Time: Mon Jun 02 05:17:49 1997
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Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 05:12:30 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Militias set up by Feds (a/k/a entrapment.)
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>>>> Militia Watch: How far should government's
>>>> anti-terrorism efforts go?
>>>> 12.29 p.m. EDT (1629 GMT) May 31, 1997
>>>> PHOENIX (AP) — They'd come to hate him soon enough. But for six
>>>> months last year, members of the Viper Team regarded the
>>>> newcomer they called "Doc'' as a welcome addition to their
>>>> secretive militia group.
>>>> Tattooed, quietly confident and well-versed in weaponry, Doc so
>>>> impressed his fellow Vipers that they made him their chief of
>>>> security just six weeks after he joined.
>>>> He helped organize camp-outs in the desert, where Vipers fired
>>>> machine guns and blew up cactuses with homemade bombs. During
>>>> Viper meetings, Doc could be counted on to steer rambling
>>>> discussions back to business, suggesting that the group set goals,
>>>> form a plan or even start a second team.
>>>> Last July, when federal officials rounded up the Vipers on weapons
>>>> and explosives charges, Doc was there, too — but not in handcuffs.
>>>> The model militiaman was actually an infiltrator of the sort he had
>>>> vowed to kill, an undercover agent in the government's campaign to
>>>> prevent domestic terrorism.
>>>> Since the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, the federal
>>>> government has stepped up surveillance of right-wing militia and
>>>> patriot groups that share the anti-government leanings attributed to
>>>> Timothy McVeigh.
>>>> The goal is to uncover the next terrorist plot before it is carried out.
>>>> But now some say that such efforts, however nobly intended, have
>>>> gone too far.
>>>> While the militia set's fiery rhetoric and penchant for guns is a
>>>> frightening combination for many Americans, neither wild speech
>>>> nor gun ownership is illegal, and civil libertarians worry that the
>>>> government is targeting fringe groups not for what they do but for
>>>> what they say.
>>>> Defense attorneys claim the militia threat is overblown, saying their
>>>> clients are just big talkers until pushed into committing crimes by
>>>> undercover "agent provocateurs'' sent by the government.
>>>> Of course, defense attorneys are paid to say that, but judges and
>>>> juries appear to be finding at least some merit in such arguments.
>>>> In four major raids on militias during the past year — in Georgia,
>>>> Washington, West Virginia and Arizona — the government's initial
>>>> portrayals of terrorist cabals plotting violent rebellion have been
>>>> clouded later in court by mistrials, mixed verdicts and skeptical
>>>> judges.
>>>> Three members of the 112th Georgia Militia were indicted in May
>>>> 1996 on charges that they conspired to stockpile pipe bombs and
>>>> assassinate federal officials "starting at the highest level.'' But
>>>> authorities later conceded there were no concrete assassination
>>>> plans, and the militia members claimed entrapment by an informant
>>>> who boasted of being a "master chef'' in bomb-making.
>>>> A jury last November convicted the three of possessing pipe bombs
>>>> and conspiring to use them in a violent crime. But they were
>>>> acquitted on the charge pointing most directly to terrorism:
>>>> conspiracy to use explosives against federal employees or property.
>>>> A Seattle jury was similarly torn in the February trial of Washington
>>>> State Militia founder John Pitner and six others. They were accused
>>>> of plotting to make pipe bombs in a conspiracy to harm federal
>>>> agents and foil the invasion of United Nations troops they allegedly
>>>> expected across the Canadian border.
>>>> At trial, however, a key informant was portrayed by the defense as
>>>> a convicted bad-check artist who lied to his FBI handlers. The jury
>>>> convicted four defendants on charges of possessing illegal weapons,
>>>> but deadlocked on the conspiracy charge against all seven. A retrial
>>>> is set for this summer.
>>>> In West Virginia, Mountaineer Militia leader Floyd Ray Looker and
>>>> six others were arrested in October after an undercover FBI agent
>>>> claiming to represent a Mideastern terrorist group gave Looker
>>>> $50,000 for photographed blueprints of an FBI fingerprint center in
>>>> Clarksburg, W.Va.
>>>> One of the federal charges Looker will face at trial in August
>>>> invokes a 1994 anti-terrorism law that prohibits providing "material
>>>> support'' to terrorists. But a federal magistrate expressed
>>>> reservations about the way prosecutors are using the previously
>>>> untested law, and defense attorneys already are preparing for an
>>>> appeal. They argue the statute is so broad that someone could be
>>>> charged for giving a would-be terrorist a newspaper photo of the
>>>> U.S. Capitol.
>>>> In Phoenix, federal officials held a triumphant news conference
>>>> after the Vipers were arrested to announce they'd foiled a plot to
>>>> blow up government buildings. While investigators seized truckloads
>>>> of guns and bomb-making ingredients from the Vipers' suburban
>>>> homes, President Clinton thanked federal agents who had averted
>>>> "a terrible terrorist attack.''
>>>> The actual indictment, however, cited the Vipers on lesser
>>>> conspiracy, weapons and explosives charges. Investigators
>>>> conceded the group neither posed an imminent threat nor had a
>>>> specific plot, and a federal judge released half the Vipers on bail,
>>>> saying they posed no danger to society.
>>>> Ten Viper Team members, offering guilty pleas in hopes of
>>>> leniency, were sentenced in March to prison terms ranging from
>>>> one to nine years. Two others, Charles Knight and Christopher
>>>> Floyd, chose to fight the single charge facing them: conspiracy to
>>>> manufacture and possess illegal explosives.
>>>> Knight's trial, scheduled to resume Tuesday following a two-month
>>>> delay, offers a rare glimpse into the clandestine world of undercover
>>>> operations, where government agents walk a fine line between
>>>> revealing criminal activity and encouraging it.
>>>> The man the Vipers knew as Doc was actually John Schultz, a state
>>>> game warden working under the direction of the federal Bureau of
>>>> Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
>>>> Schultz took the Viper Team oath in December 1995 and quickly
>>>> became a respected team member — all the while secretly
>>>> recording or videotaping nearly every meeting.
>>>> Transcripts of those tapes show he was more than a passive
>>>> observer. In a group that could spend most of an evening debating
>>>> the design and cost of Viper Team patches, he repeatedly steered
>>>> members into discussions that could be used to bolster conspiracy
>>>> charges against them.
>>>> "Did anybody ever sit down and just come up with a plan on where
>>>> you were when you started, where you want to be at a certain point
>>>> in time?'' Schultz asked at one meeting. "Is there a big picture that's
>>>> been formulated at all?''
>>>> Others said there was no plan.
>>>> "Maybe we ought to do that,'' he said.
>>>> Another time, he pressed for details about crimes the Vipers might
>>>> commit following a national disaster of the sort they feared — a
>>>> U.N. invasion, perhaps, or widespread race riots.
>>>> "You're talking (about stealing) food, gasoline, you're talking a
>>>> crime, yes?'' he said. "Why not a bank? Why draw a line?''
>>>> Schultz's supervisor, ATF agent Steve Ott, has testified that Schultz
>>>> brought up the bank-robbery idea only "to ascertain what their
>>>> mind-set was.''
>>>
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