Hal Turner, Federal employee.

by Kevin Alfred Strom

MUCH HAS BEEN written about the effects of the Hal Turner conviction on what is left of free speech in America. I agree that it will have what lawyers and the cliché-ridden call a “chilling effect.” But so much of what has been written misses the most important fact in the case.

Hal Turner was a fake. A phony.

He was not really a critic of the regime in Washington.

He worked for that regime, and his job was 1) to make critics of that regime’s racial and foreign policies look like dangerous, violent lunatics by promoting stupidity and violence; and 2) to put the regime’s critics under close surveillance and, if possible, in jail. (I realized early on that he was a liar, that the articles he wrote were exaggerated or created out of whole cloth, and that his moronic “kill ’em” rhetoric was designed to defame and denigrate racially conscious Americans by association. He was enraged by my refusal to give him publicity.)

Despite the fact that he was fairly effective at his dishonorable profession, his employers were even more dishonorable.

A few months after a hacker publicly disclosed that Turner was working for the FBI’s “Joint Terrorism Task Force” (the same outlaw outfit that falsely charged and imprisoned me and was complicit in the theft of all of my property), his handlers decided he was more of a liability than an asset. So they arranged to have him prosecuted and imprisoned for doing the very things that they had hired and paid him to do.

There is a lesson here:

The regime in Washington and the ethnically distinct oligarchs that control it has no friends, and no honor. Cooperate with or work for it at your extreme peril.

This lesson will sooner or later be learned by the native inhabitants who have collaborated with the invaders in Afghanistan and Iraq. The regime in Washington will betray them when it is expedient to do so. And the Earth will be soaked red with their blood.

*   *   *

What will Hal Turner’s life be like in Federal prison?

His life may be in danger. Violence doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen. The billionaires’ media are allowed into the prisons, and the vilification of some prisoners as “haters” in the money-men’s press and TV does agitate the mostly-Black inmates, sometimes to fury.

There are some very nasty people in there, who — unlike me and the other 50 per cent. or so of innocent folks in prison — are really guilty of unimaginable crimes: people who enjoy hurting other people for the smallest reasons, or for the sheer fun of it. Or for racially- or politically-motivated “revenge.”

It’s doubtful that such persons would be able to comprehend the subtleties of Turner’s case, or care if they did.

There is little oversight of what prisoners do to one another in their huge filthy, open, stinking pens — sometimes none for hours at a time.

Turner will also will be provided with “medical care” that is essentially nonexistent, from alleged doctors who can’t make it in the real world (who might deign to see you if you’re in really severe pain… in a few days or weeks) and most of whom, like almost all the guards and administrators, don’t give a solitary damn and are there in Hell with you strictly for the Federal paycheck and retirement.

In addition to the violent criminals, there are some people in there — and some of these were falsely convicted, or convicted of “crimes” which shouldn’t be crimes — who are extremely bitter and are looking for any way out. Some of these will willingly lie and perjure themselves to help corrupt U.S. Attorneys advance their careers  — and get more convictions against hapless people in prison who have little or no means to defend themselves.

The system itself is a crime, and it is irremediably corrupt.

To put someone in that Hell who is guilty of nothing more than possessing a recreational drug — or not possessing the right paperwork for his firearm — or who is guilty of no crime whatsoever, as I was — is absolutely unconscionable.

I’m very leery of wishing that anyone — even the most thuggish Black drug dealer imaginable — be put into such a Hell. Like the system that created it, it is too cruel.

Of course, Hal Turner supported that system with all the vigor and dishonesty and cleverness he could muster. And he accepted the system’s filthy dollars. He helped put others — innocent others — into that Hell. So perhaps he is a special case.

THE DICTATES of the Washington regime have, with the wildly misnamed “Patriot Act,” finally taken away all of our financial privacy, which is a fundamental part of our personal privacy.

Two acquaintances of mine recently purchased automobiles for cash — no credit requested — and the interrogation they were subjected to by the dealers (necessitated by the “Patriot Act”) show how we have been cowed into surrendering the last vestiges of our freedom and privacy. One wrote:

I was with my girlfriend, this weekend, when she bought a car. Simple transaction… pick one out, write a check. Drive it home.

I was amazed to hear the business office tell her that she was required to fill out a credit application for the transaction. Name, address, all credit card and all bank account numbers were required. Rent payments, utility payments, any other oblications. Employment history for the last 10 years, with names and phone numbers. Residential history for the last 10 years with names and phone numbers of landlords, mortgage companies.

And all sources of supplementary income.

When I asked why the hell such detailed invasion of personal information was necessary to write a check — why not just call the bank to verify the check and the amount, or hold it until it can be verified? — I was told all this was required in order to be in compliance with the Patriot Act.

If people are up in arms about being “asked for their papers” on the streets of Arizona, why aren’t they at least as upset about the endless demands (ultimately enforced by policemen with guns and the threat of prison) to show their personal and financial “papers” to Big Brother in every car dealership (and tax office) in the country?

We have now reached the end of the slippery slope which was begun when the Income Tax amendment was fraudulently imposed on the American people. (Fraudulently? Yes. It was sold to the people under the pretense that the proposed tax would never be imposed on wages, and would never need to exceed three per cent. even on the incomes of millionaires. We were told that wages, being an equal exchange of time and labor for an equivalent amount of money, did not result in profit and therefore were not income and would therefore never be taxed. All these assurances were lies.)

That was the beginning of the pernicious concepts 1) that the criminals in Washington had the right to know what your “income” was, and 2) that the criminals in Washington had the right to take whatever percentage of that “income” they so chose. Both concepts are utterly alien to any reasonable conception of freedom and to the ideals of the founders.

A Simple Quiz

by Mark Graffis

EDITOR’S NOTE: Being able to score an “A” on this simple quiz should be a requirement before one is permitted to vote in any national election. — Kevin Alfred Strom.

1. In which of these countries are Christians permitted to pray or wear religious symbols in the schools?

A. France

B. United States

C. China

D. Iran

2. In which of these countries do Christians enjoy the most religious freedom?

A. China

B. France

C. United States

D. Iran

3. During the past 20 years, which of these countries’ governments have killed the most civilians of other countries?

A. Syria

B. Iraq

C. Iran

D. United States

4. In which of these countries have the most people died for their religious faith?

A. Syria

B. United States

C. Iran

D. China

5. Which of these countries possesses the least number of weapons mass destruction?

A. United States

B. Britain

C. China

D. Iran

6. Which of these countries possesses the most weapons of mass destruction?

A. Iran

B. China

C. Britain

D. United States

7. Which of these countries does not possess the atomic bomb?

A. United States

B. Britain

C. Israel

D. Iran

8. Which of these countries’ governments is not conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing?

A. China

B. Sudan

C. Israel

D. Iran

9. Which of these countries’ armed forces have not attacked another country for the past 29 years?

A. United States

B. Israel

C. Britain

D. Iran

10. Which of these countries’ armed forces have not attacked another country during the past year?

A. United States

B. Israel

C. Britain

D. Iran

11.  In the past 30 years, which of these countries has killed the most Americans?

A. Syria

B. Pakistan

C. Iran

D. Israel

(The answer to each question is D.)

Patrick J. Buchanan

by Kevin Alfred Strom

PATRICK BUCHANAN utters truths that no one else in the  mediasphere dares utter. For that I admire and like him.

But Buchanan has one foot inside establishment “conservatism,” and, whether due to a desire to placate that segment of his following or because of the wishful and anachronistic thinking that old men are sometimes prey to, he will at times speak as though America was still the old American Republic — as though “conservatives” like Dick Cheney were still “holding the line” against subversion and alien influence — as though America had not long since been converted into the multiracial, multicultural empire that he fears will “arise” — and as though Dick Cheney were any less a faithful servant of the empire than Obama.

A good example of this is his recent column “The Get-Cheney Squad,” in which he justifies U.S. torture of Islamist prisoners-of-the-empire and threats to kill their children because these “rough methods” “saved American lives.” He bemoans “the clamor of a left that will not be satiated until Cheney and Bush are indicted as Class A war criminals.” Wake-up call, Pat: Huge numbers of people who would rather be found dead in a ditch than be called a leftist have come to believe 1) that our wars in the Middle East are illegitimate, and 2) that our ongoing mass slaughter of innocents and anti-Zionists there is unnecessarily creating millions of enemies of America and the West, and 3) that the architects of this madness are indeed war criminals.

The phrase “national security” should today make decent men’s hearts tremble with visions of SWAT-suited JTTF thugs hauling patriots off to federal prison on false charges (as happened to me and many others) and CIA drone missiles roasting every resident of entire apartment blocks (as happened a few weeks ago to little notice in the press except for cheers that “we” “got” a suspected Taliban official along with the unmentioned dead families). Instead Buchanan gets warm flag-waving fuzzies when he hears the phrase.

It seems that, aware as he is of the neocon/liberal-minority/Jewish power nexus, in part of his consciousness he is still a 1960s Cold Warrior with Communists replaced by “terrorists.” In part of his mind America is still America.

US navy sailors line up beneath the First Navy Jack flag during the USS Kitty Hawk Departure Ceremony, August 2008.

by Kevin Alfred Strom

PROOF WE ARE ruled and “protected” by dangerous morons can be found in this document, entitled “Crisis Controlled,” from the Virginia State Police (VSP), authored by Trooper John R. Wright.

Not only is the whole essay written on about a fifth-grade level of literacy and intelligence, not only does it characterize anyone, left or right or otherwise, who questions the constitutionality or morality of our current rulers as a “terrorist,” but it wraps itself in smarmy authority-worshipping “patriotism” of the most repellent variety imaginable, which is the opposite of real patriotism.

Typical extracts include the characterization of peaceful seekers of independence (be they Black or Amerindian or White), anti-abortion activists, and pro-individual-sovereignty folks as “terrorists” — and the description of a White male merely taking notes in public with a “Say No to the New World Order” bumper sticker on his car as a “suspect” worthy of being reported to the good and completely non-terrorist folks at the FBI or the U.S. military.

This official “safety” document also places those who belong to “single issue groups” or who engage in “civil disobedience” in the category of “low-level terrorists.” The First Navy Jack, still in official use, with its “Don’t Tread on Me” device is also, incredibly, shown as a terrorist symbol — presumably because, in addition to Navy veterans, some advocates for a restoration of American liberty also fly it.

Grotesque stereotypes are used, too — Muslims are represented by Osama bin Laden, independent-minded White people are represented by sieg-heiling “neo-Nazis,” and the system itself is represented by a solemn lit candle “in remembrance of” the 9-11 attacks that the system failed to prevent.

This publication could safely be disregarded as a pathetic example of the herd mentality if it weren’t coming from a source which has the power of force behind it — force which is only legal when it is used to protect our freedom, but which, sadly, is used for many other purposes today. I am sure that the goons of Lenin’s NKVD were often just as stone-dumb and moronically trusting of their superiors as Trooper Wright evidently is.

Wright, of course, is not to be blamed for the creation of the anti-freedom attitude he so slavishly follows, doubtlessly in search of career advancement. But he perpetuates and advances tyranny, as do those who ignore such outrages.

I saved a copy in case the VSP pulls this from their site.

Prisoners at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba: What crimes have they committed that Bill Clinton and George Bush have not?

by Kevin Alfred Strom

THE NEOCON TALK HOSTS like Hannity and Limbaugh and their coevals from the “liberal” side are making a lot of noise about the “terror suspects” who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo without trial and without legitimate charges for nigh onto a decade now.

The Republican shills say “we’ve got to be firm with these terrorists and protect Amurrica!” The Democrat shills claim to stand for the Constitution and “American values” by calling for the closing of Gitmo, though lately some have waffled on that. Both are liars, but millions of deluded Americans identify with one side or the other and have a rah-rah-for-our-team attitude, slavishly following the blogs and talk shows that keep them agitated, angry, blind to reality, and supporting one wing or another of the Evil Empire.

Most of these good folks fail to see that the Federal monster in Washington has two heads, Democrat and Republican, and it matters but little which is the current face of tyranny. Either way, we get more centralized power, more laws, more wars for Zionism, and more cheap labor for profits uber alles.

The inmates at Guantanamo? Most of them committed no crimes, unless fighting in a war for their religion or people as they saw it after being invaded by a superpower is a crime. Some of them didn’t even do that — they were just “fingered” by someone as a “bad guy.” And now with the supposed “testimony” tainted by the dishonorable torture used in our name, we’ll never know the truth about those accusations.

If we’d stop the insane wars we started in the Middle East, we wouldn’t have much to worry about from foreign Islamists anyway. George Bush was the world’s top al-Qaeda recruiter and it looks like Barack Hussein Fetchit wants to follow in his footsteps. If you want to know why that is so, take a close look at AIPAC and how they have both parties fawning all over them.

You can divide Islamists into two groups: 1) those who stay in their own nations and try to make their governmental system match their religious vision (and it’s a system I wouldn’t want to live under, by the way); and 2) those who immigrate to the West en masse and are trying to change our societies.

I say we shouldn’t allow (2) to occur at all, and returning to a racial basis for citizenship would instantly solve that problem — but the Muslims who stay in their own countries as in (1) should be left alone to live as they see fit.

But America is doing the reverse of what we should be doing. We encourage mass immigration into our own and other Western nations,  and we smear those who want to stop it with the nonsense term “racist.”

And we’re making unholy war on the Muslims who are staying in their own part of the world and minding their own business, slaughtering them by the hundreds of thousands.

That’s a formula for disaster.

One of the 60 previously unpublished Abu Ghraib photographs that the U.S. Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union. From the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia.

A READER WRITES that, in his opinion, the questions Jesse Ventura asked about waterboarding were the least uncomfortable that could have been asked. And, he adds, we can’t “descend to the moral level” of Saddam Hussein, since we’ve already passed that point:

“Why is the subject of torture being confined to waterboarding? Other forms were used in Iraq, as everyone knows.

“And in terms of increasingly ‘resembling Saddam Hussein,’ he was convicted for the murder of 148 people committed a year before the U.S. began supporting him.

“Where does the civilian death count in Iraq and Afghanistan stand today? Even though death figures become suddenly vague, unlike those of Saddam, it is certainly more than 148 people who have been murdered as a direct result of federal orders. Claiming all were ‘terrorists’ is the same justification Saddam used. Claiming ‘casualties of war’ is bogus: No declaration of war exists outside of federal and commercial media spin and lingo.

“Taking a snapshot of downtown Baghdad a year before and then a year after Saddam fell from power, given both forms of central power sat in palaces, which picture would look more conducive to public happiness? It seems to me that if the U.S. federal government more resembled Saddam in Iraq, it would be a change for the better.”

JESSE VENTURA ASKS UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS: Former Governor Ventura has managed to ask the obvious questions on the subject of U.S. government torture — questions that should have been asked a long time ago: “If waterboarding is okay, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects to learn what they know?… If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard McVeigh and Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved?… We only seem to waterboard Muslims. …Have we waterboarded anybody else? Name me someone else we’ve waterboarded.”

Government nabobs and Fox News liars won’t respond truthfully, Jesse. As we biologically descend to the level of a Third World state and become ensnared in Mideastern religious wars, our government and morals and culture will increasingly resemble those of Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, and Menachem Begin. Torture included.

DEPROGRAMMING, PORTUGUESE STYLE: Another site has linked to my main page (thank you!), this one a news portal dedicated to awakening the people of Portugal to the need for racial integrity and cultural survival.

Its title means “Blind, Deaf, and Dumb” in English, which is exactly how the billionaire media elite wants all peoples to be.

The wars which the American sheep are bamboozled into supporting are far more about establishing a “friendly climate” for “foreign investment” (translation: the establishment of racially-destructive and pro-Zionist media combines) than they are about oil. Plaudits to the unselfish editors and writers at Cegos, Mudos, e Surdos.

Kevin Alfred Strom today

Kevin Alfred Strom is absolutely innocent of any crime against children or anyone else. He has paid a heavy price for his advocacy of self-determination for his people.

by Kevin Alfred Strom

given at Federal District Court, Charlottesville, Virginia on April 21, 2008; with annotations

MY NAME is Kevin Alfred Strom. I have been in solitary confinement for sixteen months. Circumstances and strategic considerations have kept me silent until now. But I have sworn to tell the whole truth, so I ask the court to grant me now perhaps one minute for every month I have been imprisoned.

All along I’ve told the truth to everyone — investigators, family members, this court, my closest friends — about this case, even when that truth was embarrassing to me or easily misconstrued to be used against me.

Let me tell you a little about my background. For some 20 years, I worked as a broadcast engineer. For three years, until I moved to Virginia in 2001, I was the local chapter leader of the Family Support Network, a parenting group. I’m a writer, a publisher, an editor, a broadcaster — and an activist for social change who’s taken on some powerful interest groups, armed only with a microphone and a pen. But more than anything else, I’m a father.

The greatest title of honor I’ve ever been given is “Daddy.”

My Children

My son Oliver[1] is fifteen, an honor student just embarking on his high school years and all the changes that implies.

My daughter Vita is eleven, also an honor student and getting set to graduate to middle school.

My younger son Alfred is thirteen and severely autistic. He has made some progress at a special school for autistic children, but in many ways he lives in his own inner world. Victims of autism have trouble relating to people, but often get very attached to one person in their lives. In Alfred’s case, that person is me.

[1] (All minors named here have been given alternate names to protect their identities.)

Some years ago, I lived in Virginia while my ex-wife, the children’s mother, lived in Minnesota. I had to bear all the driving duties and all the costs to maintain my parenting time under joint custody. My parenting time was split into four periods every year.

My children and I

I drove 1,250 miles to pick up the children, another 1,250 miles back home for my time with them, another 1,250 miles to drop them off, and then 1,250 miles back home again. And that’s for one trip. Depending on school or other schedules, sometimes the driving time was longer than the time at home with them. I was making that trip between here and Minnesota sixteen times a year. I did that for six years. It was worth every bit of effort. I love my children more than my own soul.

Your honor, I am not a pedophile. I am the farthest thing imaginable from a sexual pervert of any kind. I am in fact the precise opposite of the way I have been characterized in this case. And I have never sought out, purchased, enjoyed, or wanted child pornography of any kind.

Those who would in reality or fantasy violate the innocence of a child disgust me. They are monsters, aberrations, contra naturam, from whom the innocent need to be protected.

I am not a hateful person, your honor, but I do revile the foul deeds of pedophiles and child pornographers. In my public and private life I have exposed and condemned them, and opposed the “normalization” of pedophilia now being pushed in some psychological circles.

Sex and Love

I regard human sexuality not as a casual pleasure, nor as something dirty, but rather as something sacred, something holy. It is the means by which new souls are brought into the universe. This love of our hearts and our bodies connects us to — actually physically connects us to — the mysterious beginnings of all life, and to our as yet unknown destiny. It is not to be spoken of lightly.

To me, sex, love, and family form a kind of natural trinity which ought never to be sundered. I have long instinctively felt this way.

I believe in love. In my sexual life, I have been what one of my friends calls “an absolute straight arrow.” In high school, some called me a “Puritan” because I refused to participate in the alcohol, recreational drugs, and recreational sex which were and are so common. And I’ve remained true to my principles.

When the fates have blessed me with a sweetheart, I have always been faithful to her, always and absolutely. I have loved imperfectly and made innumerable mistakes, but I have loved with all my heart. And the number of sweethearts I have had in 51 years of life can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Art and Beauty

Your honor, before it was all taken from me, my home was filled with fine art: reproductions of the paintings of Maxfield Parrish, John William Waterhouse, William Bouguereau; the sculptures of Rodin, Houdon, St. Gaudens, Hiram Powers; and many others. I’m also a photographer and a graphic artist myself in my role as editor. And I operate a highly regarded online art gallery.

Cupid and Psyche - an example of the art collected and displayed by Kevin Alfred Strom

I believe one of the greatest purposes of high art is to depict the human form as an ideal of beauty and nobility. I believe that one of the greatest tragedies of modern art is that it has abandoned the Classical reverence for our natural form which, our ancestors believed and so do I, partakes of the Divine.

I believe that whenever the human body is portrayed, that portrayal should embody respect, nobility, beauty, and dignity — never crudity, lasciviousness, or degradation; even, or perhaps especially, when the erotic is part of that portrayal.

I do not like pornography. When in my life I have sought out the erotic, I have never sought the gross, the crude, the pornographic.

I’d like to live in a society in which no one wanted pornography of any kind. And I firmly believe that a revival of the Classical nude in art, in the exquisite tradition that culminated near the end of the 19th century, would go a very long way toward making all kinds of pornography disappear.

How then did I come here before you?

The Erotic and the Pornographic

Now, I have enjoyed erotic — but not pornographic — photography depicting beautiful young women. And my imprecisely-chosen words and speculations[2] about those pictures have been used against me. But the erotic photographs I actually sought out, on sites like BodyInMind.com, have nothing to do with these charges — except to the extent that my honest discussion of enjoying pictures of “beautiful young girls” (all of them on sites where the models are certified to be over eighteen) and words to that effect have been edited and twisted beyond recognition in order to incriminate me.

[2] (Speculations encouraged by cynical JTTF interrogators and a vengeful ex-spouse who surreptitiously recorded a marriage counseling session, both of whom later edited the recordings to remove the relevant context.)

In the presentencing report you will note that the number of images involved in this “crime” is fewer than ten. I was not even allowed to see these images, and then only briefly, until I was escorted to the FBI evidence room on August 22, 2007, in the eighth month of my imprisonment. At that time I and my lead attorney were able to view the files along with their associated metadata, showing size, date of last modification, and source, among other things.[3] Some of them are on my hard drive as a result of my actions and some are not. They break down as follows:

[3] (Except for one file downloaded and saved by my wife, which was an artistic photograph of a young woman wearing an angel costume which by no stretch of the imagination could be called pornographic, I had never seen any of these images before that date. They had all been deleted by me unseen when a picture forum was spammed, or were just unwanted and never-saved garbage from popup ads or spam, and were “recovered” by FBI/JTTF technicians.)

Only one of the charged files is even saved to the hard drive. All the others were deleted or never saved and no one (except a forensic investigator) could ever view them.

That one saved file was not saved by me. It was saved on a portion of the hard drive reserved for backups made automatically of my wife Elisha’s computer, and the file’s metadata confirm that it was in fact downloaded originally by her.

Responsibility

More than half of the remaining charged files have “last modified” dates after July 14, 2006 — the day I left my home to save my life and my children’s lives from Elisha’s violence. I never had access to that computer again after that date. I do not know exactly what was done to download or alter those files after that July 14, but one thing is sure: whoever did so was not I.[4]

By studying the metadata, I was able to determine that I was responsible for the presence of the tiny number of remaining files. Their source data shows that they came from an online forum I remember visiting several years ago. It’s a photography forum devoted to beautiful portraits, having nothing to do with sex or even nudity. Many wonderful, creative photos have been posted there. In fact, the rules of the forum prohibit the posting of any kind of pornography there. But, practically speaking, anyone can post anything there — and it will stay there until a moderator gets around to removing it.

[4] (It’s worth noting that only two or three of the charged files are in fact child pornography, and many are not even pornography at all. One was obviously a banner ad for an adult porn site, disgusting but not illegal, which prosecutors doubtlessly included because of the revolting and lurid text (“Teen Rape!”) plastered across the ad, which they falsely characterized as the “file name” in the indictment. The real file name was numeric and would not have made the desired impression on the public or the members of the grand jury.)

The last time I visited the forum it was flooded with spam promoting commercial pornography sites, with “sample” images some of which showed models that were children. Though the spammers used various tricks to evade the letter of the law (by blurring out genitals, for example), these pictures nevertheless were by turns sleazy, disgusting, and tragic. After seeing the first few images of the many in the group, I deleted them all, mostly sight unseen. Every image, of course, even the ones I never saw, left its trace on the hard drive. I never returned to the forum again. These files I “possessed” I possessed unwillingly.

Faith in God - an example of the art collected and displayed by Kevin Alfred Strom

Wanted and Unwanted; Beauty and Ugliness

To get a realistic picture of this affair, you must also comprehend the scale involved. I am a heavy user of computer images, both professionally and personally. There are more than 40,000 image files on my computer related to my journalism work alone. There are tens of thousands of family and Nature photographs — it’s nothing for me to take 100 in a single day — and thousands of fine art scans and images, book illustrations, and much more. I would estimate that the number of image files on that computer at more than 100,000; so many that I had to add several additional hard drives to the system.

Clearly, your honor, I know how to seek out, collect, and save huge numbers of the images I’m really interested in.

Our lawmakers included something called the Affirmative Defense in the child pornography statutes. It states that if the files in question are deleted, and there are three or fewer, there can be no prosecution.[5] It’s designed to protect inadvertent possessors from prosecution, prison time, and the false characterization of being labeled a “sex offender” for life. But prosecutors, even in the flimsiest cases, can just inflate the number of charged files to over three even if the files don’t meet the criteria, and thereby evade the intent of the Affirmative Defense. And in these days of high speed Internet connections and Web sites that commonly have 50 or hundreds of images on their opening pages, each of which leaves its traces on your hard drive instantly, before it is even seen — and even if it isn’t seen — I venture to suggest that the Affirmative Defense no longer applies to anyone, even the most inadvertent. Its intent was, clearly, to apply in cases precisely like this one.

[5] (There are many cases on the record in which prosecutors refused to prosecute even when thousands of the most horrifying and abusive pornographic images of children were found on someone’s computer — refused for the simple and quite valid reason that the person in question did not have exclusive access to said computer. I never had exclusive access to the computer in question in my case, and had no access whatever to it after July 14, 2006. I leave it to the reader to decide why I was treated differently.)

The Essential Element in the Case

In my work as a writer and publisher, I have taken on controversial issues — foreign adventurism by the Bush administration, abuse of the fundamental rights of European-Americans, and many more — and made powerful enemies in high places. I have been a strong critic of the loss of our liberties and the rise of the security/surveillance state since 9/11.

In particular, I have published and written dozens of exposés of the illegitimate and politically-motivated acts of the so-called “Joint Terrorism Task Force,” or JTTF, now operating within the U.S. Justice Department.

In early 2004, in my role as journalist, I was covering a court hearing in Atlanta in which the JTTF was involved in persecuting an innocent patriot named Chester Doles. After the hearing I was approached by JTTF Special Agent Joe Thompson, who, interestingly, knew me though I did not know him. Thompson threatened me, saying loudly enough for the entire room to hear (and pointing directly at me): “Strom, you’re next!”[6]

The JTTF even intervened in an attempt — successful, so far — to prevent me from getting redress in the Greene County courts for the theft of virtually all of my possessions by my wife Elisha and for her violent attacks upon me.

[6] (The article I wrote at the time is widely available on the Internet (such as at http://tinyurl.com/strom-jttf) and includes a description of the threat by Thompson. It was published more than two years before my current case began.)

When this case began, who was it who raided my home with a SWAT-like team of armored thugs and terrorized my family? Was it the FBI’s Crimes Against Children unit? — or another agency devoted to protecting children? No indeed. It was the Joint Terrorism Task Force.[7]

[7]( It is worthwhile to consider that, according to FBI spokesmen quoted recently in USA Today and the Washington Post (see http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-07-child-porn-computers_n.htm and http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-04-15-childporn-side_n.htm), there are more than 624,000 active traders and producers of child pornography in the United States who have been conclusively identified by their Internet addresses and IDs — more than 17,000 are in Virginia alone. And these figures are based on a study of only one of the many file-sharing networks in use today. If cases reaching the press are any indication, these are largely people with thousands or tens of thousands of the most horrifying images imaginable, many of which graphically depict violent abuse of little children, even toddlers and infants. One investigator stated he had to go to counseling after seeing some of these pictures. Law enforcement spokesmen state that they only have the resources to go after a minuscule percentage of such criminals, so they have to concentrate their efforts and only prosecute the very worst offenders. Arnold Bell, head of the FBI’s Innocent Images Unit, said to USA Today: “There aren’t enough cops in the world to pursue every lead, so the FBI focuses on cases in which kids may be located and rescued.” It does appear that a very different set of standards was applied by the JTTF in this case.)

Who was it at the prosecution table, trying to falsely convict me of child sexual abuse and witness tampering when I was totally innocent — when in fact the charges were so ludicrous they were thrown out of court? And who is sitting at the prosecution table today? None other than an agent of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

A small corner of my home in 1999, before I met Elisha, showing a tiny sample of the possessions taken

Attempted Destruction of a Life

When I left my home to protect myself from my wife’s anger and violence, I took with me only what I could carry under my arms. Elisha refused to allow me to retrieve any of my possessions. She sold them openly, then incinerated what she didn’t keep in a bonfire that burned for two days. I lost everything I owned; a lifetime of books, art, heirlooms, clothes, radio equipment, letters, personal records, mementos, and even my children’s possessions.

In November 2006 I went to the courts in Greene County to obtain redress for that unprecedented theft and for the violence committed against me. But I was prevented from pursuing my cases and in fact found myself charged with serious crimes[8] for doing so. Who was it who showed up at the Greene County courthouse, literally arm-in-arm with Elisha, illegitimately crossing the bar and whispering secretly to the judge and Commonwealth’s Attorney? An agent of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

[8] (For the “crimes” of filing a lawsuit demanding return of my property, and for talking with a local magistrate about Elisha’s violent attacks on me, I found myself facing federal charges of “witness tampering” and “obstruction of justice” which alone could have netted me 20 years in prison.)

A small part of the radio/studio equipment stolen from me

My troubled and estranged wife Elisha has committed many acts of violence against me. I was an abused spouse. She has threatened to kill me, and I have documentation[9] of those threats. She has used threats and coercion to force me to give her money and property and to sign documents under duress. She is both dangerous and delusional.

[9] (For one example, see documentation of her clearly audible physical aggression, anger, and threats toward me captured when she attacked me during a recording session for my radio program in 2006, downloadable at http://documents.iqradio.org/. The source of her rage in this case was my suggestion that she seek additional help for her anger problem.)

She has accused me of having sexual liaisons with my ex-wife, with professional colleagues, with correspondents from halfway across the continent whom I’ve never met, with two teenage musicians whose work I’ve promoted, with my stepdaughter, with my stepdaughter’s friends, with cashiers at the local grocery store, with neighbors — I literally cannot remember them all. My denials engendered more accusations, more anger, more violence. At Elisha’s hands I’ve suffered innumerable bruises, cuts, including a laceration that sent me to the hospital to get eight stitches, and permanent damage to my vision. My ill-advised attempts to placate and appease her[10] made things even worse.

Report certifying that I am not a pedophile

The Motivation

Let me state for your honor and the record that I have never touched Elisha or any other person in anger in my entire adult life; and let me further state that my behavior and intentions toward all of these girls and women was absolutely proper at all times.

[10] (Including agreeing in writing to see a counselor, an act which has been wildly misinterpreted by the press and others: Though still trying to placate Elisha and prevent her from carrying out her violent and other threats, I changed the wording of the document she demanded I sign to make it clear that I was not admitting to pedophilia or anything of the sort. The counselor was one I was already seeing in order to deal with the horrific situation I found myself in — and I, not being a pedophile, knew that the counselor would if he was honest declare me free of that perversion, as he in fact has done. I am probably the only man within a hundred of miles of Charlottesville who has been officially declared not to be a pedophile. A copy of the counselor’s letter is also available at http://documents.iqradio.org/.)

When I finally stopped acceding to Elisha’s demands for submission, money, and property, she followed through on her threats to make her false allegations public in order to, as she put it, “ruin” me. She told me again and again that, unless I gave her large sums of money, paid for thousands of dollars worth of cosmetic and augmentation surgery for her, and gave her my property including a quitclaim deed to the house — that unless I did what she demanded I would never work in my chosen field again, and that I would be permanently separated from my beloved children, saying of them explicitly “When I get through with you, you’ll never see those f—-ing brats again.”

The Children Spoke the Truth

My stepdaughter and a friend of hers were interviewed by child welfare authorities as a result of Elisha’s false claims, and despite whatever pressures there may have been, they told the truth. I was cleared. Though totally cleared by the local authorities, I still found myself falsely charged and accused by prosecutors and the JTTF with “sexual enticement of a minor,” charges which could have put me in prison for the rest of my natural life, and yet charges so absurd[11] that I made history in this very courtroom when, for the first time in this district, federal charges were thrown out as nonsense on their very face without the defense having to utter a word. The preposterous “witness tampering” charges were also thrown out at the same time.

[11] (The “enticement” included such “criminal” acts as 1) attending the same county fair as a young family friend (though making no contact and totally unaware of the other’s presence), 2) “being seen” driving on a road a half mile from the friend’s home, 3) sending a totally non-sexual and non-romantic birthday card to the family friend, 4) sending a DVD of a G-rated film to the friend’s entire family as a Christmas present (after receiving presents from them earlier), and 5) holding an umbrella for her in a driving rainstorm.)

Violence and Threats

Even after my arrest, Elisha’s violence and threats continued. I continue to fear for my family and myself. Elisha has been leafleting the neighborhoods where my stepfather and family live and work, making lurid and false, yet alarming statements about me — including accusing me of the crimes of which I have been acquitted — which could seriously impact the lives of my family members.

Last May 9th Elisha lashed out with gunfire in a road rage incident, discharging a firearm in a residential neighborhood — a crime. Yet the JTTF came to the rescue, falsely characterizing Elisha as the “victim” in the “witness tampering” case against me, and seizing jurisdiction from the local authorities[12] so the government’s star perjurer would not be prosecuted — as she most certainly would have been otherwise.

Just a few weeks ago, Elisha openly and publicly called for my death in an interview she gave to the press right outside the doors of this courtroom.

[12] (Copies of the police reports on this incident are also available at http://documents.iqradio.org/.)

A Most Telling Fact

And let me clarify one thing, your honor; a very important thing. Elisha, no matter what her jealousies and hatreds may be, knows I am not a pedophile. Just two weeks after the day she claims she confronted me on that issue, October 17, 2005 — the date which figured in my trial and the date her violence sent me to the hospital — Elisha allowed me to take her nine-year-old daughter, by myself and with no other adult present, to pick up my autistic son and take them on a three-day trip to the beach for my son’s eleventh birthday.

And she also allowed me to take her daughter, my stepdaughter, to school and shopping on dozens of unaccompanied trips between that October 17 and the day I fled our home nine months later.

A picture I made for my daughter while in solitary confinement

Your honor, I know that judges have great powers to order dispositions of their cases, and that power has increased of late. Powers may exist which have seldom or never been exercised, and even where there is no power to order, the ability to recommend still exists.

I genuinely fear that Elisha, or those she may incite, may harm me or my family. Please take steps so that such persons may not obtain my street address from any publicly available database. I am not a sex offender in any meaningful sense of that term, nor a felon.

Please order or recommend that upon my release there be no restrictions placed upon me regarding travel with my children or attendance at their classes or school or other events.[13]

[13] (The judge did so order.)

My son and I on a hike in the mountains

Please make my family whole again as soon as possible. In considering my fate, please also consider the fate of the real victims in this case:

My 77-year-old mother and my stepfather who are taking care of my children in my absence; they have been a hero and heroine beyond my capacity to thank them.

My son Oliver, strong and stoic at 15, but also shy and sensitive, who chokes up from the pain sometimes.

My daughter Vita, who is eleven and at the stage of life when she needs her Daddy most. She is so bright, so open-hearted, so innocent, so vulnerable. She does science projects and learns elementary Latin — but still sleeps with a teddy bear. She cries for her Daddy, and I keep telling her I’ll be home as soon as I can.

My autistic son Alfred, who doesn’t understand — isn’t capable of understanding — what has happened to his Dad. He only knows that he hasn’t seen me for a very, very long time. Let me quote from his latest school reports: “His irritability and impatience typically lead to tantrums accompanied by property destruction, self-abuse, and aggression. He seems remorseful once he has calmed down, often crying for his father and repeatedly saying ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I’m sad.’ There has been an increase in elopement. He often runs to the van[14] and on occasion has put the van in gear. He frequently requests to look at pictures of his father and hear ‘Daddy’s letters.’ …Alfred perseverates about his father daily[15]. He calls out for ‘Daddy’ and asks to call Daddy on the phone. He often reassures himself ‘You’ll see your Daddy again.’ At times he will tantrum and engage in self-abuse.”

[14] (I have a van also, which Alfred loves to ride in.)

[15] (476 days so far.)

Your honor, I know I have spoken longer than is usual in such cases — but this case is anything but usual. I believe that I have now fulfilled my oath to tell the whole truth. I deeply appreciate your listening. Thank you.

*   *   *

The judge expressed himself after my statement, indicating that based on the reports he had read, including the interviews with my stepdaughter and her friend, that he would have preferred me to have pled Not Guilty to all charges. As a loving father, I could not do that: The prosecutor “piled on” charges — six counts for one alleged violation of law. I would have had to be acquitted six times in a row to go home to my children — and the government could lose four or five times in a row and still succeed in imprisoning me for decades if one or two counts “stuck” as they could easily do in a politically- and emotionally-charged case like this one, whatever the facts. The ability to “pile on” charges for one alleged offense is, in my opinion, a crime itself. It gives the government the near-absolute power to intimidate innocent people — especially innocent people with children they love — into pleading guilty to one or two counts. I chose to return to my children this summer instead of decades after they were grown, if ever. That’s the choice I had to make, and I made it.

The judge could have sentenced me to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine. I was released about four months after my hearing, close to the minimum sentence within his discretion. No fine was imposed.

The time for truth-telling has come, and the world will be hearing from me again.

*   *   *

Further information on this case can be found in the ‘About’ section of this Web site.

In recent months, additional evidence of the character of the prosecution’s only witness (Elisha Strom) and her relationship with the lead investigator in the case has come to light. The latest information on her continuing record of immoral and psychotic behavior can be found in the article Perjurer Arrested Yet Again and its links.