
45th president on January 20, 2017, and environmentalists have expressed
deep concern that he will attempt to alter Obama’s land “protections.”
This is an opportunity for the Republicans, who now control both
houses of Congress, and the White House to rein in both the excessive
power of the Imperial Presidency, and the policy of the federal
government controlling more and more land in the western states. Whether
they will actually do so remains to be seen.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
This is a true story about one of Americas most courageous families.
Controversy is state I’ve learned to live with, a badge of honor that
often stings. It’s a badge the Bundy family possesses in abundance,
because you stand up, you will always be attacked. My brother and I
stood with the Bundy’s in 2014; we saw the truth and we felt the danger.
When Oregon happened there was no question in our minds that these men
and woman deserved the support of all who love liberty. Their message
was pure. But much of America did not feel the same. Why?
Like many activists and prisoners, from patriots to the natives. The
hate for the Bundy’s comes from lies who’s intent is to make the story
of a warrior misunderstood. Our “justice” system goes to great lengths
to ensure the real story does not reach the masses. This works because
we don’t really want to know how bad it is. That’s why it’s important to
share a story no matter how you feel about a person. Watch it and make
sure others do the same, sending it to those who know and to those who
do not.
People often say, there’s nothing we can do. But I do something every
day and if you will set aside differences and do something with me, we
will set this nation free.
Many don’t know that these men are still in
prison. That they are abused and even tortured by prison staff,
disregarded by judges and lied about in media propaganda. This is not a
story of privileged white ranchers. This is a story about every falsely
imprisoned man and woman, black or white, Christian or Muslim, liberal
or conservative. A story about the way they suffer every day.
This is HD version that includes all 3 parts. I’ll want to share a
little of how it happened, but more importantly I want you do to
something. Any of you can make a video, show up somewhere, call a
prison, support the suffering or interrupt a meeting of entitled
politicians to speak the truth. It’s what America was built on.
When Ammon Bundy asked me to record this story for the world, I knew
it was important. Ammon had been working for some time on articulating
the real story of his family and those who stood with them. It needed to
be open, honest and brief. As always, Ammon had the words, we just
needed to do something with them. I figured I would add some stills and
video and we’ll push it out. Once I realized what Ammon had poured into
this message, I saw a real documentary of Americas darkest times. What
resulted took the last three months to finish.
Sound comes first so I setup the call in over my computer versus
cellular because quality is a problem. Even at that it took a lot of
post production to get the final sound, which still sounds like a phone,
but not like a the bad jail phone that it is. We had to work to try and
restore some of the richness to his voice, but you still know that it’s
coming coming a cement prison.
At times Ammon was frustrated, distracted by jail noise, reading on
scribbles notes on top of notes. I have been on the inside trying to get
a messages out from a jail; it is utterly exhausting in way that you
can only know by being there. But Ammon just kept calling back until we
had it all.
Next came video. We needed the story and we needed footage to match
the story. The Bundy’s and others had clips of critical moments, but
there had to be more, so my family and I went to Nevada and camped out
for days trying to capture the essence of the ranch. The crowning moment
of that was the last evening, the one where you see the Bundy cowboys
riding off into the Sunset and the birds flying over the Virgin river.
It my 20 years of filming I have never had a shot like those birds. I
was glad Carol pushed the boys to saddle up and me to break out the
cameras again that final night.
Then came the hard part. As I reviewed the project I realized how
much was required and we started collecting more photos, more footage
and more of the key bits that took this from a phone call to a full
documentary that we had to mix around with work at my Studio that pays the bills.
Fine tuning a project of this scale and then laying in a good
soundtrack takes time. Sometimes people complain about the music in a
video, but it’s essential to the emotion of a story because it coneys in
part what you lack in the story by not being there. I was at Bundy
ranch, I know what it felt like, but many do not and that has to be told
not only with words but with sound in order to even partially convey
the truth of it.
This is not just a story about the Bundy’s. It’s the story of the
struggle every man woman and child in America must face. Freedom, or
slavery. I think the finished result is beautiful. I’m always amazed by
how well Ammon speaks and even though he could not be here in person,
together we managed to defy the evil of our court system in a small way
and make a story for the world that is brief, compelling and most of
all, the truth.
Thanks for for spreading this message.You can share or embed the
video and if you need to you can download and re-post it so long as it’s
not being sold or used for profit.
If you want to contribute my my work and expenses visit my donation page. To donate to the Bundy family go here. ___________________________________________________
Cliven Bundy And The Truth About
The Bundy Family History.
CLIVEN BUNDY'S DAUGHTER: MY FAMILY IS BEING TREATED LIKE RAPISTS/MURDERERS.
As Jeanette outlines in this video, when they silenced LaVoy’s voice they bore 12 more; as LaVoy’s children and family have now become active in the movement for Constitutional principles.
There are not many who would consider themselves members of the Patriot Community who have not heard about the murder of LaVoy Finicum. To recap, LaVoy Finicum, along with various members of the Bundy family, were involved in the peaceful occupation of the Malheur Refuge in Oregon this past winter.
As seen in the video released by “authorities,” LaVoy exited the vehicle in an apparent attempt to draw gunfire away from his traveling companions. Sadly, LaVoy was executed for his actions. Deserving, perhaps, a ticket for Trespassing, LaVoy Finicum was basically murdered for taking a peaceful stand against the Federal Government. LaVoy’s death, however, was not in vain, as countless patriots have mobilized and are taking action as a direct result his criminal execution. One prominent member of the Finicum family, LaVoy’s widow, Jeanette, has picked up the torch and is taking action.
One can only imagine the pain involved with losing a spouse; especially one as beloved as LaVoy Finicum was to his wife and family. When faced with such adversity, there are a few paths that a person can choose. Taking a stand and getting into the fight is the path that Jeanette Finicum and her family have taken. As Jeanette outlines in the video below, when they silenced LaVoy’s voice they bore 12 more; as LaVoy’s children and family have now become active in the movement for Constitutional principles.
Please take the time to watch the heart-wrenching video below, as Jeanette Finicum recounts her love for LaVoy and recalls the last thing he said to her before he left for Oregon.
EVIDENCE AND SHELL CASINGS DISAPPEARED; "RANCHER MEMORIAL RUN" PLANNED, PLUS ANOTHER FUND RAISER
STATIST FEDS & POLICE OPEN FIRE ON PATRIOTS WITHOUT ANY PROVOCATION
SLOW MOTION VIDEO:
RANCHER LAVOY FINICUM'S FAMILY: NEW VIDEO RELEASED SHOWS POLICE & FBI SHOOTING WAS MURDER
The release last week of video footage taken from the cellphone of a passenger inside the pickup truck driven by Arizona rancher Robert LaVoy Finicum provides dramatic new evidence of the final minutes and seconds before he wasshot to death at a roadblock near Burns, Oregon, on January 26.
It also shows, for the first time, the tense situation for the survivors huddled inside the pickup, as the shooting by the FBI and Oregon State Police (OSP) continued.
The video, which was released by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office at a press conference on March 8, shows the new footage as an inset within the already well-known FBI footage taken from an aerial camera and released by the FBI on January 28.
As The New American previously reported, the FBI video, because it is shaky, jumpy, blurry, is of poor resolution, and has no sound, raises more questions than provides answers. It does not, for example, answer the vital questions concerning when the firing began and how many shots were fired. (Government officials acknowledge that neither Mr. Finicum nor any other occupants of his vehicle fired any weapons, although the incident was widely reported, initially, as a "gunfight.") Nor does the newly released video definitively resolve the key issue as to whether Mr. Finicum’s hand motion was the result of reaching for a gun (the FBI/OSP version), which, allegedly, was in his pocket, or was reaching toward his side due to having already been shot (the Finicum family’s version).
The new video footage, which was taken by Shawna Cox, has been unavailable until now, since it was confiscated by the FBI when she was arrested along with the other passengers in Finicum’s truck. Mrs. Cox’s video, which is of good quality, provides important audio and imagery evidence, but still does not definitively resolve key issues, such as the disputed significance of Finicum’s hand motion, which goes directly to the matter of the use of deadly force.
The main takeaway from the March 8 press conference — the message that was blared in headlines in the establishment media — was that the shooting of Finicum, a leader of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, was “justified.” Shane Nelson, the Deschutes County sheriff, told the assembled news organizations: “We have determined that eight shots were fired on that day, six of which have been attributed to the Oregon State Police, including the three shots that resulted in the death of Mr. Finicum, and two shots which were fired by the HRT [FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team] operators.”
“Of the eight shots fired, the six fired by the Oregon State Police were justified and, in fact, necessary,” said Malheur County District Attorney Dan Norris, who led the investigation and joined Sheriff Nelson at the press conference. “My legal obligation under Oregon law is to review the six shots fired by the Oregon State Police," Norris said. "The Inspector General of the US Department of Justice will review the actions taken by the HRT operators.”
As reported by The Oregonian, this official acknowledgement of the FBI’s HRT involvement in the shooting has caught some people by surprise and further undermines the federal government’s credibility in the matter. “An FBI agent is suspected of lying about firing twice at Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum and may have gotten help from four other FBI agents in covering up afterward, authorities revealed Tuesday,” The Oregonian stated.
“The bullets didn't hit Finicum and didn't contribute to his death,” The Oregonian story continued, “but now all five unnamed agents, part of an elite national unit, are under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is leading the independent inquiry.”
The Oregonian also provides a slow motion video of what is believed to be a bullet from the FBI HRT piercing the passenger door and window as Finicum exits the vehicle with his hands held up.
Sheriff Nelson disputed statements by the two women who were released after the Finicum shooting, Shawna Cox and Victoria Sharp, both of whom said that over a hundred shots were fired by law enforcement personnel. “After Mr. Finicum was shot,” he stated, “numerous gas projectiles and flash bangs were deployed to get the remaining occupants of the truck, Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, and Victoria Sharp, to surrender peacefully but, again, only eight shots were fired.”
It will take sophisticated analysis of the sound recording from the Cox video to determine whether or not the claim of “only eight shots” holds up, or whether additional potentially lethal rounds are detectable among the sounds of “numerous gas projectiles and flash bangs” going off. The Finicum family says it has its own experts analyzing the video to reach their own conclusion.
LaVoy Finicum’s widow, Jeanette Finicum, held a press conference on March 8 in St. George, Utah, to counter the official press conference in Oregon. Reading a prepared statement, Mrs. Finicum emphatically reiterated her earlier statements that her husband had been “murdered,” that the FBI/OSP road block was an “ambush,” a “kill stop.”
The federal and state authorities, she said, “continue to bring forward selective evidence.” However, she reminded her audience, “As in all such situations there is another side to this story.” She stated that the Finicum family categorically rejected, among other things, the charge renewed by authorities earlier in the day that LaVoy Finicum was shot because of the belief that he was going for a gun in his pocket. After addressing several of the points made by Sheriff Nelson, District Attorney Norris and others at the Oregon press conference, she announced that she would have a more detailed response, as well as an opportunity for journalists to ask questions, the following day, March 9.
In her March 9 press conference, Jeanette Finicum did take questions. She also restated her belief that her husband had attempted to protect the other occupants of the vehicle after he had already been fired upon and it had become apparent that the law enforcement officers were intent on shooting him.
"My lawyers have already discussed with me how the facts will show that the officers intended to shoot LaVoy, how an informant arranged for him to be in the lead truck, how the officers started shooting at the truck to force it to stop and then, finally, how my husband gave himself up in order to draw attention away from the others in the truck."
Mrs. Finicum also brought up again an important point that was not addressed by the official press federal/state conference on March 8: Ryan Bundy, who was in LaVoy Finicum’s truck when the shooting/arrest occurred was also wounded, but that bullet has not been accounted for. Also, although the released Shawna Cox video has shed important light on the shooting incident, there is still the need to verify that all of her video has been released. According to third parties interviewed by The New American, Mrs. Cox has said that there should be additional video that hasn’t been released by authorities. (For a video interview of Shawna Cox following her release from jail, see here.)
In addition, there should be video from Ryan Bundy’s cellphone, and as The New American has pointed out, video-audio-photo evidence from bodycams and dashcams of the police/FBI participants in the Finicum shooting. None of these important sources of evidence has been made available yet to the public, nor even been referenced in official statements or press coverage.
New cellphone footage from inside the car that LaVoy Finicum was driving moments before he was shot shows what really happened after he was forced off the road.
Pete Santilli arrested. 1/26/2016. Santiilli was taken into custody while trying to ask permission to drive down to the Malheur wildlife refuge and peacefully remove the occupiers!
After arresting and charging radio host Pete Santilli (shown) with “conspiracy” in connection with his reporting on the occupation of the Oregon wildlife refuge, the federal government has sparked an outcry that is making headlines across America and even overseas. Indeed, the growing concerns over the free-speech implications have united critics ranging from the statist American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the liberty-oriented Rutherford Institute. The biggest concern, activists and critics of the case say, is that the federal government is trampling on the rights to free speech and freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Critics of the prosecution also contend that the case is an ominous sign that the federal government is going off the rails.
Santilli, who hosts a popular talk-radio show on Talk Network News, reported live from the Bundy ranch amid the standoff with federal agents, and more recently, from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon occupied by protesters. Media reports noted that he was the first journalist to report on the fatal shooting by law enforcement of occupation spokesman and rancher LaVoy Finicum. Santilli was also among the numerous individuals at the occupation who were ultimately arrested in recent weeks. Like a dozen of the “occupiers,” Santilli was charged with “conspiracy” to “impede federal officers,” a vague and controversial Civil War-era charge that has been criticized — especially when applied to a radio host serving as an embedded journalist amid the protest against the persecution of two local ranchers and the broader federal assault on liberty, property, and the Constitution.
When Santilli was asked about his role in relation to the occupation, he made clear that speech was at the center of it. “My role is the same here that it was at the Bundy ranch. To talk about the constitutional implications of what is going on here. The Constitution cannot be negotiated,” he was quoted as saying. “What we need, most importantly, is one hundred thousand unarmed men and women to stand together. It is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal.... I’m not armed. I am armed with my mouth. I’m armed with my live stream. I’m armed with a coalition of like-minded individuals who sit at home on YouTube and watch this.” The county sheriff even wrote a note thanking Santilli for going on air and urging spectators across the country to stop making threats.
A video of Santilli's January 26 arrest that was posted to YouTube sparked alarm early on. The clip shows Santilli calmly and respectfully speaking with law enforcement officers while attempting to negotiate a peaceful exit of women and children from the occupied federal compound. “There are women and children there, we know this — quite a few,” Santilli says. “Please allow us to go up there and get them,” he tells the officers. One of the officers responds: “We appreciate the offer ... give us a few minutes to discuss it.” Seemingly without provocation, the officers eventually grab the journalist and inform him that he is under arrest. Despite repeated questioning about the reason, no charge is offered, either to Santilli or to the cameraman who filmed the incident, though the existence of a federal warrant was the likely cause.
Eventually, Santilli ended up being held in Portland, Oregon, and was denied bail. His defense attorney argued that Santilli has a pattern of complying with police orders and no history of violence. “Everything the government is claiming against him is based upon either his speech or his using speech to assemble people,” said his attorney, Thomas Coan. However, according to media reports, U.S. District Chief Judge Michael W. Mosman decided to keep Santilli behind bars pending his trial due to statements he has made on his talk show over the years. Among other controversial statements, Santilli reportedly said he would shoot anyone who came through his door in the middle of the night during a discussion on “no-knock warrants,” something that juries have found justified in the past. He also reportedly said in an episode of his show that he would rather kill or be killed than allow himself to be arrested, Courthouse News Service reported without elaborating.
The federal judge spoke of the supposed difficulty in trying to determine whether the “shock jock” was making genuine threats or simply creating a media personality and spouting off. “I have to decide whether the defendant should be taken at his word or not as a shock jock, making the inflammatory statements that one would have to make to create an audience,” Mosman was quoted as saying during a hearing for Santilli earlier this month. In the end, the judge concluded that Santilli's on-air statements showed he might pose a threat to U.S. Marshals if released while awaiting trial on the “conspiracy” charge. So, for now, Santilli remains behind bars. If convicted, he could remain in prison for six years.
But critics from across the political spectrum are speaking out. The ACLU was clear in stating that it did not agree with either the occupiers or “shock jock” Santilli. But it still expressed serious concerns about the case. “Although it may be easy to form a negative opinion about the tactics used by the people involved in the occupation, it is much harder to assess the government’s response,” the ACLU of Oregon said in a statement posted on its website. “We have been watching how one of the people arrested, Pete Santilli, has been treated in court and we have real concerns. It is in this context that the ACLU of Oregon is compelled to speak out, not because we endorse the messages of the speaker or condone the tactics of the protesters.”
Mat dos Santos, who serves as legal director for the ACLU of Oregon, also expressed concerns about the government's actions in the Santilli case. After the obligatory remarks distancing himself from Santilli's “politically polarizing” statements which are “downright offensive” to some, Dos Santos noted that there were bigger issues at stake. Among other concerns, he noted that Santilli's press coverage “was the basis for his arrest warrant as well as a threadbare indictment on a charge of conspiracy to impede federal officers by use of force, intimidation and threats.”
Santilli “challenges government authority through brazen, political statements,” Dos Santos said. “But does he pose a real threat? That’s the question asked of a federal judge last week: Should Pete Santilli remain in custody while awaiting his criminal trial for charges related to the Malheur Refuge takeover? While many people might disagree with statements made by those involved in the Malheur takeover, Americans have a fundamental right to freedom of speech. Law enforcement can and should differentiate between controversial statements and real threats. What’s at stake here could indeed be larger than a radio personality’s career, Malheur and Oregon.”
“Situations like this — where words alone are used to label a speaker so dangerous or somehow threatening as to warrant the deprivation of his liberty — demand the highest caution,” Dos Santos continued. “Where there is any question, we should err on the side of the speaker.” He added that it was especially troubling to see the prosecution use statements made months or even years ago to make a case against the radio host. “If all of our statements can be cherry-picked and strung together over a number of years to label us a 'danger,' we risk silencing our civil discourse,” the state ACLU legal director said, adding that respecting the line between beliefs and criminal activity strengthens security.
Speaking out more forcefully in defense of Santilli's right to free speech was constitutional attorney John Whitehead with the liberty-minded Rutherford Institute. In a piece lambasting the prosecution and the growing federal assaults on protected rights, Whitehead said Santilli's viewpoint — that government has overstepped its bounds — is what landed him in jail. And that is not acceptable. The civil-liberties lawyer also pointed out that Santilli was the only journalist charged with conspiracy despite not participating in the takeover of the refuge, never spending the night there, and never representing himself as anything other than a journalist.
“Of course, the government doesn’t actually believe that 50-year-old Santilli is an accomplice to any criminal activity,” Whitehead wrote. “Read between the lines and you’ll find that what the government is really accusing Santilli of is employing dangerous speech. As court documents indicate, the government is prosecuting Santilli solely as a reporter of information. In other words, they’re making an example of him, which is consistent with the government’s ongoing efforts to intimidate members of the media who portray the government in a less than favorable light.”
All of these developments should be troubling to all Americans, with Whitehead saying that the targeting of Santilli “signals a broadening of the government’s efforts to suppress what it considers dangerous speech and stamp out negative coverage.” “The message is clear: whether a journalist is acting alone or is affiliated with an established news source, the government has no qualms about subjecting them to harassment, arrest, jail time and trumped up charges if doing so will discourage others from openly opposing or exposing the government,” the attorney said, pointing to the arrest of establishment media journalists covering protests in recent years. Whitehead also cited speech by America's founders, including violent rhetoric in defense of liberty, to show how mild Santilli's comments were by comparison.
“You see, the powers-that-be understand that if the government can control speech, it controls thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry,” the prominent freedom-defending attorney continued. “Where the government has gone wrong is in hinging its case against Santilli based solely on his incendiary rhetoric, which is protected by the First Amendment and which bears a striking resemblance to disgruntled patriots throughout American history. What we’re dealing with today is a government that wants to suppress dangerous words — words about its warring empire, words about its land grabs, words about its militarized police, words about its killing, its poisoning and its corruption — in order to keep its lies going.”
As Americans of goodwill across the political spectrum can agree, it does not matter what people think of the content of somebody's speech — in America, government has a constitutional duty to protect everyone's right to speak freely. That is a bedrock American principle. In fact, even the Big Government-supporting Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that speech, even if it generally advocates violence, cannot be criminalized. Obama, though, has long been waging a war on journalism. From illegally spying on the Associated Press and charging a Fox News journalist with being a “co-conspirator” to threatening media outlets and raiding the home of a reporter who exposed an out-of-control bureaucracy, the trend is becoming more and more alarming. For the sake of the Bill of Rights and the free-speech rights of all, Americans must demand that the federal government protect rather than trample people's rights.
