Life, Liberty & Pursuit of Happiness
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Excuse me, I just noticed it's raining outside and I want to watch it trickle down on my dangling red hummingbird feeders and see the wind gently move the butterfly bush a la hula dance. I'll catch you later.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying. Take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. Robert Heinlein
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power
any 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 to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
This current trend of "thought police" is criminal in and of itself and must be reeled in by congressional powers, or power of the people as individuals will enforce the constitution if they won't........ ---Squantos
One has to be a lowbrow,
a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people
sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad
one.
--Henry Miller
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and Hence Clamorous To Be Led To Safety] by an endless series of hobgoblins. -----Henry L. Mencken
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
JAMES H. JEFFRIES, III
ATTORNEY AT LAW
3019 LAKE FOREST DRIVE
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA 27408
TELEPHONE: (336) 282-6024
30 June, 2000
Honorable Bradley A. Buckles, Director
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
United States Department of the Treasury
650 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20226
Re: Mr. John Ross
St. Louis, Missouri
Dear Mr. Buckles:
I represent Mr. John Ross of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Ross is an investment
broker and financial adviser with a respected investment firm in St. Louis. He
has degrees in English and Economics from Amherst College. Mr. Ross is very
active in community and public affairs. He is the grandson of President Harry
Truman's press secretary, Charles Ross, and was himself the Democratic Party
candidate for the United States House of Representatives from the Second
District of Missouri in 1998. In short, Mr. Ross is an upstanding and productive
member of his community.
Mr. Ross has had a lifelong interest in firearms and is both a Federal Firearms
Licensee and a Special Occupational Taxpayer under the National Firearms Act. Of
central importance to the purpose of this letter is the fact that Mr. Ross is
also the author of Unintended Consequences, a highly popular novel about the
trials and tribulations of legal gun owners and dealers in the United States.
Although the book is manifestly a work of fiction, it accurately depicts
documented historical events in the long and sordid history of misconduct by
personnel of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The book is in its
fifth hardcover printing with some 50,000 copies in circulation and has become
enormously popular among the gun owners of the United States. Because the book
is highly critical of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, it appears
that some in your agency have undertaken to suppress it and to intimidate its
author.
Honorable Bradley A. Buckles - page two
For example, in 1997 the book's publisher became aware that individuals purporting to be BATF agents had threatened vendors of the book in at least three different states with "problems" if they did not cease their sales of the book. A full-page ad in Shotgun News offering a $10,000 reward for the identity of these individuals put a stop to that particular business.
Now we have learned that in late May of this
year agents from your St. Louis field office have engaged in an official effort
to enlist Mrs. Ross, who is amicably separated from her husband as an informant
against her husband. On or about May 24 2000, at about 7:30 a.m. two agents
approached Mrs. Ross on the street while she was walking her dog, identified
themselves by displaying their BATF credentials, and proceeded to inquire what
she thought about her husband's book. When she was noncommittal the agents
terminated the conversation and departed. This contact had been preceded in
previous weeks by pretext telephone calls to Mrs. Ross, by what were undoubtedly
your agents, in an attempt to draw her out about her husband's book. An agent,
using the pseudonym of Peter Nettleson, and pretending to be a great fan of
Unintended Consequences, sought Mrs. Ross's agreement that the book was, in
fact, "a manual for the murder of federal agents." [1]
I note in passing that best-selling author Tom Clancy in recent books has
murdered a Director of the FBI, the President of the United States, the entire
Congress, the Supreme Court, the entire cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a
few lesser functionaries. I presume he has not thereby become subject to
investigation by your literary critics.
1. As an experienced federal prosecutor I am fully aware of what is going on here. Disgruntled former spouses are a prime source of intelligence for law enforcement, having as they frequently do both a strong bias against the subject of the investigation and the proximity and intimacy to know many things not available to others. A structured approach such as this required, according to your manuals, formal agency approval. It required the investment of time and effort in setting up the approach: determining Mrs. Ross's new address, learning her new telephone number, physical surveillance to determine her routine so that she could be approached in a way that she could not simply shut the door and where there would be less risk of confirming witnesses, the use of a female agent to lessen any apprehension at being approached publicly by strangers, etc.
Honorable Bradley A. Buckles - page three
What kind of people are you? Is there no honor within the ranks of your agency?
It has long been clear, from repeated court decisions and congressional
committee reports, that your agents have no familiarity with the Second, Fourth,
Fifth and Sixth
Amendments to the United States Constitution. Now it appears that they have not
even been introduced to the very first Article of the Bill of Rights.
I am writing to express our outrage about this
conduct and to formally demand that your agency cease and desist from this
unconstitutional abuse of power. I am contemporaneously making formal Freedom of
Information Act and Privacy Act demands upon BATF for the records and files
pertaining to Mr. Ross, his book, and these events.
By copies of this letter I am requesting the
Inspector General of the Treasury Department to formally investigate this
unlawful
conduct and the Attorney General to investigate to determine whether Mr. Ross's
civil rights are being violated by the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Sincerely yours,
[signed]
James H. Jeffries, III
cc: Attorney General of the United States
Inspector General, Department of the Treasury
Mr. Jeffries is a retired U.S. Dept. of Justice lawyer, retired colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, and currently practices firearms law in Greensboro, NC. He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, former Note Editor for its Journal, and a Life Member of the North Carolina Rifle And Pistol Association.
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