– DHS raids investigative journalist; seizes confidential list of whistleblowers (Police State USA, Oct 5, 2014):
MARYLAND — Federal agents staged a pre-dawn raid on the home of an award-winning investigative journalist, and walked away with hundreds of documents — including a top-secret list of government whistleblowers.
* * * * *
Reporter Audrey Hudson, 50, has spent a career in journalism, once working for the Washington Times, then guiding her career into freelance reporting. The disturbing raid that she endured “shook her to the core” and made her question the security of Americans’ rights and freedoms under its current brand of government.
The first thing she remembers hearing on the morning of August 6th, 2013, was the sound of her dogs barking. It was approximately 4:30 a.m., it was dark outside, and she had been sleeping. Moments later, approximately seven gun-wielding men wearing body armor entered her home and began searching the personal belongings contained within.
Ostensibly, the federal investigators and Maryland State Police were raiding the home to determine if Hudson’s husband, Paul Flanagan, owned any weapons. Mr. Flanagan cannot legally be armed, as he has a record from the mid-1980s of breaking gun control laws; subsequently placing him among the growing list of Americans suffering under lifelong infringement of their inalienable rights. Police justified the 2013 raid by claiming that they suspected that he might have owned a “potato gun.”
No guns were recovered from the home, and Mr. Flanagan was not charged with any crimes. Yet investigators took their time to examine his wife’s personal documents.
Since Mr. Flanagan was an employee of the U.S. Coast Guard, that agency — under the Department of Homeland Security — was present during the raid.
One federal agent, USCG investigator Miguel Bosch, began asking whether Ms. Hudson was the same “Audrey Hudson” who had written “the Air Marshal stories” for The Washington Times. The stories he was remembering was a series of articles that Ms. Hudson wrote in the mid-2000s exposing holes in the Air Marshal program. Of course, Mr. Bosch — a former Air Marshal — surely knew whose home he had conspired to enter.
“I now know why he [Miguel Bosch] was spending so much time in my upstairs office,” Ms. Hudson later remembered. “They had pulled out every box from my closet.”
Following the raid, it became clear that the agents were rooting through her private files related to her journalism work. Among the boxes were handwritten notes and lists explicitly naming the whistleblowers who had helped her expose problems in the federal government. These individuals had spoke under conditions of anonymity to protect themselves from retaliation. Yet, using a warrant that expressly stated “guns” as the reason for the search, Ms. Hudson’s private documents were carted away and placed into the hands of the federal government.
Judging from the way investigators conducted the search, the documents seemed to have been more important to them than the guns that they supposedly sought.
“They tore my office apart more than any other room in my house,” she told the Washington Times.
“Horrified doesn’t even begin to describe — but this shook me to my core, I was almost paralyzed,” Hudson told The Blaze. “I never in my wildest dreams thought something like that could happen in this country.”
Ms. Hudson expressed fear that this type of government tactic could place a chilling effect on those who might come forward in the future to expose government corruption.
“I feel sick to my stomach everyday since the incident,” Hudson said. “It’s not just about what happened to me – it’s about our nation, our rights and freedom. How can we be the watchdogs when our government has now crossed the line. Who’s going to trust us when we can’t protect our sources?”
“They came into my house, they stole my notes, they’ve exposed my sources,” she explained. “It was clearly intimidation. We can’t just have the government coming into your house on a minor warrant and walking out with whatever files they please.”
* * * * *
FOLLOW-UP:
Audrey Hudson went on to sue the federal government over the improper seizure of her documents — “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials.”
In late September, 2014, she walked away with a victory of sorts. The Department of Homeland Security agreed to pay her a paltry $50,000 and promised not to do it again. The agency also paid $25,000 to the Washington Times.
The settlement payments “cover just a fraction of the legal bills we accrued,” said Larry Beasley, the president and CEO of the Washington Times.
While it was an economic loss for the plaintiffs, Ms. Hudson and the Times view it as a victory for journalists. After all, DHS promised that it would review the Privacy Protection Act. And she was assured that agents did not make any copies of her whistleblower information.
However, the settlement was so small — less than the annual salary of one agent — that it would not even be noticeable to the behemoth agency. And its promises are hollow.
There have been no reports of any accountability on the part of the agents that participated in the criminal behavior. Special Agent Miguel Bosch remains employed with the Coast Guard Investigative Service and neither he, nor any of his cohorts in the raid, have been fired or criminally charged after stealing Ms. Hudson’s documents.
If the fools who listen to US media pull their heads out of their respective dark cavity of their abdomen, and stop listening to all the lies, they might look at the laws passed by this bastard in the white house. They think his dark skin makes him a man of the people………how wrong. The laws passed in secret, or in the middle of the night have removed every right, every civil right for good, Habeas corpus, a right of man since 1215, is gone forever.
Anyone who tells any truth is in danger. There are no civil rights to protect one if swept up by the government. Thanks to Obama’s pet part of NDAA gives government all rights, and the people none. They can grab you, and lock you away without charges or any due process for years. What they do to you…….who knows?
Good journalists have vanished because they want to survive. Or, like PBS or NPR, they have adopted the lies of government to get enough funding to survive.
It is depressing to those of us who studied history to learn they are now rewriting history for the schools……that is what Nazi Germany did.
Today, the US is a dreadful place to live. If I were young, and not dying of a spinal disease, I would leave.
Marilyn,
I am so sorry to learn of the extent of your illness. None of us know to what extent our inheritence will affect us until it is too late. But we must also give thanks, as you clearly do, for the benefits.
Your input and experience are enlightening and I hope you will endeavour to search for alternative therapeutic help to ease your pain, it is there if you want to find it. Please try.
On the other hand, from your perspective of where you are and the climate manipulation with Fukushima, I appreciate your stance.
Stanley
To Friend Stanley:
Thank you for the good words. It is difficult to find understanding for my philosophies in a world full of people who live in fear of death….regardless it is something that happens to all of us.
If we didn’t have Fukushima, a dreadful Orwellian nightmare of a world, if we were not heading back to the Dark Ages at breakneck speed, who knows what my philosophy might be. Unfortunately, I see much darkness ahead for all of us, and I do foresee our own extinction.
We have caused it all ourselves. My good engineer friends with whom I spent my life reminded me how clean nuclear power was compared to coal………boy, were they sold a bill of goods. I never fully believed it, but hoped they were right. Remembering London of 1853, when the skies were so full of coal smoke one could not tell if it were day or night…..it did sound good.
I have a deeply ingrained belief that we are the authors of our own experiences, and that we need look no farther than ourselves for any of it. Our engineers built the nuclear waste storage areas in WA and NM, and they are now leaking like a sieve……what Fukushima won’t do, they will.
Our beautiful ocean is now littered with dreadful barnacles, the disgusting creatures all sea faring friends have to scrape off the bottom of their vessels…..ugh! Now, all our fish are dead, the large animals are beaching and dying and there is no life save the foul barnacles. There are no safe services to remove them, or dispose of them, the vulture animals won’t touch them, they can smell the poisons, so they just rot on the beaches and put out their own levels of radioactive poisons. Barnacles instead of star fish and lovely sea shells. Our beaches will no longer invite tourists or those of us who love the ocean…….horrible creatures all over the sand. No sea shells, no sea life…..no life. 50% of our oxygen came from the Pacific, I wonder how much will be produced from a dead sea. There is no way to know, it has never happened before.
Among other things, I have made shell framed mirrors with fresh water pearls and semi precious stones set in them……the closest I will get to making a Faberge work of art……but, I am glad I did because they are gone forever, and in my own small way, I have put them into memory as long as those fine mirrors survive. Our magnificent beaches are full of foul barnacles……and we have nothing but our own technologies to thank for it. I have enough shells left to finish my final piece, a full length mirror. I have 90% done, hope I can find the strength to finish the last one.
Back in 1990, I saw an wonderful Russian Art show in Seattle, WA. These were works of art never seen outside the Kremlin, and I had to see them. Up until the revolution of 1917, there were some incredible works of art, including Faberge Eggs, and plates encrusted with precious stones.
After 1917, the art changed radically, it became wild, angry, almost upsetting to the viewer. But, art reflects the world in which the artists live, and there is no better way to see it except photographs…..photographs capture a time better than anything I have ever found, but that is just me. The post Tsar era art doesn’t have the beauty, but it is available to more people.
For thousands of years, man has lived by and eaten from the oceans of the world…….and now, the world’s largest ocean is dead. Our salmon run was 1% of normal. I had friends who used to go to Alaska to fish for salmon to bring home to us…..nothing finer than Alaskan salmon…….now yellow from radioactive poisons, so they dye them red……..but the dye is obvious, and anyone who has ever eaten salmon can tell the difference.
When I was still strong enough, I worked with hospice patients, visiting the dying in their homes. Their families were always waiting impatiently for their deaths so they could have their inheritances and go home, not bother with them. Kindness and compassion are more precious than rubies when one is dying…..trust me.
Be sure and set it up so you are not at the mercy of relatives when your time comes. They are not equipped to deal with it in any case. Set it up so a lawyer takes care of your bills and how you wish to live, and he can distribute whatever is left when you are gone. I have seen so many patients who needed things they had to ask their kids to provide. Had they put their money in the hands of an impartial third party instead of their children, it could have been resolved with a phone call.
Enough of my rants. Good to get your message, Stanley. I wish I had visited England. My people come from there, but I never made it. I have been to some great places, but not England. You are in the best location to live safely the longest. Perhaps they will find a solution to the radioactive poisons before it gets to you. What I see so far, I don’t have much hope. Perhaps the Russians will come up with a solution…..China is only 80 miles from Fukushima, and China is important to Putin’s plans.
Best,
Marilyn