Readers, it doesn't matter where you are in America or in the world...what is happening to Mr. Bollyn is coming to get you if it isn't nipped in the bud, and the bud, unfortunately, is the state of Illinois.
Two and a half years ago, our "illustrious" governor, Rod Blagojevich (who won in 2002 only because of a bad name-connotation with his challenger, whose last name, unfortunately, was the same as our previous governor, the now-convicted George Ryan) was caught using his state police escorts inappropriately during the 2004 presidential election. After an investigation by a Chicago-area TV station and ensuing expose`, guv Rodney clamped down on the Illinois State Police and disallowed them to ever speak to any media about anything--even our local "media line," which all the little newspapers in the southern part of the state used to rely upon to update traffic accidents and stuff the ISP was investigating, no longer has any information on it because of this--and we moved, as a state, a giant step closer to a POLICE STATE.
Our governor has made it a terminating offense if anyone working for/with the ISP speaks about an investigation to a journalist without getting clearance from Larry Trent, director of ISP himself. As some of you may know, the only time a court will ever "order" a journalist to reveal sources is when they have actually witnessed a crime about which they have written...otherwise, we don't have to, and that would include ISP employees. However, guv Rodney has made it a kind of "pseudo crime" for ISP to speak to journalists.
Therefore, if a state police officer wants to come forward with info, say about a drunk driver who might've injured someone but for whatever reason--a lax prosecutor, the drunk driver's status in the community etc., isn't being charged and held accountable to the law--that officer may have violated the "pseudo-law according to Rodney." What will happen to that officer? Nobody knows; it hasn't been tested yet. But now there's no "tipping off" the media, not even if it's for the good of the public. The officer has to worry about his job and the journalist MIGHT be told they're part and parcel to a crime!
Many of you have read the posts we at Disclosure have put up in the past few months about the tactical response/high risk teams (commonly known as SWAT teams in another time). They get great hits, well over the 1,000 mark. Why? Because everyone is afraid of what the "police state" will actually be when it gets here.
Folks, it's being "practiced" right now in the state of Illinois. And what has happened to Mr. Bollyn is just another facet of that same flawed but being-carefully-polished stone.
Please help Mr. Bollyn if you can. Please read carefully the posts he has made regarding his issue. Please call prosecutor Devine (we at Disclosure fax him regularly about a spectrum of different things) and let him know how you feel about this abomination. Yes, there are massive corruption issues going on in Cook County. What Mr. Bollyn is facing shouldn't be part of it. It is ridiculous on the face of it, and even more ludicrous when scrutinized. When this kind of basic First Amendment violation is at issue, there is a serious problem happening, and this is the kind of viral problem that spreads every time a prosecutor and judge get away with it, thinking people outside their little microcosm "don't know about it," so it'll be okay.
If you enlighten yourself, you DO know about it.
If they get away with it, IT'S NOT OKAY.
Let those Cook County officials know that you know.
Please help in any way you can. It's happening in Cook County right now. It might happen in Boise, Idaho or Jefferson City, Missouri or Biloxi, Mississippi or Madisonville, Kentucky NEXT.
Disclosure
Southern Illinois
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: HOW THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE HAS
: PREJUDICED THE PROSECUTION
: IN THE BOLLYN TRIAL
: By Christopher Bollyn
: www.bollyn.com
: Members and front organizations must continually embarrass,
: discredit and degrade our critics.... When obstructionists
: become too irritating, label them as fascist or Nazi or
: anti-Semitic.... Constantly associate those who oppose us
: with those names that already have a bad smell. The
: association will, after enough repetition, become
: "fact" in the public mind. -- Communist Party
: Directive of 1943 (1956 Report of the House Committee on
: Un-American Activities)
: HOFFMAN ESTATES, Illinois - Comments from attorneys working
: for the Cook County State's Attorney's office at the
: Rolling Meadows courthouse indicate that the
: Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) 5-year campaign of libel and
: defamation against me for my writings about 9/11 has
: prejudiced attorneys in the prosecutor's office. This
: raises extremely important First Amendment issues in my
: case.
: BACKGROUND
: I have been working as a journalist since June 2000 and during
: the past 7 years I have written about a broad range of
: subjects. During this time I have investigated many
: subjects that seemed to be murky and concealed. This
: personal endeavor began in 1994 when I realized that the
: truth about the sinking of the Baltic ferry Estonia, in
: which more than 850 innocent lives were lost, was being
: kept from the public.
: Since 2000, I have investigated and written about other mass
: disasters, such as TWA 800 and 9/11, political
: assassinations, the dangers of depleted uranium, electronic
: voting machines, and other important subjects that are
: suppressed or ignored by the mainstream media.
: My articles are in the public domain and many have been taken,
: translated, and published on websites around the world. My
: work is an open book. I have no control over how these
: articles are presented or in what context they appear. Such
: is the nature of the Internet.
: Some of these websites are hostile and engage in
: disinformation campaigns to discredit or defame me.
: For the record, there is only one website over which I have
: any control – www.bollyn.com .
: PREJUDICED PROSECUTION
: I am saying this because as I prepare to go to trial to defend
: myself against two trumped-up misdemeanor charges on May
: 31, 2007, I have learned that the chief prosecutor of the
: state's attorney office has indicated that he holds my
: journalism against me, claiming that I am
: "anti-Israel" or anti-Semitic.
: These allegations of "anti-Semitism" clearly
: originate with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,
: a private Zionist (pro-Israel) organization that uses libel
: to defame critics of Israeli policies or actions. Since
: November 2001, the ADL, which is a foreign-interest group
: that advocates for Israel, has continuously sought to
: defame me for my research and writing about the events of
: 9/11.
: See: http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/4888_13.htm
:
: http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_Domestic/9_11_conspiracy_theories.htm
: http://www.adl.org/terrorism_america/saying_121101.asp
: http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/9-11conspiracytheories.pdf
: Now I see that the ADL's campaign of libel and defamation has
: tainted and brought an unfair prejudice into the office of
: the prosecution that will be involved in my trial on May
: 31, 2007.
: This is, of course, a very serious matter because it indicates
: that the ADL, which has vast and improper influence among
: law enforcement agencies across the nation, has created a
: racial or ethnic animus in the prosecutor's office against
: me simply because of my journalism. This raises obvious
: First Amendment concerns. The ADL's influence is noxious
: and extremely harmful to American liberties and
: constitutional freedoms.
: In mid-April, shortly before my April 23 trial date, I was
: first told by a source close to the Cook County State's
: Attorney's office that I was to receive special treatment
: in my trial because of my writings, which are perceived by
: some in the prosecutor's office as "anti-Israel."
: Although my charges are misdemeanor offenses of aggravated
: assault and resisting arrest, I was told that two Jewish
: prosecutors wanted to prosecute my case because of my
: writings as a journalist and reporter.
: Is this fair? Is this just? Don't they teach the First
: Amendment in law school anymore?
: Why would an assistant state's attorney even say such things?
: Is this an attempt to intimidate me and my defense counsel?
: Is it an announcement that the prosecution plans to
: retaliate against me for my journalism, a vocation which is
: protected by the First Amendment?
: My attorney thought these threats and intimidation by the
: prosecution was meant as a joke but I find nothing funny
: about it at all. There is nothing to laugh at – this is
: extremely serious and has to be challenged.
: I was profoundly shocked and dismayed to hear this report
: because it indicated that there was malice against me among
: the prosecutors working for the Cook County State's
: Attorney's office in Rolling Meadows – simply because of my
: work as a journalist.
: It is obviously not from reading my articles that the
: attorneys have come to this opinion, because I have never
: written anything that could be called anti-Semitic. It is
: rather because they have been told or have read the ADL's
: smear sheets and libelous defamation that I am
: anti-Semitic.
: The most recent ADL smear sheets came out on 7 September 2007,
: three weeks after I was brutally assaulted by three
: undercover police: Links:
: http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/4888_13.htm
:
: http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_Domestic/9_11_conspiracy_theories.htm
: My trial, scheduled to begin on May 31 in the Rolling Meadows
: courthouse of the Cook County Circuit Court, is supposed to
: be about the facts of what happened when three unidentified
: armed men assaulted me at my house during the evening of
: August 15 – not the lynching of an independent journalist.
: Does freedom of speech and thought still exist in America? If
: I am being prosecuted because of my writing, why don't they
: charge me with a thought crime instead of disguising their
: malice behind fabricated charges of my having assaulted
: (and resisted arrest by) three heavily-armed men wearing
: body armor who were trespassing on my property last August
: 15?
: A concerned citizen met Steven Rosenblum, the head prosecutor
: in the State's Attorney's office in Rolling Meadows about
: 10 days ago. The citizen was asking Rosenblum about the
: case when the prosecutor allegedly said words to this
: effect: "I have interviewed witnesses and read Mr.
: Bollyn's articles on the Internet regarding [hesitation]
: ...he doesn't like Jewish people and...I am convinced that
: this prosecution is justified."
: Why would a well-educated American prosecutor like Mr.
: Rosenblum say such a thing to a member of the public? When
: I heard this, I tried to reach Mr. Rosenblum to find out if
: the report was true and accurate, but he did not return my
: calls.
: On Friday afternoon, May 18, as I left the courthouse, Mr.
: Rosenblum happened to walk right past me; I heard my name
: and I looked up. He had recognized me and said something
: about not being able to return my calls.
: I knew he had little time and was obviously prejudiced against
: me so I said what I thought he needed to hear: "Mr.
: Rosenblum, you should know that I am not
: anti-Semitic," I said.
: He said that had not been the subject of the conversation he
: had with the citizen.
: NOT ANTI-SEMITIC
: First of all, for the record, I need to state that I am not
: anti-Semitic and have never written anything that could be
: in any way considered to be anti-Semitic. This is simply a
: vicious and libelous charge that has been leveled against
: me by people like Daniel Pipes and political organizations
: such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and CNN. Because
: this slanderous allegation spreads like a California
: wildfire, many people may have the opinion that I am
: anti-Semitic without ever having ever read one of my
: articles. That is precisely how defamation works.
: When faced with this charge, I usually counter by asking my
: detractors to show me where I have written anything that
: could be called anti-Semitic. They have never been able to
: produce anything to substantiate this allegation because it
: is a baseless charge. The purpose of my writing has never
: been to instigate anti-Semitism.
: The background to my interest in the Middle East comes from
: the fact that I have visited Israel and the Palestinian
: territories many times since 1975 and that my interest in
: the region led me to obtain a History degree from the
: University of California at Santa Cruz with an emphasis on
: the tragic and contentious history between these two
: national groups.
: Between 1975 and 1992, I traveled extensively in the area,
: from Tehran to Tunisia. In the 1970s I spent several
: summers on an Israeli kibbutz where I learned about Zionism
: from the Jewish immigrants who built the state of Israel. I
: traveled by bicycle and learned about the problems in the
: region directly from the people.
: I later studied the history. As a journalist, I have written a
: great deal about Zionism, Israel, and Israeli subjects, but
: certainly nothing which could be construed as anti-Semitic.
: During the first Intifadah or Palestinian uprising, I visited
: the occupied Gaza Strip with the Rt. Rev. Edmund Browning,
: the former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the
: United States. Browning told me to tell people in the
: United States about the oppression and misery the people of
: Gaza suffered under.
: After the first Gulf War in 1991, I visited the West Bank as a
: photo-journalist and documented the occupation that was
: clearly becoming more oppressive.
: Years later, at a conference of Anglican bishops at the
: National Cathedral, I asked George Carey, the Archbishop of
: Canterbury, what the church was doing to alleviate the
: suffering of the Palestinians living under occupation.
: While I am critical of militant Zionism and the damage it has
: done to the people on both sides of the conflict, this
: position should not be misinterpreted as anti-Semitic. One
: should be able to criticize the policies and actions of the
: state of Israel without being smeared with this vicious
: slander.
: Unfortunately, today in America, that is not the case.
: American Free Press (AFP) of Washington, DC, a newspaper
: which used to write for, has repeatedly been called
: "anti-Semitic" by the ADL since November 2001.
: Because these allegations were without basis and seriously
: damaging to the new newspaper's reputation, I encouraged
: AFP to sue the ADL for libel and defamation. A couple in
: Denver had won $10 million in a similar suit against the
: ADL and I thought it would be in the best interests of AFP
: to vigorously defend itself against such malicious and
: harmful libel, but they never did.
: Although my current legal case involves an unjustified assault
: on a journalist and First Amendment issues, I don't expect
: any support from the mainstream media or the ACLU, which
: have shown absolutely no interest in my plight for the past
: 8 months.
: Why are prosecutors working for the state's attorney's office,
: clearly influenced by the ADL, bringing my writings up in a
: case where they don't belong? Is this a form of
: intimidation or a signal of something much worse? I would
: certainly like to know why my First Amendment rights mean
: nothing to the attorney's working for the Cook County
: State's Attorney's office.
: Bollyn's jury trial is scheduled to begin on May 31st. He
: needs to raise $1,500 to cover additional expenses to pay
: for the people who are helping to prepare his defense.
: Please consider a donation to Christopher Bollyn's Legal
: Defense Fund. Thank you for your support.
: http://www.iamthewitness.com/Bollyn/Bollyn-Legal-fund.html
: Or send a check to: Christopher Bollyn
: 3 Golf Center, # 365
: Hoffman Estates, IL 60169
: How you can help: http://www.bollyn.com/index/?id=10451
: People who are concerned that Bollyn receive a fair trial may
: contact: Cook County State's Attorney's Office
: Email: stateattorney@cookcountygov.com
: Website: http://www.statesattorney.org/default.htm
: Richard A. Devine
: Cook County State's Attorney
: 500 Richard J. Daley Center
: Chicago, IL 60602
: Tel: (312) 603-3423
: Rolling Meadows – Headed by Asst. State's Attorney Steven
: Rosenblum
: Third Municipal District
: 2121 Euclid Avenue
: Tel: (847) 818-2326
: Public Interest
: 69 W. Washington,
: Suite 700
: Chicago, IL60602
: Tel: (312) 603-8600
