Posted on 03/29/2010 7:51:38 AM PDT by BP2
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No link yet, only from live broadcast:
In a press release just handed to Fox by the FBI, the six Michigan residents, two from Ohio, one from Indiana are charged with “seditious conspiracy.”
Reportedly, Hutaree is accused of attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. Charges range from August 2008 to today. The militia group Hutaree are said to have conspired to oppose by force the authority of the US Government.
The members viewed local, state and federal law enforcement as "the brotherhood," also known as their enemy, and have been preparing, the FBI says, to engage them in armed conflict.
According to one plan released by the FBI, the group was to kill a law enforcement officer, then during the funeral precession, hit again with IEDs to kill more LEOs.
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(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Much, MUCH lower hanging fruit with Black Panters, NOI, regular Muslims, practicing for jihad....ignored.
Maybe it’s addressed down the thread, but where does CAIR fit into this? This Muslim protection thing is going to kill the US.
You are much too modest. lol
More evidence of the Global Warming fraud. :-)
lol
Now that is a quote with bite. Big time.
I'd suggest people don't go there.
sw
“The fedgoons REALLY hate reloaders.”
Yep, but they LOVE FREELOADERS!
When was the last time ANYBODY was charged with “seditious conspiracy?”
I don’t know anything about these people, and they may be very bad news and deserve everything they get. But Muslim groups overtly call for the overthrow of our government, overtly train people in guerrilla tactics, and blatantly remain in touch with and conspire with foreign groups. Things like the Fort Hood shootings show the actual results of this, not just “planning stages” that they could argue were purely theoretical.
And when they do charge them - such as that group of black Muslim converts who were busy training for jihad in Oregon (or was it WA?) - they are never charged with “seditious conspiracy,” but simply with crimes of a non-political nature, even though they are blatantly political.
Certainly, if these people were indeed doing what they are said to have been doing, they deserve it; but many others deserve these charges and never get them, even after they have actually killed people, because they are protected by being Muslims (or leftists, such as Bill Ayers and his hideous wife).
Funny this happens when the media and Dem's war against the Tea Party isn't sticking
Yes.
Already seeing headlines calling the raids against Christian terrorist militia groups. How long does it take for the media to call a group Muslim terrorists?
Yes and...
We're under attack by our very own folks.
Yes.
I agree. When reading the indictment, it seemed real touchy-feely to me....real short on actual crimes committed.
The crimes are of the "by-interpretation" variety. No instance of any hurt person or damaged property whatsoever
So everyone is happy with the sand box we are playing in? I think not.
Some history.on this subject might be in order
Congress then passed the Alien Act on June 25, authorizing the President to deport aliens "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" during peacetime.
The third law, the Alien Enemies Act, was enacted by Congress on July 6. This act allowed the wartime arrest, imprisonment and deportation of any alien subject to an enemy power.
The last of the laws, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable activity, including the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment. By virtue of this legislation twenty-five men, most of them editors of Republican newspapers, were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down.
One of the men arrested was Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora. Charged with libeling President Adams, Bache's arrest erupted in a public outcry against all of the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Many Americans questioned the constitutionality of these laws. Indeed, public opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts was so great that they were in part responsible for the election of Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, to the presidency in 1800. Once in office, Jefferson pardoned all those convicted under the Sedition Act, while Congress restored all fines paid with interest.
When John Adams succeeded George Washington as president in 1797, the Federalist Party had controlled Congress and the rest of the national government from the beginning of the new nation. Adams and the other Federalists believed that their political party was the government. The Federalists believed that once the people had elected their political leaders, no one should publicly criticize them.
The Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, aimed to create a stable and secure country, safe for business and wealthy men of property. The opposition Democratic-Republican Party was bitterly opposed to the Federalists. Led by Thomas Jefferson, it tended to represent poor farmers, craftsmen, and recent immigrants. (The party was commonly referred as the Republicans or Jeffersonians. It was the forerunner of today's Democratic Party.)
In foreign affairs, the Federalists detested the French Revolution of 1789 because it led to mob rule and confiscation of property. The Republicans supported the French Revolution for its democratic ideals.
In 1794, President Washington negotiated a treaty with England to settle outstanding differences between the two countries. The resulting improvement in American-English relations angered the revolutionary French leaders, who were enemies of the English.
In the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams won the most electoral votes to become president. Republican Thomas Jefferson came in second, which made him vice-president. (The 12th Amendment later changed this election method, requiring separate electoral ballots for president and vice-president.)
Shortly after becoming president, Adams sent diplomats to France to smooth over the bad feelings. But three French representatives—dubbed X, Y, and Z—met secretly with the U.S. diplomats and demanded $10 million in bribes to the French government to begin negotiations. When the Americans refused, Mr. X threatened the United States with the "power and violence of France."
News of the "XYZ Affair" enraged most Americans. Many Federalists immediately called for war against France. President Adams, however, only proposed war preparations and a land tax to pay for them. On the defensive, Republicans spoke out against the "war fever."
Neither the United States nor France ever declared war. But the Federalists increasingly accused Jefferson and the Republicans of being a traitorous "French Party." A leading Federalist newspaper proclaimed to the nation, "He that is not for us, is against us."
The Federalist majority in Congress quickly passed four laws in 1798 to make the United States more secure from alien (foreign) spies and domestic traitors. Most of these laws, however, were also intended to weaken Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party.
The first law, the Naturalization Act, extended the time immigrants had to live in the United States to become citizens from five to 14 years. Since most immigrants favored the Republicans, delaying their citizenship would slow the growth of Jefferson's party.
The Alien Enemies Act provided that once war had been declared, all male citizens of an enemy nation could be arrested, detained, and deported. If war had broken out, this act could have expelled many of the estimated 25,000 French citizens then living in the United States. But the country did not go to war, and the law was never used.
The Alien Friends Act authorized the president to deport any non-citizen suspected of plotting against the government during either wartime or peacetime. This law could have resulted in the mass expulsion of new immigrants. The act was limited to two years, but no alien was ever deported under it.
The fourth law was the Sedition Act. Its provisions seemed directly aimed at those who spoke out against the Federalists.
The U.S. Sedition Act first outlawed conspiracies "to oppose any measure or measures of the government." Going further, the act made it illegal for anyone to express "any false, scandalous and malicious writing" against Congress or the president. Significantly, the act did not specifically protect the vice-president who, of course, was Jefferson. Additional language punished any spoken or published words that had "bad intent" to "defame" the government or to cause the "hatred" of the people toward it.
These definitions of sedition were more specific than those found in English common law. Even so, they were still broad enough to punish anyone who criticized the federal government, its laws, or its elected leaders.
Unlike English common law, the Sedition Act allowed "the truth of the matter" to be a defense. The act also left it to the jury to decide if a defendant had "bad intent." Penalties for different provisions of the law ranged from six months to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 (more than $100,000 in today's dollars).
The Republican minority in Congress argued that sedition laws violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press. The Federalists countered by defining these freedoms in the narrow English manner. According to English law, free speech and press only applied before the expression of ideas. The government could not censor or stop someone from expressing ideas. But after the words had been spoken or printed, the government could punish people if they had maliciously defamed the king or his government.
The Federalist majority in Congress passed the Sedition Act and President Adams signed it into law on July 14, 1798. It was set to expire on March 3, 1801, the last day of the first and—as it turned out—only presidential term of John Adams.
Lyon wrote a letter published in a Republican newspaper, criticizing President Adams for "a continued grasp for power." He also read aloud at several public meetings a letter written by poet Joel Barlow who jokingly wondered why Congress had not ordered Adams to a madhouse.
A federal grand jury indicted Lyon for intentionally stirring up hatred against President Adams. Unable to find a defense attorney for his trial, Lyon defended himself. The U.S. marshal, a Federalist appointee, assembled a jury from Vermont towns that were Federalist strongholds.
Lyon attempted to prove the truth of the words he wrote and spoke, as permitted by the Sedition Act. This meant that the burden of proof was on him. Lyon had to prove the words in question were true rather than the prosecutor having to prove them false. Lyon also argued that he was only expressing his political opinions, which should not be subject to the truth test.
The jury found Lyon guilty of expressing seditious words with "bad intent." The judge, also a Federalist, sentenced him to four months in jail, a $1,000 fine, and court costs.
Lyon ran for re-election to Congress from his jail cell and won. Vermont supporters petitioned President Adams to release and pardon him, but Adams refused.
When Lyon was released from jail, he was welcomed as a hero in his Vermont hometown. He was cheered along the route he took when he journeyed to Congress. Once Lyon returned to Congress, the Federalists tried to expel him as a convicted criminal, but this effort failed.
Thirteen more indictments were brought under the Sedition Act, mostly against editors and publishers of Republican newspapers. While some Republican newspapers were forced to close down, many others were intimidated not to criticize the government.
One Republican was convicted of sedition for publishing a pro-Jefferson campaign pamphlet that accused President Adams of appointing corrupt judges and ambassadors. Two men were found guilty of raising a "liberty pole" and putting a sign on it that said, "downfall to the Tyrants of America." Another was arrested, but never tried, for circulating a petition to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts themselves. A drunk was fined $150 for insulting President Adams.
In the most bizarre case, the Federalists in the U.S. Senate formed a special committee to investigate a Republican editor, William Duane. Republicans had leaked to him a Federalist proposal to change how presidential electoral votes were counted. Duane had printed the law and written editorials denouncing it. When summoned to the Senate to face charges of writing "false, scandalous, defamatory, and malicious assertions," he went into hiding and secretly continued writing for his newspaper.
Congressman John Nichols, a Republican from Virginia, challenged this Federalist view. He asserted that Americans must have a free flow of information to elect leaders and to judge them once they were in office. Nichols asked why government, which should be critically examined for its policies and decisions, should have the power to punish speakers and the press for informing the voters.
In the end, the people settled this debate in 1800 by electing Thomas Jefferson president and a Republican majority to Congress. In his inaugural address, Jefferson confirmed the new definition of free speech and press as the right of Americans "to think freely and to speak and write what they think."
The MSM won't let the facts get in their way.
Reportedly, Hutaree is accused of attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. Charges range from August 2008 to today.
The militia group Hutaree are said to have conspired to oppose by force the authority of the US Government.
The members viewed local, state and federal law enforcement as "the brotherhood," also known as their enemy, and have been preparing, the FBI says, to engage them in armed conflict.
According to one plan released by the FBI, the group was to kill a law enforcement officer, then during the funeral precession, hit again with IEDs to kill more LEOs.
Not just conspiracy, not just sedition, but SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY!!!
This sounds so ludicrous. They should have marked this release "for credulous eyes only."
So now any device that has the potential to kill more than one person is a WMD? I thought WMD meant chem/bio/nukes.
I feel like I’m going to puke.
"Seditious Conspiracy" is really an Orwellian charge. Conspiracy is two or more people getting together and planning, however obliquely, something illegal. Even mere conversation, with no actions taken to move it forward, could potentially be a conspiracy.
Sedition is opposing the authority of the state. So, putting the two together, it is not potentially illegal to discuss opposing the authority of the state. Now: combine them. Any conversation about lessening or opposing the power of the state is potentially "seditious conspiracy". Consider "The Free State Project", for instance.
Here is the Wikipedia history of Sedition in the USA. It's intersting that Obama is now using laws that were last used against Communist conspirators against the Patriot Movement.
There have been 24 attempts in the United States to regulate speech that has been deemed seditious. In 1798, President John Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, the fourth of which, the Sedition Act or "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States" set out punishments of up to two years of imprisonment for "opposing or resisting any law of the United States" or writing or publishing "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the President or the U.S. Congress, but specifically not the Vice-President.It will be intersting to see how the left responds. Bush never arrested leftist protesters (who did a lot more violence than this militia) for "seditious conspiracy". Perhaps the brick throwers were arrested for throwing bricks, but no one went out to places like "AlterNet" or "ChimpOut.org" and arrested them for "seditious conspiracy". (Nor, in my belief should they have).This Act of Congress was allowed to expire in 1801 after the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency. He had been the Vice-President at the time of the Act's passage.
In the Espionage Act of 1917, Section 3 made it a crime, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000, to willfully spread false news of the American army and navy with an intent to disrupt their operations, to foment mutiny in their ranks, or to obstruct recruiting. This Act of Congress was amended Sedition Act of 1918, which expanded the scope of the Espionage Act to any statement criticizing the Government of the United States.
These Acts were upheld in 1919 in the case of Schenck v. United States, but they were largely repealed in 1921, leaving laws forbidding foreign espionage in the United States and allowing military censorship of sensitive material.
In 1940, the Alien Registration Act, or "Smith Act", was passed, which made it a crime to advocate or to teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same. It was often used against Communist Party organizations. This Act was invoked in three major cases, one of which against the Socialist Worker's Party in Minneapolis in 1941, resulting in 23 convictions, and again in what became known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 in which a number of pro-Nazi figures were indicted but released when the prosecution ended in a mistrial.
Also, a series of trials of 140 leaders of the Communist Party USA also relied upon the terms of the "Smith Act" - beginning in 1949 - and lasting until 1957. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 11 CPUSA leaders in 1951, that same Court reversed itself in 1957 in the case of Yates v. United States, by ruling that teaching an ideal, no matter how harmful it may seem, does not equal advocating or planning its implementation. Although unused since at least 1961, the "Smith Act" remains a Federal law.
Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Mexico was investigated for sedition in September 2005[13] after writing a letter[14][15] to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence. Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation. Ms. Berg was represented by the ACLU[16]. Charges were dropped in 2006[1].
Obama is raising the stakes dangerously.
Excellent!
I started to compose a comment in the same vein. The indictment is short on descriptive observation. I could tell from the Libby indictment that the government had a good case, because the indictment recited specific evidence (to be proven, sure, but a summary of the evidence was provided.)
There are no quotes of what was said by the defendants. Not ONE quote.
I may fish up other indictments that ring of conspiracy, for comparison. Meanwhile, these guys are going to get bail denied, and likely 18 months or more of incarceration before a trial. Heck, that 16 year old kid who made hoax bomb threats has been held w/o bail for about a year (and 900 miles from home!), no trial yet.
The only difference, I see, is this group is purportedly Christian and not atheistic Marxist.
Regardless, will they soon let the leader teach and receive federal grants to further his ideology like we did with Ayers?
Common sense tells you that sooner or later it is going to happen. More and more moles,a/k/a rats are infesting this forum.
Very true. Especially since 0thugga got elected.
When was that?
I remember trying to buy primers for my dad in 7th or 8th grade, mid-60s and couldn't; too young.
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