Greetings from the federal prison camp in Waymart, PA
Message from Larken Rose
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:12:30 -0500
From: Jon Roland
jon.roland@constitution.org
Some of you might want to download a copy of the entire site
at
http://www.taxableincome.net and in particular, Larken's
book, before it goes down. Needless to say, we have already
done that, along with other controversial sites that someone
might try to suppress. In case that includes our own site,
we have made arrangements to have mirrors of our site go up
on offshore sites, along with backups of several other
sites, without any word from me, with instructions to refuse
to take them down even if I were forced to ask that (which I
wouldn't unless the lives of innocent persons were being
threatened).
For tools to make local copies of entire websites see
http://www.constitution.org/intrtool.htm . We use the
Linux tool wget with the -m (mirror) option.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: breaking the silence
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 09:37:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: larken@taxableincome.net
Breaking the Silence
Dear Subscriber,
Greetings from the federal prison camp in Waymart, PA. Since
the verdict
in my trial, and throughout my wife's trial, and during my
incarceration
to date, one of the most frustrating things for me has been
remaining
silent. Not a day has gone by in which I didn't want to say
a thing or two
(or ten) to all of you on this list. But being at the mercy
of the court,
and to a lesser degree our own lawyers, Tessa and I have had
to pretty
much bite our lips until both of our sentencings had
occurred. As of
today, we're done being quiet. I am writing this prior to
Tessa's
sentencing, so I can't comment on how it went. But I have a
lot of other
things I've been waiting to comment on for a very long time.
Now I can,
and I will. First, I'm guessing that our prolonged silence
was perceived
by some as a sign that we had given up, or maybe even
decided that we were
wrong. Now, at long last, I can rebut such notions with a
resounding
"Hell, no!" I won't apologize for the ~ silence, as it was
necessary to
minimize the harm to our family inflicted upon us for crimes
we didn't
commit. Now that both sentences have been pronounced, we can
speak our
minds again. And that, as it happens, will be the topic of
this, the first
in a series of daily messages to be sent to this list.
Chilling Effect 101
My wife and I were wrongly convicted of five misdemeanor
counts of willful
failure to file federal income tax returns (26 USC 7203). At
sentencing,
Judge Michael Baylson made it abundantly clear that he would
impose a
harsher sentence if I did not take down my web sites and
stop selling my
video. So I did. What, you might ask, do those things have
to do with not
filing returns (what we were convicted of)? The answer: not
a damn thing.
This was nothing more than a roundabout way of achieving
unconstitutional
censorship, and circumventing the First Amendment. That's
what the feds
wanted, and the court gave it to them. Consider why I've
been so silent:
because everyone accepted it as self-evident that our
"punishment" would
be worse if we were to speak our minds prior to sentencing.
Take a moment
to digest the full significance of that. We had to shut up,
because if we
said bad things about the government or the courts
(regardless of whether
the comments had anything to do with what we were convicted
of), we would
most likely be punished for it at sentencing. First
Amendment? What's
that? Just how blatant does tyranny have to be before
Americans will call
it what it is? There is also a chance that when my prison
term is up (in
November), and I go into "supervised release," that Judge
Baylson could
make "shut up about 861" be a condition of release. If so, I
will fight
it. But even the possibility should make freedom-loving
people sick.
In addition, my wife and I have already started filing FALSE
returns,
incorrectly reporting our income as taxable (when we know it
isn't) to
avoid retaliation from the court. That's a bit ironic: we
will be
committing FELONIES< by signing returns we know to be
inaccurate (see 26
USC 7206) in order to minimize the punishment we receive for
misdemeanors
we didn't commit. In fact, we've already done so, filing
returns for 1997
and subsequent years. We've paid a lot of money, and will
pay a lot more,
that we know we don't owe to the government, to avoid
further terrorist
tactics of the IRS, DOJ and the courts. Judge Baylson at
sentencing used
the word "rehabilitation," which I found sickeningly
Orwellian. But if
being "rehabilitated" means to stop telling the truth, stop
pointing out
tyranny and government fraud, and to stop wanting to see
truth and justice
win... well then I guess I'm not rehabilitated.
Sincerely,
Larken "The Convict" Rose From Federal Prison
(P.S. If there's anyone you know who might like to read the
thoughts of a
ranting jailbird, just have them send an e-mail to
"t-i-updates-on@mail-list.com " and they'll get these
messages too.)
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