Hopefully, you’ll never need to use anything you’re about to read; but, the sad fact is that the United States of America is becoming a Police State, when compared to free states like Canada. Therefore, unfortunately, it is appropriate to start acting as such – since there are least 4,450 federal crimes, the chances that you are guilty of a least one of them is highly likely. Consider, for example, the simple fact that using a fake name online or sharing your Netflix account are crimes under the broadly worded Computer Abuse and Fraud Act (CFAA).

I used those two examples to drive home the stark reality. Due to our digital surveillance state, all of the crimes that you have committed “online” or “on camera” are known (or could be known) to the over 100,000 federal agents AND the only thing stoping them from prosecuting you, sadly, is their limited time.

So let’s discuss how they spend their time. Before we went down the path of becoming a police state, there were far fewer federal agents and they didn’t do anything until someone complained to them about someone doing something illegal. If they found the complaint credible, they would investigate. This process took up all of the available agents time. (And when the did have spare time, they spent in on harassing civil rights activists or investigating congressmen for black files) Now, in the digital age, there is another activity for them to spend their time on, they try to prevent crime. And you should note that “crime prevention” is a purely police state activity because it is in direct opposition to our bill of rights.

No matter how their investigation started, their initial goal is to acquire enough evidence to get a judge to issue a warrant (arrest or search) against the subject. Most of the time they request a search warrant to obtain evidence to support an arrest warrant. In either case, your first notification that they’re investigating you usually arrives with them knocking on (or knocking down) your door. You should not that their intrusion lightly (i.e. “a simple misunderstanding”) and exercise your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and your Sixth Amendment right to counsel as soon as they try to talk to you. I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to remain silent and demand a lawyer. You need to resist the natural human urge to co-operate and be cordial. The agents aren’t your friends and quite often they aren’t good people. They are zealots, pathetically committed to an erroneous sense of infallibility.

It’s important to remember the hurdles they had to surmount to be at your house. They had convince a judge that you are probably guilty of a crime AND that they have probable cause to believe that they will find evidence of that crime at your location. Therefore, there is absolutely no need for them to converse with you in any way, that’s why – under our Constitution – you are under no obligation to assist them in their search in any way AND I strongly suggest you enforce that right.

To help you in this defiance, I suggest you leave the premises because you do not have to be there. I understand the temptation to want to stay and watch the jackbooted thugs rummage through your belongings, but it is a waste of your time. Thugs do what thugs do. Remember, they are zealots who are already sure that you committed whatever crime they are investigating, it’s time to get a lawyer.

As I noted in an earlier post regarding Trump’s indictment, it isn’t a matter of “if” but “when”. (As this legal commenter points out). Trump has never been in this kinda trouble before and because he isn’t that bright, he doesn’t understand what’s coming in 2023. The documents case is pretty much done, it’s just a matter of presenting it to a jury (grand then trial) and both will come to the same conclusion, Trump is very guilty. Then it will be up to the judge to punish him, and this is where things will get draconian and perhaps expose our clearly unfair federal sentencing procedures.

You see, under those draconian procedures, the Judge will be able to consider “uncharged conduct“. For example: in the Silk Road case, the judge used a Maryland indictment against Ross during sentencing. As “Reason” explains in the “uncharged conduct” link, the Supreme Court declined to hear his challenge to this unfair sentencing procedure.

So, one of the many good things that may come from a Trump conviction will be, perhaps, the SCOTUS addressing this fundamentally unfair procedure after the Judge uses it to put Trump behind bars for whatever is allowed by the statutes & number of counts he’s convicted of… (The government could charge Trump individually for each document illegally in his possession, so based on a 20 year maximum penalty for each document, it would be easy for the judge to put Trump away for life by “stacking” the sentence.)

Regardless, 2023 is going to be a very bad year for Trump.

So, it’s hard to argue against the USA being some sort of police state, when you can literally be arrested and prosecuted for making fun of the police. The argument becomes more convincing when the courts grant the police “qualified immunity” after you’re acquitted by a jury and sue them for violating your rights (noting the fact that this case actually went to trial, is – in of itself – proof that we live in a police state).

I don’t think most people understand what an indictment means. As I can tell you from first hand experience, it’s worthless from an evidentiary standpoint. Let me explain the prosecution template that has been completely distorted by shows like Law and Order as John Oliver pointed out in a recent episode.

Prosecution Step One: Before the USA became a “police state“, prosecutions were initiated by a complaint of some sort. A complaint consisted of a citizen complaining to a police officer that something unwanted happened to them or someone they know. The police officer then investigated the complaint and if he found enough evidence that there was “probable cause” to believe that a crime had been committed, he/she arrested the suspect and then informed the prosecutor (often called the district attorney) that he arrested this guy for doing this thing that he thinks violates this law.

Now, since the USA became a police state, prosecution step one has another avenue, it’s called “crime prevention“. That’s where the police go out into the community looking for people who may be committing a crime. It’s un-American but part of our current existence nonetheless…

So for Trump, this first step was started when the people who work at the National Archives informed the Department of Justice (DOJ) that Trump was refusing to comply with the Presidential Records Act. So the DOJ initiated an investigation into their complaint. The DOJ soon found that the National Archive’s complaint was valid and ordered Trump to comply. He did so partially, probably not realizing the serious legal jeopardy he was now in… It’s not surprising that his partial compliance pissed the DOJ off and if Trump had competent lawyers, they would have informed him that partial compliance was a HUGE mistake. But Trump is dumb as a box of rocks and didn’t understand this fundamental change in his legal position. He didn’t understand he was now under criminal investigation.

Criminal Investigation becomes formalized in the form of a Search Warrant. Again, I can tell you from personal experience, search warrants carry with them a strong presumption of guilt. This is because the officer has to file an affidavit – under oath – attesting that he believes that the subject of the search has probably committed a specific crime (or crimes) and that he will probably be able to find evidence of that crime (or crimes) at the place he is requesting the court to allow him to search.

In my case, this initial search warrant was deemed “void ad initio” (which means it was void on its face because the magistrate had no authority to issue the warrant); but, the courts have assumed it was obtained in good faith so there was no need to suppress the fruits of their illegal search. I contested the government’s “good faith” because they lied to the magistrate about the evidence that the NIT Report provided. (As I explained in a previous post)

In Trump’s case, he has no such argument and thus why I believe that his indictment for the charges stated in the search warrant have already been filed and is currently under seal. This is because I know…

Prosecution Step Two: Once they have executed the search warrant and found what they were looking for, the next step is to present their one sided view of the evidence they’ve collected to a grand jury with a one sided narrative. (That’s why there is a saying that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. It’s because he gets to select the evidence and compose the narrative without any opposition.)

In my case this step was also fatally flawed. They used the NIT Report, that was solely based on a fabricated and falsified MySQL table, to present a false narrative to the grand jury that my IP “accessed” or “attempted to receive” contraband from a server under FBI control on or about November 19, 2012.

Again, in Trump’s case, he has no such argument and he and his lawyers know it. Thus all this nonsense with the special master, that is nothing more than a futile stalling tactic. In the end, the courts will rule (as the Eleventh Circuit has hinted) Trump has no legal claim to any of the documents. That means Trump has no legal defense against the charges listed in the search warrant.

Prosecution Step Three: Trial or Plea Deal. That’s it, those are your options after indictment. Although there is a third, and it’s what I tried in my habeas petitions. There is only one way to get an indictment tossed, you have to prove – by a preponderance of evidence – that the indictment was obtained in bad faith. Trump is hinting that he’ll try this tactic as well, it will eventually fail because his claim, unlike mine, is baseless.

My case was initiated with simple FBI perjury. My proof is this: I have an expert report proving that Tinyboard doesn’t have a visitors table, doesn’t issue session ids to visitors and doesn’t track visitor activity. That means that the FBI fabricated the visitors table, falsified the session ids in it and committed perjury when they told the grand jury that their fabricated table provided probable cause that my IP accessed” or “attempted to receive” contraband from a server under FBI control on or about November 19, 2012.

Trump can make no such argument. So all we have to wait for now is to see what his punishment will be…