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31 May 2012

Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration

Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration
 
Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration
Posted on | May 31, 2012 | 23 Comments and 175 Reactions
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Democrat campaign consultant Neal Rauhauser accompanied convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin to a Tuesday court hearing in Maryland, confirming their continued collaboration in an apparent effort to harass and intimidate conservative bloggers.
Kimberlin appeared in Montgomery County (Md.) District Court for a final hearing Tuesday on his “peace order” against blogger Aaron Walker, who was arrested at the conclusion of the hearing on charges that he had violated terms of a previous peace order through “incitement.” Judge C.J. Vaughey ruled that Walker’s blog was responsible for encouraging death threats to Kimberlin, who was convicted in 1981 for a series of bombings in Indiana.
Investor’s Business Daily reporter David Hogberg attended the Maryland hearing and reported that he spoke to “Kimberlin and his associate Neal Rauhauser” at the courthouse in Rockville. Kimberlin was spotted earlier this month at a New Jersey courthouse where Rauhauser faced charges of harassing Mike Stack, an Internet activist who played a prominent role in exposing the Anthony Weiner sex scandal.
The partnership of Kimberlin and Rauhauser is one of the elements of a lawsuit Walker filed in January against them and former Raw Story editor Ron Brynaert, which alleges:
“Defendant Kimberlin had on some date prior to November 14 [2011] formed a conspiracy with Defendants Brynaert and Rauhauser to stalk, harass, defame, intentionally inflict emotional distress and commit other illegal and/or immoral acts against any person perceived as an ‘enemy,’ particularly anyone who dared to accurately describe Defendant Kimberlin’s criminal past and any person seen as helping any target of this conspiracy.”
Walker, a Virginia attorney, was apparently targeted for harassment after he provided legal assistance to Seth Allen, a liberal who had blogged about Brett Kimberlin’s criminal history. Like Walker, Allen was also arrested on charges of harassing Kimberlin. Patterico writes of Kimberlin’s “abuse of process” in such proceedings:
Kimberlin learned a technique that he later used against Walker: namely, having your critics arrested in civil court.
Namely, this serial litigant [i.e., Kimberlin] forces his critics into his jurisdiction with a frivolous civil action. If Kimberlin’s critics complain that the action is frivolous, he calls that criticism “harassment,” and through a process of seeking frivolous peace orders and/or filing frivolous criminal complaints, obtains an arrest warrant for the critic. When the critic shows up to court as required, he or she is arrested on the trumped-up charges.
Success! The story becomes about the critic’s arrest. The critics look worse because authorities seem to take Kimberlin’s side; and he gets the satisfaction of putting his critics behind bars, even if for a short time.
Alternatively, Kimberlin and his supporters can use the threat of arrest to try to frighten civil litigants into staying out of court.
Patterico — the blog name of Los Angeles deputy district attorney Patrick Frey — has accused Kimberlin, Rauhauser and Brynaert of engaging in a “campaign of political terrorism.”
Frey was the target of “SWATting,” wherein hoax phone calls are used to deceive police into believing the target has committed a violent crime in his home, resulting in police raiding the location in anticipation of a confrontation with an armed suspect. The late Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, who was identified as an enemy by Kimberlin, discussed “SWATting” in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt shortly before Breitbart died in March. Frey and Walker discussed their experiences with Kimberlin in an interview last week on the Glenn Beck radio program.
Rauhauser is a Democrat social-media consultant who has described himself as a “hacker.” Rauhauser is a founder of the consulting firm Progressive PST and was a speaker at the 2010 “NetRoots Nation” conference sponsored by Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog. Using the blog pseudonym “Stranded Wind,” Rauhauser in September 2010 urged DailyKos readers to “put an end to [Glenn] Beck’s career.” (Rauhauser’s Daily Kos blogging privileges were revoked in July 2011.)
In September 2010, blogger Patrick Read described how Rauhauser “organized a squalid group of anonymous twitter-users as a means to attack the tea party and conservatives alike.” Rauhauser’s so-called “beandogs” used Twitter messages with what Read described as “extremely graphic language including masturbation, pedophilia, violent threats, racism, sexism, religious bigotry.” Read observed that Rauhauser’s “beandogs” showed “a penchant for exposing personal information about their targets and misrepresenting factual information.” Rauhauser’s activities, exposed by Read and Tea Party activist Michelle Lessick (@ZapEm on Twitter), became known as “TwitterGate,” which I wrote about in October 2010:
Rauhauser has claimed that the TwitterGate accusations were a “smear” and a “paranoid delusion.” Claiming that Allen’s writings about Kimberlin were a “smear,” Rauhauser falsely asserted that Kimberlin “was cleared of” his criminal convictions “almost 20 years ago.”
The collaboration between Rauhauser and Kimberlin apparently began, sources say, because of Kimberlin’s use of his tax-exempt non-profit group Velvet Revolution (of which liberal blogger Brad Friedman is director) to attack the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the cybersecurity firm HBGary, alleging among other things that “Gary was hired . . . by the Chamber to infiltrate and destroy [Velvet Revolution] and its staff.”
HBGary’s Internet accounts were hacked by members of the “Anonymous” criminal conspiracy last year, and several members of the group (the so-called “LulzSec” hackers) have been indicted on felony charges. As I reported last week, federal officials are continuing to investigate the “Anonymous” conspiracy, and those sympathetic to “Anonymous” say they suspect that the group’s former public spokesman Barrett Brown may be one of the unindicted co-conspirators identified in court documents as providing evidence against the accused hackers. Since publishing my May 24 post about the “Anonymous” probe, I have been told that investigators have been working for “six to nine months” to “build evidence” against additional suspects in the hacking conspiracy.
Rauhauser is suspected of using the “@AnonyOps” Twitter account. On Tuesday, after the Maryland hearing where Walker was arrested — a hearing that Rauhauser reportedly attended — “@AnonyOps” posted a link to an image of Judge Vaughey’s ruling in the Kimberlin-Walker case:

The “@AnonyOps” Tweet was sent at 11:31 a.m. Tuesday, just half an hour after Judge Vaughey’s ruling was issued, and was re-Tweeted 12 minutes later by “@OccupyRebellion,” another Twitter account believed to be associated with Rauhauser and/or Kimberlin.
In February, Rauhauser posted an eight-page PDF document entitled “Andrew Breitbart’s ISR Cell?” The acronym “ISR” apparently refers to the military term “Intelligence, Security and Reconnaisance.” In that document, Rauhauser suggests that Breitbart was doing the bidding of HBGary, with Thomas Ryan of Berrico Technologies acting as a “cut out” between Breitbart and HBGary CEO Aaron Barr. This suspicion on Rauhauser’s part was apparently based on a single e-mail from Barr to Ryan — one of the thousands of e-mails that the “Anonymous” hackers stole from HBGary — in which Barr cited an October 2010 article about Brett Kimberlin by Breitbart.com contributor Mandy Nagy, written under her Internet pseudonym “Liberty Chick.”
In October 2011, Rauhauser described himself as doing “protective service work” for a client who is “the head of a Washington D.C. NGO” — a description that might fit Kimberlin, whose 501(c)3 Justice Through Music Project has collected about $1.8 million in contributions since its founding in 2005.
If indeed Kimberlin is now a “client” of Rauhauser, this would explain their evident collaboration in targeting Aaron Walker, Patrick Frey, Seth Allen, Mandy and other critics of Kimberlin for harassment and intimidation. Whether fees paid to Rauhauser involved the use of tax-exempt funds obtained by Kimberlin’s non-profit organizations, and whether such “protective service work” — which looks very much like an orchestrated effort to stifle First Amendment rights — would be legal under IRS regulations, remains to be determined.
It was Aaron Walker’s 28,000-word account of his ordeal with Kimberlin on May 17 that drew my attention to the case of Brett Kimberlin, the infamous “Speedway Bomber” terrorist who briefly gained notoriety in 1988 by claiming to have sold drugs to Republican Dan Quayle. While I had never heard of Kimberlin before May 17, the mention of Rauhauser in Walker’s account caught my eye because of Rauhauser’s previous involvement in the “TwitterGate” controversy and the fact that Rauhauser has worked for a number of Democrat candidates.
– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown


UPDATE: Linked by The Rhetorican, Dan Collins at the Conservatory, Bill Quick at Daily Pundit, Perpetually Aggreived, Damn Dirty RINO and Hogewash — thanks!
THE KIMBERLIN FILES:
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29 May 2012

Blogger and Brett Kimberlin target Aaron Walker arrested in Maryland

Blogger and Brett Kimberlin target Aaron Walker arrested in Maryland


Blogger and Brett Kimberlin target Aaron Walker arrested in Maryland

Posted at 12:38 pm on May 29, 2012 by Twitchy Staff | View Comments
This is absolutely outrageous. In a positively Kafka-esque turn of events, a Maryland judge has ordered that Walker be taken into police custody while serial harasser, terrorist, and killer Kimberlin remains free.
Via The Other McCain:
Aaron Walker, whose complaint against convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin became a conservative cause célèbre this past week, was reportedly taken into custody today after a court hearing in Rockville, Maryland.
One person who attended the hearing in Montgomery County District Court said that Kimberlin asserted that Walker’s continued blogging represented a violation of a “peace order” Kimberlin had obtained against the Virginia attorney, who says Kimberlin tried to “frame” him for assault earlier this year.
During the course of the hearing — which reportedly lasted about an hour — Judge C.J. Vaughey appeared to become increasingly hostile toward Walker, who was taken into custody when the hearing concluded.
On Thursday, May 17, Walker published a 28,000-word account of his experience being targeted by Kimberlin, which soon caught the attention of leading figures in online New Media, including University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, who writes the popular Instapundit blog, and bestselling author Michelle Malkin, who warned her readers, “Please remember: Kimberlin is a radical, violent, lying, dangerous felon.”
UPDATE: According to a source, Kimberlin claimed during the hearing that he has received death threats as a result of Walker’s violation of the peace order. In 1981, Kimberlin was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for his crimes, including the 1978 terrorist bombing that brutally maimed Vietnam veteran Carl DeLong
Here is a copy of the so-called “peace order” that was filed by Kimberlin against Walker:

Twitchy will continue to monitor this story as it develops. Please check back for updates.
In the meantime, read about what you can do to support those who have been targeted by Brett Kimberlin and to fight back against intimidation.
***
***
Twitterers are up in arms over this story, and rightfully so. Walker’s arrest is a slap in the face of personal safety and free speech.
Lee Stranahan is calling for a protest:
Let loose the flood of righteous indignation.
#WAR
***
More from Ali Akbar:
***
Purported Kimberlin associate @OccupyRebellion sent out this tweet:
Attention, Judge Cornelius J. Vaughey: that is what a real threat looks like.
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REPORT: Aaron Walker Arrested After Maryland Hearing on Kimberlin Case

REPORT: Aaron Walker Arrested After Maryland Hearing on Kimberlin Case


REPORT: Aaron Walker Arrested After Maryland Hearing on Kimberlin Case

Posted on | May 29, 2012 | 22 Comments and 0 Reactions
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Aaron Walker, whose complaint against convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin became a conservative cause célèbre this past week, was reportedly taken into custody today after a court hearing in Rockville, Maryland.
One person who attended the hearing in Montgomery County District Court said that Kimberlin asserted that Walker’s continued blogging represented a violation of a “peace order” Kimberlin had obtained against the Virginia attorney, who says Kimberlin tried to “frame” him for assault earlier this year.
During the course of the hearing — which reportedly lasted about an hour — Judge C.J. Vaughey appeared to become increasingly hostile toward Walker, who was taken into custody when the hearing concluded.
On Thursday, May 17, Walker published a 28,000-word account of his experience being targeted by Kimberlin, which soon caught the attention of leading figures in online New Media, including University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, who writes the popular Instapundit blog, and bestselling author Michelle Malkin, who warned her readers, “Please remember: Kimberlin is a radical, violent, lying, dangerous felon.”
UPDATE: According to a source, Kimberlin claimed during the hearing that he has received death threats as a result of Walker’s violation of the peace order. In 1981, Kimberlin was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for his crimes, including the 1978 terrorist bombing that brutally maimed Vietnam veteran Carl DeLong.
UPDATE II: A copy of the “final peace order” (time-stamped 10:52 a.m.) states that Kimberlin is “in fear of imminent serious bodily harm” as a result of a “countless number” of death threats, and that “there is clear and convincing evidence that [Walker] is likely to commit a prohibited act in the future against [Kimberlin].”
UPDATE III: To understand what is going on here, please see my column today at The American Spectator:
During his time in federal prison, [Kimberlin] became a prodigious jailhouse lawyer, filing more than 100 actions on his own behalf, and his litigious habits have continued until this day. When Patrick Frey, the blogger known as Patterico, wrote about Kimberlin’s criminal past in 2010, he was immediately threatened with a libel suit. By then, Kimberlin had already sued Seth Allen, who eventually got legal assistance from Aaron Walker, a Virginia attorney who had blogged under the pseudonym “Aaron Worthing.” This evidently made Walker a target of Kimberlin’s harassment tactics, with the result that Walker says both he and his wife lost their jobs. . . .
Kimberlin’s critics say his litigation against Allen and Walker, and threats of action against others, are a type of “lawfare,” which is defined as “the illegitimate use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent, winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent’s time so that they cannot pursue other ventures such as running for public office.” And this is part of what many see as a wide-ranging strategy of intimidation waged against conservatives . . .
Read the whole thing. I’m still trying to confirm facts about Walker’s hearing and reported arrest.
EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .
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Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again

Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again

Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again

Posted on | May 28, 2012 | 49 Comments and 92 Reactions

“The tale-teller was a short fellow who needed to be looked up to, who consistently sought relationships with females much younger than himself, who could boast to an eighteen-year-old woman he’d just met on a bus that he was ‘one of the strongest men in the world.’”
– Mark Singer, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin (1996), Page 312
“In e-mails and Web postings from Kimberlin’s two organizations, Justice Through Music and Velvet Revolution, he intersperses occasionally useful pieces of information . . . with a hefty portion of bunk, repeatedly asserting as fact things that are not true. . . . Kimberlin has found a home in the blogosphere . . .”
– Massimo Calabresi, Time magazine, “The Wizard of Odd,” Jan. 5, 2007
“Using two popular leftist blogs, the 56-year-old from Bethesda, Md., has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public and left-leaning foundations by promising to put conservatives he disagrees with in jail, often with offers of large rewards. So far — without success — he has called for the arrest of Karl Rove, Andrew Breitbart, Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, Massey Energy Chairman Don Blankenship and other high-profile public figures.
“A review of tax filings for Kimberlin’s blogs, ‘Velvet Revolution’ and ‘Justice Through Music,’ raises troubling questions about whether his ‘nonprofit’ operations are dedicated to public activism – or are just a new facade for a longtime con artist.”
– Ed Barnes, Fox News, “Leftist Blogger’s Criminal Past Raises Questions About His Real Intent,” Oct. 19, 2010
“In sworn testimony in a court proceeding involving Seth Allen, Kimberlin falsely claimed to have been ‘secretly exonerated’ (???) of the heinous crimes for which he was convicted in 1981.”
– Robert Stacy McCain, “Lying Felon Can’t Stop Lying,” May 24
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
In the fall of 1988, when convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin was still locked up in federal prison and claiming to have sold dope to GOP vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle, every political reporter in the country wanted to write about Kimberlin. In his 1996 book, Mark Singer recounts how National Public Radio reporter Nina Totenberg spoke to Kimberlin two or three times every day in late October and early November 1988.
So why, 24 years later, are Nina Totenberg and the rest of the elite media ignoring what their old friend’s been up to lately? Tom Blumer of Newsbusters asks, “Where Is the Establishment Press?”
Leading blogger Robert Stacy McCain has decided that he and his family must leave their home and that they can’t go back; he officially describes his location as “whereabouts unknown.” On Friday, Patterico, an assistant DA by day, revealed a campaign of harassment involving “workplace complaints, publication of personal information such as home addresses and pictures of residences, bogus allegations of criminal activity, whisper campaigns, frivolous legal actions, and frivolous State Bar complaints.” Oh, and he was “SWATted” — he had his home stormed by a SWAT team, complete with a police helicopter and a spotlight. Someone pretending to be him “called the police to say I had shot my wife.” An audio expert Patterico hired concluded that “it is probable” that the hoax call was placed by a Kimberlin associate known to have tweeted a public threat against himself and his family.
Erick Erickson of RedState got “SWATted” Sunday evening; this time, “Someone called 911 (pretending to be) from my address claiming there had been an accidental shooting.”
This is a complicated story and difficult to tell. So far as I know, it started in October 2010 when Mandy Nagy of Breitbart.com published her 3,600-word article about Kimberlin. Also in 2010, Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser, a Democrat campaign consultant, was accused in the “TwitterGate” episode of targeting Tea Party activists for obscene harassment online. (Also see, “Democrat Cyber Stealth Revealed: Neal Rauhauser & Radical E-Thugs,” Patrick Read, Oct. 13, 2010.) In 2011, one of the online activists who helped push the Anthony Weiner scandal into the news, Mike Stack got “SWATted” and has subsequently pressed charges of harassment against Rauhauser.
Liberal blogger Seth Allen (@prepostericity) was critical of Kimberlin and Brad Friedman, partners in the tax-exempt non-profit Velvet Revolution. Allen was sued by Kimberlin. Allen got legal assistance from attorney Aaron Walker, who blogged under the pseudonym Aaron Worthing. Walker then became a target of Kimberlin’s harassment, with the result that both Walker and his wife lost their jobs.
Such is the story that I learned on May 17, when Walker published his 28,000-word account of his entanglement with Kimberlin. Immediately recognizing this as a newsworthy story, I began reporting about it on my blog. Four days later, on May 21, Kimberlin contacted my wife’s employer, raising security concerns for the employer and causing me to leave my home in order to be able to continue reporting the story without potentially endangering others.
Reacting to Kimberlin’s harassment of Allen, Walker, myself and others, Lee Stranahan declared that Friday, May 25, would be “Everybody Blog Brett Kimberlin Day” — with remarkable results. As a journalistic fugitive, I continued reporting the story:
The story continues gaining momentum. The Sunday “SWATting” of Erickson, a CNN contributor, guarantees that this story won’t go away soon. Michelle Malkin has published a “to-do list” for those who want to put a stop to the intimidation and harassment:
The massive blogburst about convicted bomber and online terrorist ringleader Brett Kimberlin ended on Friday, but this is an ongoing legal, financial, and emotional morass for the targets. And it has now entangled new victims. It is precisely because each and every blogger, Twitter users, activist, talk show host, and podcaster is potential new prey for sicko Kimberlin and his cabal that we must all stand together.
“Online terrorist ringleader” is a rather strong term. I prefer Jimmie Bise Jr.’s neutral objective phrase, “Lying Felon Brett Kimberlin,” but why quibble over semantics at this point?
What we have here is a remarkable news story, and the story is not about me. It’s not about Aaron Walker or Mike Stack or Seth Allen or Patrick Frey or Erick Erickson or Mandy Nagy.
This is a story about Brett Kimberlin. What is truly dumbfounding is that Kimberlin’s old media buddies like Nina Totenberg think we’re too stupid to notice them ignoring it.
 Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown


THE KIMBERLIN FILES:
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28 May 2012

Brett Kimberlin’s Heiress Aunt Helping Fund His Tax-Exempt Harassment

Brett Kimberlin’s Heiress Aunt Helping Fund His Tax-Exempt Harassment


Brett Kimberlin’s Heiress Aunt Helping Fund His Tax-Exempt Harassment

Posted on | May 27, 2012 | 123 Comments and 117 Reactions
FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Convicted felon Brett Kimberlin is the nephew of a wealthy Maryland woman who has contributed to a foundation that helped fund a 501(c)3 organization of which Kimberlin is the director. Kimberlin’s activities have recently attracted widespread attention because of his attempts to intimidate and harass bloggers who wrote about his criminal history.
Harriet Crosby, 66, reportedly an heiress to the General Mills fortune, was one of the original donors to the Threshold Foundation, which contributed $20,000 to Kimberlin’s Justice Through Music Project in 2008, according to database research I reported May 19.
The Threshold Foundation was started by a group of wealthy devotees of environmentalism and trancendental meditation. The foundation’s “very liberal” view, researcher Ron Arnold has written, “saw American society as rife with injustice and in need of radical transformation.” Threshold has been affiliated with the Tides Foundation, linked to left-wing billionaire George Soros.
A 2009 profile of Crosby in the alumni magazine of the elite Putney School — a private academy in Vermont, where the annual tuition is $46,900 for boarding students — described her as “active” in the tax-exempt non-profit group Velvet Revolution, which Kimberlin helped start in association with liberal blogger Brad Friedman.
Velvet Revolution gained notoriety by making unsubstantiated claims that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election through vote fraud. A 2007 Time magazine profile of Kimberlin described how he ”found a home in the blogosphere” by “repeatedly asserting as fact things that are not true.” At one point, Kimberlin offered a $100,000 reward for proof of his assertion that President George W. Bush’s re-election was obtained through vote fraud, a reward that was never paid. Velvet Revolution has also unsuccessfully sought criminal prosecution of various public figures including GOP strategist Karl Rove, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the late New Media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart.
The connection between Kimberlin and Crosby — verified by a 2009 article in the Montgomery County (Md.) Gazette — was reported today by Tee Zieldors, who credits independent blogger Seth Allen (whose Twitter account is @Preposterocity) for the tip.
It was Allen’s writings about Kimberlin that resulted in him being the defendant in a lawsuit brought by Kimberlin. Allen’s lawyer, Aaron Worthing, subsequently drew attention to his own experiences with Kimberlin in a 28,000-word account on May 17.
Kimberlin is scheduled to appear in a Maryland court Tuesday for a hearing about a “peace order” he has sought against Walker.
* * * * *
The National Bloggers Club has created KimberlinFiles.org to help call attention to the Kimberlin case and, as the non-profit goup’s president Ali Akbar says, to enable “supporters to make financial donations to a relief fund as a show of support.”
– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown
UPDATE: Linked by Legal Insurrection, Da Tech Guy, The Camp of the Saints, Little Miss Attila, That Innocuous Girl and Daley Gator — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!
THE KIMBERLIN FILES:
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http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/28/a-post-brett-kimberlin-blogburst-to-do-list/

A post-Brett Kimberlin blogburst to-do list

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By Michelle Malkin  •  May 28, 2012 12:40 AM

Remember what I wrote on Wednesday and what more than 150 blogs and thousands of Twitter activists united behind on Friday?
This is literally a matter of life and death, freedom vs. terrorism. We side with life and freedom.
The massive blogburst about convicted bomber and online terrorist ringleader Brett Kimberlin ended on Friday, but this is an ongoing legal, financial, and emotional morass for the targets. And it has now entangled new victims. It is precisely because each and every blogger, Twitter users, activist, talk show host, and podcaster is potential new prey for sicko Kimberlin and his cabal that we must all stand together.
And it is imperative that we turn awareness-raising into action.
1. Tweet @CNN and ask if the cable news network will be covering the reported SWATting of RedState blogger and CNN contributor Erick Erickson today in the aftermath of the Everyone Blog About Brett Kimberlin event. For more on how Erickson and his family were subjected to the same terror tactic used against blogger Patterico, who exposed his plight on Friday on his blog and on the Glenn Beck show, see here, here, here, here, and Twitchy round-up here.
2. Courageous blogger Aaron Walker, who was fired from his job along with his wife after Kimberlin launched his vexatious litigation jihad, faces a hearing on Tuesday in Maryland over several speech-squelching “peace orders” filed by the convicted bomber. If you go show your support, here are cell phone/ electronic device rules.
Aaron, who blew the whistle in a blog opus more than a week ago, gave several concrete steps on how you can help:
First, please spread the word far and wide about this story. Tweet it, blog it, Facebook it, link it, whatever. If you are a reporter and would like to talk to me about this and even view the un-redacted documents, let me know at any of my emails, including AaronJW72@gmail.com. I will be happy to speak with you.
Second, you can write to the State’s Attorney of Montgomery County. I did not name the subordinate responsible for the inaction, but ultimately it is the responsibility of John McCarthy, the State’s Attorney himself. You might also consider writing to the Governor, or the Attorney General of Maryland. Be polite. You will not help me by being foul or insulting. Simply state that you believe a grave injustice has been done to me—if you happen to agree—and ask them politely to see to it that justice be done.
This is his office’s contact information:
State’s Attorney for Montgomery County
50 Maryland Avenue, 5th Floor
Rockville, Maryland 20850
states.attorney@montgomerycountymd.gov.
240-777-7300
Third, and importantly, I will be setting up a defense fund very soon. This will not be limited to my case, but to all victims of Kimberlin and his crew because there are more of them than I am disclosing in this post. Their goal is to get anyone who crosses them fired, impoverished by continual and frivolous legal actions and so on. They have already cost me $7,000 and my job. You can help make sure that this will not happen to others and, yes, help me pay my legal expenses.
Fourth, if you are hiring, I need a job. I can work as a lawyer, blogger, researcher or any number of things. Feel free to contact me by email if you think you can offer me something.
3. Hold the financial aiders and abetters of Brett Kimberlin accountable:
Action alert: Ask Barbra Streisand to answer for funding the work of political terrorist Brett Kimberlin
Action alert: Ask the State Department about its “partnership” with Kimberlin’s shady social justice music outfit, Justice Through Music Project.
Action alert: Press other JTMP donors — including Fidelity Investments, the Schwab Charitable Fund, the Tides Foundation, and Threshold Foundation — for answers about their relationship with JTMP.
Don’t take “no comment” for an answer.
4. As Breitbart. com lead investigative exposer and Kimberlin target Mandy Nagy (Liberty Chick) observes, the left has the National Lawyers Guild to defend progressives’ First Amendment rights.
A wide variety of conservative public interest law firms do the same. But we need the best legal minds united and organized in defense of online conservatives under fire from well-funded, vexatious litigants like Brett Kimberlin and his ilk.
They need to be talking to each other. And they need to be talking directly to the Kimberlin targets and bloggers’ groups.
5. Legislative and legal focus.
a) 18 USC 241. As noted on Friday, Christian Adams points the way:
The story about the SWATTING and intimidation is shocking. It might also be illegal.
18 USC 241 prohibits intimidation against Americans for exercising free speech rights. The statute says:
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
b) State-level vexatious litigant statutes. Several friends and readers have e-mailed me about legislation to prevent systematic abuse of the court system by serial, frivolous pro se plaintiffs like Kimberlin. Here’s some background on California’s law.
Via Cynthia Yockey, Maryland does have a vexatious litigant statute as well:
*For an example of Maryland’s Rule 1-341 on vexatious litigants, see this article on James Riffin v. Circuit Court for Baltimore County, et al. Fore more on Maryland’s Rule 1-341 against vexatious lawsuits — see 0.2:250 Sanctions in Judicial Proceedings:
The Court of Appeals fashioned Maryland Rule 1-341 to protect civil litigants from certain types of improper conduct by an opposing party or attorney. As reflected in the title of Maryland Rule 1-341, “Bad Faith — Unjustified Proceeding,” in any civil action, a court may require a party, that party’s attorney, or both to pay reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred by the adverse party if a proceeding was maintained or defended in bad faith or without substantial justification. This Rule applies to all civil proceedings in all Maryland courts, including the appellate courts. Allnut v. Comptroller of the Treasury, 77 Md. App. 424 (1988), cert. denied, 315 Md. 307 (1989). It is applicable to all attorneys practicing in the Maryland courts, including out-of-state attorneys who are specially appearing pro hac vice. Id.; Watson v. Watson, 73 Md. App. 483 (1988). However, it is not applicable to attorneys who fail to appear for court-ordered mediation sessions, Tobin v. Marriott Hotels, Inc., 111 Md. App. 566 (1996), or to conduct in federal court proceedings, Major v. First Virginia Bank, 97 Md. App. 520, cert. denied, 331 Md. 480 (1993), or to proceedings before the Health Claims Arbitration Office, Newman v. Reilly, 314 Md. 364 (1988).
Ace of Spades suggests there’s plenty of room for reform in Maryland because “the law permits the victim to recover court costs and such if he’s being abused by lawsuit. However, CA and other states maintain a *list.* And once you’re on it, you’re required to post a large bond (like 10 or 15K) before filing (which can reimburse the target if you’re found vexatious again) and [it requires] you to get a senior judge to sign off on your exiting new lawsuits…Something like that would be terrific. Indeed, not sure why every damn state doesn’t pass something like that now. If you press some number of suits deemed vexatious by a judge (like 5 or so), bam, you’re on the list, and now your right to sue is limited.”
6. Ace also spotlights what you can do to pressure Congress on this fundamental free speech issue (emphasis added):
And our representatives in the US Congress can act, too. 501(c)’s are nonprofit charities whose donors receive a tax deduction. That means Brett Kimberlin’s litigious lifestyle choices aren’t merely outrageous — they are subsidized by you, the taxpayer.
When the Barbara Streisand Foundation donates to one of Brett Kimberlin’s, uh, outfits, that’s deductible, baby!
When Soros’ Tides Foundation or Theresa Heinz’s Heinz Foundation writes a big check for Brett Kimberlin’s um, charitable endeavors, you kick in a little for that.
Now, the nation must perhaps tolerate some amount of harassment and abuse by convicted felons — but does it also have to subsizdize it?
So here is something for the US Congress to consider: Given that a 501(c)(3) is not a “right,” but a creature of the tax code, with very persnickety rules about how it shall be operated and what its principals must do–
Should the principal of a 501(c) be permitted to file vexatious lawsuits which are really SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation — lawfare against free speech)?
Or, rather, if someone is a vexatious litigant, should that person be permitted to hold a position as a principal on a 501(c) while continuing to abuse the legal system? Shouldn’t they have to make a choice — respect the legal system, or run a charity, but you can’t be a principal of a charity while engaging in serial abuse of process?
Considering all the rules that must be compiled with for a 501(c)- shouldn’t someone acting as principal for one be expected to comply with rules against harassment by meritless lawsuit as well?
And if they’re not doing the latter, what are the odds they’re scrupulously following the law as regards 501(c)’s?

…One last thing we can do: We can urge/request/demand our representatives read Brett Kimberlin’s criminal history into the United States Congressional Record.
Why? Not for punitive reasons. Rather, to answer the question I posed in the headline.
Did the US Congress strip American citizens of their right to state demonstrably true facts without unending harassments? Did we lose that right simply because Brett Kimberlin has decided, as a Congress of One, that we should no longer have it?
If we have not lost that right — if it is still legal to say, in America, that Brett Kimberlin was convicted of planting eight bombs in Speedway, Indiana, one of which took a man’s leg, and then, distraught over his maiming, his life, via suicide — if it is legal to say this, can we have it stated by a US Congressman for the record that it is still legal to say this?
…Either Americans have the right to state that Kimberlin was convicted of the Speedway Bombing Spree or they do not.
If I no longer have this right, I would like Congress to pass a law stating that I no longer have this right. If we’re repealing the First Amendment, let’s make it official.
7. PLEASE remember the National Bloggers Club fund-raising drive for the targets of Brett Kimberlin’s online terror campaign. Give what you can. Help spread the word.
8. Don’t shut up. Don’t let this insane story of online terrorism, which transcends politics, die. Silence is complicity.
Et lux in tenebris lucet…
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