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Larken Rose
tax protestor writes from federal prison
Breaking
the Silence
Dear Subscriber,
Greetings from the federal prison camp in Waymart, PA. Since the verdict
in my trial, and throughout my wife's trial, and during my incarceration
to date, one of the most frustrating things for me has been remaining
silent. Not a day has gone by in which I didn't want to say a thing or two
(or ten) to all of you on this list. But being at the mercy of the court,
and to a lesser degree our own lawyers, Tessa and I have had to pretty
much bite our lips until both of our sentencings had occurred. As of
today, we're done being quiet. I am writing this prior to Tessa's
sentencing, so I can't comment on how it went. But I have a lot of other
things I've been waiting to comment on for a very long time. Now I can,
and I will. First, I'm guessing that our prolonged silence was perceived
by some as a sign that we had given up, or maybe even decided that we were
wrong. Now, at long last, I can rebutt such notions with a resoundinging
"Hell, no!" I won't apologize for the ~ silence, as it was necessary to
minimize the harm to our family inflicted upon us for crimes we didn't
commit. Now that both sentences have been pronounced, we can speak our
minds again. And that, as it happens, will be the topic of this, the first
in a series of daily messages to be sent to this list.
Chilling Effect 101
My wife and I were wrongly convicted of five misdemeanor counts of willful
failure to file federal income tax returns (26 USC 7203). At sentencing,
Judge Michael Baylson made it abundantly clear that he would impose a
harsher sentence if I did not take down my web sites and stop selling my
video. So I did. What, you might ask, do those things have to do with not
filing returns (what we were convicted of)? The answer: not a damn thing.
This was nothing more than a roundabout way of achieving unconstitutional
censorship, and circumventing the First Amendment. That's what the feds
wanted, and the court gave it to them. Consider why I've been so silent:
because everyone accepted it as self-evident that our "punishment" would
be worse if we were to speak our minds prior to sentencing. Take a moment
to digest the full significance of that. We had to shut up, because if we
said bad things about the government or the courts (regardless of whether
the comments had anything to do with what we were convicted of), we would
most likely be punished for it at sentencing. First Amendment? What's
that? Just how blatant does tyranny have to be before Americans will call
it what it is? There is also a chance that when my prison term is up (in
November), and I go into "supervised release," that Judge Baylson could
make "shut up about 861" be a condition of release. If so, I will fight
it. But even the possibility should make freedom-loving people sick.
In addition, my wife and I have already started filing FALSE returns,
incorrectly reporting our income as taxable (when we know it isn't) to
avoid retaliation from the court. That's a bit ironic: we will be
committing FELONIES< by signing returns we know to be inaccurate (see 26
USC 7206) in order to minimize the punishment we receive for misdemeanors
we didn't commit. In fact, we've already done so, filing returns for 1997
and subsequent years. We've paid a lot of money, and will pay a lot more,
that we know we don't owe to the government, to avoid further terrorist
tactics of the IRS, DOJ and the courts. Judge Baylson at sentencing used
the word "rehabilitation," which I found sickeningly Orwellian. But if
being "rehabilitated" means to stop telling the truth, stop pointing out
tyranny and government fraud, and to stop wanting to see truth and justice
win... well then I guess I'm not rehabilitated.
Sincerely,
Larken "The Convict" Rose From Federal Prison
(P.S. If there's anyone you know who might like to read the thoughts of a
ranting jailbird, just have them send an e-mail to
"t-i-updates-on@mail-list.com"
and they'll get these messages too.)
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