[CS-FSLUG] Humor me a moment

[Jukka]

I pray they (Marshals) get rid of their suspicions against you, so
that you (and people around you) can be free from this. And - as Ron
wrote in his post - I also hope you don't get bitter because of the
things you described.

Blessings,
Jukka

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 22:52:02 -0600, Ed Hurst <ehurst at asisaid.com> wrote:
> I don't wish to post here about politics; this about my crazy life.
> Please humor me for reposting here from my blog. I want to make sure
> this is on the record, in case something unpleasant happens. This is not
> fiction.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> They're At It Again
> 
> I wrote once how the US Marshals ruined my work at a local church not
> too far from where I now live.
> 
> While living in Oklahoma in the late 1990s, I struck up a friendship
> with a man who ran a drug store business in eastern Oklahoma County. We
> discussed Bible History and Theology at length over a few years' time.
> He remains in essence a student of mine. This good friend of mine had an
> elder brother working with him, running a pharmacy as part of the
> company about two miles away. This elder brother got in serious trouble
> with federal authorities. He was caught in a sting, offering to sell
> illegal quantities of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride ("sudafed"). This is
> a critical ingredient in homemade crystalized methamphetamine ("meth").
> You may have heard such labs are terribly dangerous, and have resulted
> in explosions and fires in motels and such, where criminals set up
> clandestine labs for producing large batches of meth ("meth labs"). The
> product is fast replacing crack cocaine as an abused substance of great
> potency. With the large effort to crack down on the trafficking of
> cocaine across our southern border, meth as a homegrown substitute is
> catching up to the same flourishing level of trade in the underground
> economy.
> 
> This man was arrested by federal agents because he made the offer to
> sell a massive quantity of sudafed to an undercover narcotics officer.
> They had the goods on him, and while out on bond, he fled prosecution.
> His pickup truck was found a short time later parked at Los Angeles
> International Airport. I am told the man had access to sufficient cash
> reserves that flying to Central or South America would be easy, not to
> mention places in the Asian Pacific area. That would be a smart move if
> the man was determined to escape justice. My friend is totally unlike
> his brother in that respect, acting with high moral standards and
> carefully observing the requirements of the law. He often hosted
> weeknight Bible studies where I was the teacher.
> 
> Under God's leading, I moved to Texas -- just about a week after the
> elder brother's disappearance. I didn't even know about that mess at the
> time. My younger sister and her husband had joined with my parents in
> buying a ranch of sorts, and they asked me to live on the property with
> them and help clear scrub trees and so forth. Once we were settled in
> here, my friend began calling me often, carrying on the Bible study we
> had engaged before I left Oklahoma. He also sent me a check, mostly as a
> love offering, to help my family and I during the transition before any
> of us got work here in Texas. He had mentioned this whole mess once we
> established regular phone contact, as his phone was being tapped and his
> mail being intercepted. He felt obliged to warn me, in case I was
> uncomfortable with the idea. Given the timing of all this, I am not
> totally surprised the US Marshals believed my presence in a remote rural
> area might indicate I was hiding my friend's brother. They came to visit
> a month or so later, and asked questions regarding this suspicion of theirs.
> 
> My final three years in the US Army as a Military Policeman I served as
> a DARE Officer. You may know that was a program whereby police officers
> were trained to enter the school system and conduct classes with
> students to convince them to stay away from the temptations of substance
> abuse and gangs. So there could not have been anyone more on the
> Marshals' side at that point. I still had a pair of police handcuffs,
> and had this fugitive shown his face at my door, I would have used them
> to restrain him while waiting the police to come retrieve him. I invited
> the Marshals to look the place over, including a search of my residence,
> knowing they would not find evidence of his presence. They declined and
> left after we talked a short time.
> 
> What I did not know was they had spent the morning in the town nearby
> asking around if folks knew me. Their questions were aimed at
> establishing if anyone felt I was the sort of fellow who would hide
> fugitive from justice. At that point, I had become the Music Director of
> the local Baptist church. The deacons were all big shots in that little
> town, and very nearly had me fired that week. As it was, the tenor of
> the questioning was that the Marshals already knew I was such a criminal
> kind, but were seeking confirmation. This is completely unethical, but
> not illegal by their rules. As it was, I could never effectively
> minister in that town again. That was in 1999.
> 
> It was quite some time before I learned how the Marshals had
> intentionally defamed me in this way, and I wrote them a note
> complaining of this treatment. A part of my message was that this sort
> of ham-handed approach was the sort of thing that turned their best
> supporters into enemies. No one offered so much as a mere "sorry about
> that." When I began looking into the possibility this was their becoming
> their typical behavior, I was inundated with information that proves I
> got off rather lightly. I have since written articles hostile to this
> oppressive and hateful handling of citizens.
> 
> Well, they are at it again. This past week, they returned to harass my
> friend's family some more. They have contacted people who attended our
> Bible studies, characterizing me as a sort of Anton LeVey, leading a
> weird religious cult. They describe me as a bald, evil-looking fellow
> who often wears a black robe. I suppose if you visit a couple of forums
> of which I am a member and look at some of my posts, you will see an
> avatar I made from an old picture of me. At that point I was shaving my
> hair close and had a mustache and goatee. Yes, perhaps I do look "evil"
> -- as do a large number of men living out this way, who also shave their
> heads and sport similar facial hair. However, I do not own a black robe,
> nor even a good choir robe of any color. I once had a brown costume,
> with a hood and rope belt to resemble a medieval friar, but that was
> before I was stationed in Europe in 1988.
> 
> When I first opened this blog a year ago, I posted a large amount of
> material that could be fairly characterized as hostile to my national
> government. Make of it what you will. Federal agents have worked hard to
> earn my hostility, and I continue to see it as a much larger pattern of
> an growing police state. I called a truce a while back, because I really
> had better things to do. Still, do not be surprised if they come to
> visit me again and I disappear from the Net for awhile.
> 
> --
> Ed Hurst
> -----------
> A Bible Site -- http://webs.tconline.net/softedges/
> Linux & Unix Help -- http://ed.asisaid.com/
> Blog -- http://ed.asisaid.com/blog/
> 
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