14 February 1999. From hotmail.com.
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Jim Thomsen
Since I cannot discuss my own situation without risk I will pass along several tips and pieces of information that I have learned over the years about remaining undiscovered and the politics of a police state no matter where you are in the world. These were developed from years of working with police, with my best friends being high ranking police officials in my past life in public service.
I have seen how DA's and police can indict a ham sandwich, so to speak, and just jerk you around the system. It will take about $2k to $5k to just deal with a untrue allegation and 5k to 10k to deal with anything that has a one in a thousand chance of being a real charge. For serious and real crime you are at costs of 10k to 20k.
You have to figure loss of time from work, lawyers fees, and bail fees on top of any fines or court costs. So the first thing you have to understand is that the police do not want to pay $25k a year to keep a computer "criminal" in jail …..they want your money and to shut you up and make an example out of you.
If you don't have money they want the next best thing…. Good press. Police have no budget for public relations advertising so they have a unholy alliance with their own devil, the news media. In exchange for leaks, tips, inside information and access, the press give the police consideration by not publishing some damaging stories or only the police version. They also give good press showing the proud bust and skilled police staff while covering up the ten blown cases thrown out for lack of evidence. This goes on every day. I know because my wife, a career journalist and now a producer at W5 in Toronto, also confirmed what she called press "bl*w jobs" for cops in return for positive press coverage. I saw it while working inside police systems.
If you want power, start a newspaper. That is why the Internet is so scary for them, they have no leverage to exchange for information. Recent public polls show that the public does not trust the press any longer and do not believe they have integrity. To that end there is at least hope that someday the media's sins will be paid for when a source of integrity emerges.
What about justice?
Yep, about 20% of the work done by police is because of a belief in justice. Sometimes the bad guys get caught and put away. But that is the exception and not the rule. Most of the time, it is a dance, a routine, a job and attitude that eats them up on the inside like a war veteran that never gets to come home away from the war. They feel threats everywhere, and are hopelessly worried about protecting their own families, friends and beliefs. They are never off duty and always in a high state of alert. The ones that survive are the ones with lots of non-cop friends and activities as those are the ones that can control their fear. The ones that will be so predictable are those deeply imbedded into the culture as their mission and life.
The tools of police to discourage you from doing what they do not want you to do are as follows:
Police want you to plead. They do not want trials. 90% of all criminal charges are pled out. Pleading is like poker with the only persons showing their cards a few at a time being the police or DA. They think they know your hand unless you have kept your mouth shut. They are showing an ace (jail), queen (criminal justice system), king (partners with endless resources ) and holding two back. If you were smart, you got your investigation done before your arrest to know what cards they really might have and what ones you could oppose with. If you are prepared you might have three of a kind - an alibi, lack of evidence and a good lawyer. Time to place your bets.
Learn what civil lawsuits have resulted in awards against the police in the recent past and then find a lawyer who will see to it that you get the police to repeat the same abuse on you. To do that you have to know how to make cops lose control. A simple slur, bad name or insult won't do it, as those roll off their backs. You have to insult their manhood, their integrity or intelligence. That is why they are so pissed at me. I insulted someone's intelligence. Dangerous business with a cop, for that will get you a knee jerk reaction except from the 10% who are really professionals.
Of course you will be smart enough to have your body photographed the night before your arrest and have a video camera recording your arrest. A la Rodney King. If you set it up right, you too can have your civil rights trashed on live eye news. But it takes patience and planning and most of all the right timing.
But back to pleading. In order for you to plead, they must make you afraid. They have to assemble a set of circumstances that would put you in a prison hole for many years or something else that you fear. If you have money and a good lawyer, the better the deal. So in order to make sure you do not get a good lawyer the police next attack the source of your money. They drain your resources by high bail requirements, or restrictions or public embarrassment so your reputation is destroyed even though you are supposed to be considered innocent in the US until convicted at trial.
Forget it, only a few persons get trials and those are the ones that the DA thinks they can win. When you are charged all but your mother thinks you are guilty of something and even she may have her doubts..
First understand something. All police departments are open 24 hours, but the most staffing and therefore the most resources are in the daytime. Sunday morning is usually a low-staffed shift so if you want to avoid traffic stops that is the time to relocate. Shift changes are unique opportunities. On one hand there are twice as many cops in uniform as other times of the day, but they are in the station house changing shifts and doing paperwork.
There are always early and late cars. These are one to three units that do not change shifts the same as the rest of the force. Usually at an hour difference. All you need is a police scanner to figure out the shift changes. The three late units then must cover the entire area assigned, so they are less likely to be on active investigation looking for you so that is the time to move. Best times are Christmas eve, the Superbowl Sunday, and other popular male holidays I will let you figure out for your self.
1. Invasion of your privacy. Wiretaps, talking to your neighbors, seeing your employer, scaring your family and other tactics all under the guise of seeking the truth. This is part of investigation which may just be to see that you never did do any crime. The only thing they need to get a warrant to investigate any private citizen is a statement from a cop saying he thinks he needs to investigate a crime. In New York they use the electronic EZ Pass toll tags to track private citizens even before you are charged with anything.
2. Public Embarrassment. From inside tips to the press to cover your case without any chance for you to respond, to arresting you in front of your family, the tool of humiliation is the strongest tool police have except for those who will not be humiliated.
3. Overcharging. The politics of overcharging are well known in the criminal justice system. You get charged with anything they can think of even though they have no evidence that could take the charge to trial. The real deal is that they want you bargain to a plea if they drop the charges that are fabricated. The defense attorneys many times are in on the deal as it makes them look great when they come and tell you half or most of the charges against you have been dropped in exchange for….. No justice, just money.
4. Bail conditions. Don't think bail is a automatic right. In fact, many times it is not the bail the DA wants at all, but the ability to impose "conditions" with the bail. Now most conditions are like: you will not travel without telling them where you are and so on. But they can add that you can't use your computer, see your clients or other things designed to rob you of your income.
5. Seizure of your property. This tactic applies to computers as well as anything else whether or not it will ever be used as evidence. Someday you might be able to sue to get it back if you are cleared, but by that time your system will be as outdated as an old Mac Classic. So, now they can add the fact that your computer activities touched a server in a different state or country and then they can have these localities all filing their own set of charges. In fact, if you bounce off a satellite system you maybe a international terrorist just by complaining about a political issue or party. Because the word threat is not based on what you intend or what you do. It is based on the perception of the person who hears it. And we all know that any DA will say that someone complaining could be a threat and therefore chargeable with a crime.
6. Jail. Jail is only frightening if you have never been there before. It is like being back in high school hell with all the rules of gangs and power structures you have to learn. Do not take anything offered. Nothing. Say you are too ill. Anything offered has a price you cannot afford to pay at a later time. Have about sixty dollars when you get arrested and two packs of cigarettes. Jail is meant to be a severe shock to the senses, which, for any of you who have never seen it, the effect will work. For the rest of us who have worked and been in many different types of difficult situations I can think of many worse hell holes I have been in my life. The key to surviving the mental pressure is to just think…. Where have I been in my life worse than this. Most of you with war backgrounds can think of plenty. Some of us think of freezing in a blizzard with near frost bitten limbs, but just develop that sense of mind and the mental effect will be less intimidating. It's not the jail that is dangerous, it is the people in there with you. For that, you need to develop one of four postures.
Strong, Weak, Smart, Crazy/ill. Pick a role and stay with it. Each has its advantages and payments demanded. If you are 97 pounds of flab, you can't choose strong but maybe crazy is still available. The weak ones are the ones that get used and raped. The strong ones get tested all the time which is almost as bad. The brains get protected but caught in crossfire, and the crazy's and ill ones are used for cruel entertainment.
There is another class I call the untouchable. Like OJ or other high profile cases where the media attention for the DA makes your protection inside a high priority. But let's hope you do not fall into that category as most of those end up broke like OJ even if they win.
Any questions class?