Posted on 08/27/2003 12:02:51 PM PDT by freepatriot32
I wrote this as the introduction to Clive Sharp's book How to Survive Federal Prison Camp (Loompanics, 1997). This is its first appearance outside the book.
Welcome to FFA. No, not Future Farmers of America, that pleasant little relic of the days when America was the land of the free.
I'm talking about Future Felons of America, the club to which millions of us now belong. Our membership is growing by leaps, bounds and midnight kicks on our doors. You may not want to be part of this contemporary American FFA. (Who in their right mind would?) But it's best to face facts; in a country where would-be rulers, elected and unelected, are desperate to regulate every activity, we are all law breakers or soon to become so.
You and I, friends, are likely to end up in prison.
Worse, we're increasingly likely to end up in the custody of the federal prison system. Activities that were once the business of the states-or nobody's business but your own-are being taken over by control freaks in Washington, DC whose favorite masturbatory fantasy is that they can micro-manage every human activity 24 hours a day and punish everyone who deviates from their desires. That means your chances of going to federal prison-or a federal prison camp like the ones described in this book-are getting "better" every day.
Here are just a few of the "crimes" that can already land you in the federal system:
This last one comes under the heading of "conspiracy." And conspiracy is one of a raft of ill-defined "crimes" the feds are using as a catch-all for anyone they want to bag. In addition to "conspiring" by doing nothing, you might be accused of "violating someone's civil rights" by punching him in the nose or "participating in organized criminal activity" just for talking about the wrong subject or being in the wrong place with the wrong people.
What organized criminal activity does this latter charge refer to? Don't ask. If the government had an actual crime-like murder or robbery-to charge you with, believe me, they would. "Participating in organized criminal activity" simply means you've gotten together with your buddies and done something a bureaucrat doesn't like.
The feds can always find you guilty of something. If they want to.
The Real Reason for All Those Laws
And that's the rub. If they want to. Because these laws, of course, aren't designed to stop evildoers at all. They're designed to allow selective control of people who make waves, deviate from convention, own independent businesses, criticize unjust authority, and otherwise insist on living their lives as they see fit. Or they're designed to let enforcers arrest a lot of people so they can brag about their successes in "fighting crime"-and so they can confiscate valuable private property under the hundreds of new and existing civil forfeiture laws.
No one really seems to know how many federal laws and regulations we're living under today, but five million pages is the most reliable number I've heard. (Eleven million pages of combined state and federal legis-regulation.) The silly federal "crimes" above don't even begin to scratch the surface of the pointless, harmless things you can be sent to prison for.
And the control freaks are cranking out new crimes out at the rate of 200 pages a day!
Two hundred pages a day. Now, obviously, all the violent, nasty, fraudulent stuff was made illegal a hundred or more years ago. Protections against murder, armed robbery, fraud, rape and such are basics and were taken care of by the people and the states long before any of us were born. Even new technology and changing times haven't really brought about the need for defining new crimes. Theft by computer is still theft and is covered by laws made long, long ago. Rape by battery-operated dildo is still rape. Homicide by genetically engineered toxin is still homicide.
Even when you consider truly new things some government might need to deal with (like, maybe, disposal of nuclear wastes), there simply can't be any legitimate reason for the volume of legis-regulation spewing out of Washington DC and the state capitols today.
Ayn Rand said it best in her novel, Atlas Shrugged: "There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
And that's the way it is in America today. And getting worse.
Don't Expect Justice
I know it's considered silly and naïve these days to mention the U.S. Constitution. As Douglas Wilder, a recent governor of Virginia, said, "I don't care what those men wrote 200 years ago." And as Bill Clinton famously added, the founders of this country were too radical and the government now has to move to limit freedom. Maybe you don't care about the Constitution, either. You, as a private individual, don't have to. It wasn't written to tell you what you can or can't do.
However, that beleaguered old document is still the supreme law of the land, which every government agent has pledged to obey. And nowhere does the Constitution give the federal government any authority over crimes, other than counterfeiting, treason, and unspecified crimes that occur outside the territory of the states. Since it's quite clear from Amendments 9 and 10 that the federal government has only those powers specifically delegated to it by the Constitution, the hundreds of thousands of federal laws on the books and the thousands of new pages being passed by Congress and their regulatory co-conspirators every year are illegal as hell. Just about every one of them.
Isn't that interesting? Every time some marshal, DEA agent, ATF agent or other masked, black-clad fedgoon arrests you for a federal "crime," he really ought to be arrested himself!
But, of course, that isn't going to happen. Because all that matters today is power, not justice, not fundamental principles of law. The Congresscreature who makes tyrannical laws is never going to be forced to pay for its crimes. The judge who enforces bad laws and lies to juries about their rights is never going to pay for the destruction she wreaks upon people. The fedgoon is never, never, never going to be called to account for his rampages. (Remember that Deputy U.S. Marshal Larry Cooper got a reward for shooting Sammy Weaver in the back, Lon Horiuchi was slipped into the Witness Protection Program as a reward for murdering Sammy's mother, and not a single agent has paid for the mass murder of the Branch Davidians. Besides which, damnit all, no president of the United States has gone to prison yet.)
The president of Wal-Mart isn't going to get busted for selling plastic pill boxes to the blue hairs, either. And it's not because Wal-Mart, that quite likable store, is merely pursuing peaceful, legitimate business activity for which no one in a free society could ever be busted. Remember, that doesn't matter any more. What matters to the feds is that Wal-Mart is rich, powerful and politically connected. It knows how to play the government game. It pays its "regulatory fees," its "permits" and its other forms of tribute (legal bribery) to the powers-that-be. It goes along to get along. Its executives hobnob with politicians and no doubt "donate" $10,000 per plate for rubber chicken at political fundraisers in order to be allowed to survive in a burgeoning police state.
But a poor immigrant can-and did-go to federal prison for making bottles someone might have been able to use to store crack cocaine, even though he had no knowledge of, or connection with, such use. He didn't have connections. He didn't grease the palms of the right government bureaucrats. So he was fair game for goons and their pet judges.
Modern America is divided into those who are above the law, those who manage to squeak their way around the law-and those who can, at any moment, be crushed by the law. Like you and me.
Don't expect fairness. Don't expect justice. Just grit your teeth, strengthen your gut and get ready to survive when it happens to you. If you're lucky, if you're really lucky, you'll end up in a mere prison camp instead of a hard-core prison, and your mental and physical survival job will be a little easier.
Listen to Those Who've Been There
I haven't been in federal prison. Nor any prison. I've never even spent a night in the county jail. Heck, I haven't even had a speeding ticket in 10 years! (Though I did get that on the Interstate. Hmmm, I wonder why Congress hasn't thought of making speeding on the Interstate a federal felony-yet?)[Note 1] I am your stereotypical law-abiding citizen-or would be if such a thing were possible in America today.
So why should you listen to me when it comes to surviving federal prison camp? One answer is: you shouldn't. You shouldn't listen to anybody. Any-one-body, that is. To prepare yourself, you should find out as much as possible from as many different sources as possible. Listen to Clive Sharp, who wrote this book and offers his prison-survival advice in a cool, "just the facts, M'am," manner. Listen to Donald B. Parker, whose words appear after mine and again at the end of this book; he speaks from three-time voice of experience.
Listen to Dr. Reinhold Aman, in his book Hillary Clinton's Pen Pal, who turns his federal-prison bitterness into some of the sharpest-humored words ever written about incarceration. Listen to G. Gordon Liddy (Will). Listen to Jim Hogshire, whose book, You Are Going to Prison explains with gut & grit how to survive most any prison experience. Read Norma Jean Almodovar's harrowing, saucy and brave Cop to Callgirl, which details her experiences in the Los Angeles Jail and the California prison system. Read and learn to prepare for your own future, in whatever prison system you may end up.
Though I haven't been in prison myself, friends and acquaintances have. They got there mostly because they talked to the wrong people about the wrong subjects (political ones) at the wrong time.
Some got conned by federal informants, posing as friends, into violating rules and regulations.
Some of them got there as casualties in the War Against (Some) Drugs.
A few got there because they wouldn't yield on principles-a fatally unfashionable thing to do, these days.
As I admitted, I'm a Goody Two-Shoes at heart; I don't hang out with lowlifes. These are terrific people I'm talking about here. Smart, hard-working individuals with creative hearts, strong principles and independent streaks a mile wide. Exactly the kind of people a sensible government would respect and leave alone. Exactly the kind of people who build strong communities and strong nations. But because they've refused to bow to the obsessive wishes of control freaks, they've been ripped from their jobs, families and lives.
These folks never hurt anybody. But they have been and are being hurt-as you will be. They relate experiences we'd probably rather not think about:
Even if you "behave," that doesn't mean you'll have it easy. Simple, everyday things can be almost unendurable. I remember phone conversations with one friend who served more than a year in county jail while awaiting his trial, sentencing and transfer to the federal system. He would call me collect from a common room. The level of noise behind him was such that we had to shout at each other to be heard. And in nearly every conversation, there was another prisoner, very near him, yipping and howling like a dog. For hours. Yipping and howling at full, dog-pound volume.
My friend endured this philosophically. I remember thinking at the time that I would scream, myself, if I had to listen to that much longer.
Someday, I may have to listen to that, or something like it. Maybe listen for years. As I sit here typing this in the beauty of a spring-green garden, with two gentle dogs at my feet and my true love nearby, it's nearly inconceivable. I lead a peaceful life, and I wish with all my heart to keep this joy until my last breath on earth.
But every day I-like you-harmlessly violate some unknown number of federal laws or regulations. And I-like a growing number of others-speak out loudly and often against the injustices of an out-of-control government. So I have to face the fact that, someday, the Sauron-Eye of Washington, DC will turn in my direction.
On that day, if the stormtroopers of some multi-agency task force are too lazy to find actual violations on which to grab me, it will be easy enough for them to twist free speech into "conspiracy" or to fake evidence of criminal activity. (Another useful by-product of the War on (Some) Drugs-just grab a little dope or "meth lab equipment" out of the evidence room and plant it on anybody you don't like.)
And on that day, my friend, when they've reached the point of rounding up little ladies guilty mainly of having fierce opinions, a lot of you fine readers will already be "inside." I hope we're all prepared.
© 1997 Claire Wolfe.
RETURN TO INDEX of Writings of Claire Wolfe
RETURN TO Liberty Activists
Wouldn't be such a yawner if it happened to you or your wife... I have a close friend who was recently stopped by the police for a traffic violation. When the cops searched her car, they found a prescription bottle containing some of the proper pills, in addition to one "improper" pill, a dose of Xanax which she also had a prescription for. She was charged with illegal possession of a controlled substance.
No problem, right? Take the prescription to court, show the judge get it thrown out... well just the hassle of getting arrested, bailing out, going to multiple court dates (after hiring a lower), missing work to go to these dates, all based on an arcane (and stupid) law is more than cruel and unusual punishment, IMHO, ESPECIALLY for someone who DID NOTHING WRONG.
Hope your wife knows not to let the cops search her car next time she gets pulled over.
He's (Charles C?) one lucky guy.
One of my originals goes like this:
Total surveillance is in our immediate future. Armed with that, they need not fall back to terrorising us into compliance.
They will simply monitor us into compliance.
A kinder, gentler tyranny.
In full violation of the SCOTUS ruling disallowing such practice, too. SCOTUS reasoned that searches may only be made for crimes they have Prob Cause to suspect. Since they only are citing on a traffic violation, how are they going to find more evidence of that traffic violation in the car?
When the cops searched her car, they found a prescription bottle containing some of the proper pills, in addition to one "improper" pill, a dose of Xanax which she also had a prescription for. She was charged with illegal possession of a controlled substance.
HEL lo. Welcome to Amerika, 2003.
No problem, right? Take the prescription to court, show the judge get it thrown out... well just the hassle of getting arrested, bailing out, going to multiple court dates (after hiring a lower), missing work to go to these dates, all based on an arcane (and stupid) law is more than cruel and unusual punishment, IMHO, ESPECIALLY for someone who DID NOTHING WRONG.
In Georgia, she'd still be convicted of a misdemeanor. Here, it is illegal to do what she did, prescription or not. The charge is called a violation of the Georgia Controlled Substance Act-Drugs Not in Their Original Container.
Those little Monday-through-Sunday pill containers old people get?
Misdemeanants, every one of them.
This issue hasn't even been resolved yet. Who knows, that may be what happens here in Florida too. I was just speculating, cause I know the stuff she's been through already in regard to this case, and I made the assumption that this would be thrown out of court, but maybe not, after what you've posted.
You are right about the hassle involved in having to prove yourself not guilty. But it gets much worse then that. Case in point. I was ticketed for an assault nearly seven years ago when I was very young. I maintained my innocence and the charge was later dismissed at state's cost. Now that I have a degree and am applying for many jobs in the legal field (both public and private), these applications are asking not only have been convicted of, but have EVER BEEN CHARGED OR TICKETED FOR any misdemeanor or felony. So now I find myself getting racked over the coals all over again for a mere allegation.
By the way... most people either are too uninformed, ignorant, or intimidated to stand up to the cops, and "voluntarily consent" to a search of the car. I read my friend the riot act when she told me she did this.
A few years back, I was on a full Greyhound bus that stopped at a truck stop in the middle of Nowheresville, Pennsylvania. After taking a break we all walked out to the welcoming lights of about 30 PA State Police. They boarded our bus, and the others in the parking lot, and announced they'd be searching everyone's belongings. Believe it or not, I, the long-haired, raggedy-clothes-wearing, multiply-pierced hippie boy, was the only person that would not allow the cops into my personal belongings.
Every single one of the other 50+ people readily opened their bags, purses, suitcases, pockets, etc. for the cops to search (and one of the morons got pulled off the bus for what was found).
The lady sitting next to me was even begging me to "not make a scene", to "just do what they ask"... how sad.
It's also a Federal crime to do that, however, the odds of this being picked up Federally are almost nonexistant.
But yes, welcome to Amerika.
Man, how about a religion that forbids you from going to federal prison! Yeah, that's the ticket.
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