Two Grandmothers
Placed On Radical WatchlistTwo Grandmothers
Placed On Radical Watchlist
The Dallas Morning News originally broke the story this summer about the New Mexico State Police scrutiny of Jean Vallance and Kay Stone, two residents of south-central New Mexico. Official state interest resulted from the ladies' appearance on news-talk radio KINN in Alamogordo. The discussion, moderated by talk show host Mike Shinabery, covered a range of hot topics including the women's constitutional disagreements with specific UN treaties to which the United States is signatory. Their opinions on the UN, coupled with the revelation of material contained in a New Mexico State Police document entitled, "The Extremist Right: An Overview," were apparently enough to invoke official inquiries of them, if not the outright animosity of the state authorities.
Mrs. Vallance told The WINDS that she believes she and Mrs. Stone were placed on a radical "watchlist" due to the positions they've expressed on Shinabery's program and other public opinion forums. The soft-spoken 62 year-old grandmother is especially vocal against those things that she says destroy the U.S. Constitution and encroach on personal liberties, specifically the United Nations and Federal land use policies within states. This subject of real estate is especially sensitive since the federal government owns thirty-four percent of New Mexico land and exercises control over another estimated sixteen percent. This, according to William Norman Grigg, columnist and senior editor for The New American, makes "the state's economy...very vulnerable to federal mischief, particularly with respect to environmental regulations."[1]
Grigg goes on to provide the rationale behind what the State of New Mexico apparently sees as subversive activity:
An August 1995 decision by a U.S. District Judge imposing a ban on logging in New Mexico forests in order to protect the "endangered" Mexican spotted owl decimated the household economies of thousands of New Mexico families, and left some subsistence-level families in the northern part of the state with inadequate firewood for the winter. Thus, it is not surprising that organized resistance to environmental extremism has emerged in New Mexico and that resistance was prominently targeted by the DPS [Department of Public Safety] as a "terrorist" threat.
The aforementioned "watchlist" does not exist--at least according to the official position of the New Mexico State Police--as expressed by Area Commander, Lieutenant Bill Bowers. That claim, however, is called into serious question due to the contents of a tape-recorded telephone conversation between Shinabery and Lt. Bowers. The WINDS has obtained a copy of that tape in which Bowers contacted the radio station seeking information on specific program guests who may have expressed opposition to certain UN activities.
"...You had some lady in there," Bowers said to Shinabery, "talking about the UN and the UN treaty down at the border that they're working on." Shinabery then mentioned a name asking if that were the person he was seeking. Apparently familiar with the name, Bowers responded, "That couldn't have been [her]. She's not that radical, is she? I know she doesn't like it, but she's not too far out there."
By that exchange it would seem that the New Mexico Department of Public Safety believes that people disagreeing with a UN/US treaty and other such activities are "that radical" and "too far out there."
Lt. Bowers told The WINDS that they were looking for a particular woman who was traveling around the country advocating violence. The question arises as to why he would then express interest in an established resident of the Alamogordo area, Kay Stone, a divorced grandmother, who is both a full-time worker and college student.
"What started this whole thing was that last June, three or four of us took part in a discussion on the radio show about the UN Charter," Mrs. Stone said in an interview with The New American. "We went through the Charter and the U.S. Constitution and showed how the UN Charter is utterly opposite to our Constitution. Our information about the UN came directly from the UN's own Internet site, so it isn't as if we were misrepresenting them. We also talked about some of the treaties that are being used to erode our national sovereignty, including some of the environmental treaties that are being implemented by the federal government without being ratified by the Senate." [ibid.]
When The WINDS contacted Lt. Bowers and questioned him as to why he inquired about Kay Stone, he claimed that he "never did," yet on the tape recording of his conversation with Shinabery he is clearly heard to ask, "Does Kay Stone ever get on with you guys?" To which Shinabery replied that she had and Bowers responded, "OK. I figured."
This unquestionably indicates that the State Police are keeping some manner of record or list of certain individuals whom they consider worthy of scrutiny. The only question is how "radical" does one need to be in order to qualify for inclusion?
The KINN talk show host related an incident to The WINDS that he claims comes from a credible source. "Bowers was over at the golf course one morning having breakfast," Mike Shinabery told this reporter, "and some guy saw him sitting there and said to him, 'I want on that list.'
"Bowers said, 'What?'
"'I want to be on your list,'" the man said. "'All my friends are on it and when you haul 'em all away, I won't have any friends left.'
"The guy told me," added Shinabery, "that Bowers threw his newspaper down and said, 'This isn't funny anymore,' and got up and stomped out."
The state police lieutenant was correct about one thing, it isn't funny any more.
A succeeding incident further contradicts Lt. Bowers' claim that there is no list of "radicals." Following the state police lieutenant's conversation with Shinabery, according to Grigg's article, Bowers contacted the radio station's owner, Dave Nicholson, a Phoenix resident. "I told him that we would cooperate with local law enforcement whenever we could," Grigg quoted Nickolson. "I did tell him, though, that I found it highly unusual that he would call and quiz Mike about his guests. I told him that these people had, to the best of my knowledge, not advocated doing anything illegal."
Interestingly, Bowers' reply to Nickolson's comment is contrary to every reason the state police lieutenant gave The WINDS for what he was doing. Bowers told this office that he had no interest in anyone except a particular female individual that had been traveling around advocating political violence. Bowers, according to the New American, told Nickolson "that he wanted to keep track of any local radicals." [ibid.] That, in itself, makes a lie of what Lt. Bowers told this office.
Not long after one of many radio guest appearances Jean Vallance made on Shinabery's program, she received a strange call from a military authority. "I was contacted by the OSI [the U.S. Air Force's Office of Special Investigation] out at Holloman Air Force Base," Mrs. Vallance told The WINDS. "They had left a message on my machine, and since my husband works out there as a civilian, I called the number back and they answered the phone 'OSI.' Then I began to see what was going on."
Mrs. Vallance said that she "very politely lectured the OSI officer about the Constitution and then answered all of the officer's questions." Then came the chilling part of her conversation with the OSI agent. "One of the questions I thought was very interesting was whether I was part of a religious group."
The idea that religious organizations are at the heart of most of the radical right (and every other American ill) is not limited to the OSI. It has indeed been the focus of virtually every government investigation into groups that disagree with it. Even in the recent House debate on impeachment frequent references can be heard about "right-wing Christian groups." In Lt. Bowers' conversation with Shinabery the talk show host offhandedly made mention of another guest he'd had on. Bowers asked what his subject was. "Old Testament biblical prophecy," Shinabery replied, to which Bowers responded with what could only be described as disgusted apprehension, "Oh Jeez! But he's not like into government or anything?" Everybody knows, of course, that anyone with religious convictions should have nothing to say about government--or at least that seems to be the popular footnote that authorities would like to see added to the First Amendment.
In a further overreaching of their jurisdiction of military intelligence the OSI also asked Mrs. Vallance if she knew anything about a particular man who was running for sheriff of Otero County, New Mexico. This, in turn, raises questions as to why the Air Force Office of Special Investigation--a military organization--would want information on a civilian seeking an elected position in law enforcement. The most obvious answer is that the candidate happened to have also been a guest on the same conservative talk show on which Jean Vallance and Kay Stone appeared.
Their concern seems to arise from the fact that the German Luftwaffe has been given a section of Holloman AFB for their operations--"the first permanent foreign military installation ever permitted on American soil,"[1] which, Vallance says, they are openly admitting is a NATO base--and she claims that surprisingly most people are unaware that NATO is part of the United Nations.
The Air Force OSI investigator also asked Mrs. Vallance if she were upset because the Germans were here. The officer "very pointedly" asked her if she would be sure and contact the OSI if she heard anybody planning anything against the Germans. Does this type of "recruitment" bring to mind the informants enlisted by the National Socialists of pre-war Germany? And does their concern indicate that they expect some reaction from the citizenry to the presence of foreign military forces on American land?
The Air Force intelligence request on the German's behalf raises another grave question. Any reasonable person could justifiably presume that all phone calls to or from the OSI would be recorded. If Mrs. Vallance were to agree to report any suspicious activity possibly aimed at the Germans, the OSI could present that recording as proof of her being a government informant and, thus, severely compromise her standing with the conservative pro-American groups which would result in destroying her credibility with them. If she told the intelligence officer that she would not cooperate by informing them of possible threats, she could potentially become the target of prosecution for concealing or withholding material facts and evidence the government considered vital to its security. At the very least she could be listed as a subversive or an adversary of the government making her subject to harassing investigations--and, of course--a permanent honorable mention in an FBI dossier.
"They are just trying to intimidate people like me," Vallance said, "that are trying to get out the truth of what's really going on with our government, with the United Nations."
The New Mexico State Police's attempts to locate and tag "radicals" began with the issuance to police of the aforementioned 84-page booklet, "The Extremist Right: An Overview." Within that document are descriptions of what New Mexico law enforcement considers identifying characteristics of those who they would have their officers believe need to be closely watched.
Mike Shinabery has read and analyzed that booklet and shared some of his observations with The WINDS. "I once took a class in logic at Ohio State that showed how you can take point 'A' and point 'B' and completely misconstrue something. There is a place early in the State's report on pages 42 or 43 where it says that the people joining the militia movement today all have short hair, jobs, own homes, have families, and it basically says those people are racists."
The implication, of course, is that anyone who is not a minority but, rather, falls within the definition of the average white, work-a-day middle-class American is suspect as a racist and possesses an anti- government mindset. Could the reasoning behind this be that government clearly sees that it has provided these people with more than adequate reason to distrust those who govern them?--those in government who would be god in their lives?
"Let me say up front," Mr. Shinabery made a point of indicating, "that I know many of the New Mexico State law enforcement officers individually and they are just as much horrified at what's going on as I am."
The source of the DPS document is insidious in its origin, but not all that surprising. After Shinabery's conversation with Lt. Bowers, he told The WINDS that he contacted his source within the Otero County government he considers to be "extremely knowledgeable about this."
"He told me," Shinabery said, "that the federal government had tasked the state police to create a--he used the term "intelligence database"--to make lists of people who might be radicals.
"I was also told that they were well aware of it in state government. They [the county authorities] were just waiting for something to happen so that they could act on it. The Otero County authorities were aware that something like that was going on, but they didn't have any proof that the federal government had tasked New Mexico law enforcement--and they were waiting for something to happen--and that day it happened."
Within the DPS publication is a broad-form inclusion--referred to as a "continuum"--of groups that seemingly run the gambit from the most peaceful to the most violent--with apparently no distinction made between them.
"Groups and movements found along the 'anti-government continuum,'" that are included in the DPS document, Editor Grigg indicates, are "'tax protesters, millennialists, survivalists, Populists, freemen, constitutionalists, neo-Nazis, skinheads, Klansmen, secessionists, militant abortion foes, [and] radical anti-environmentalists." 'The ties that bind' these groups together in a vast anti-government conspiracy," The New American's editor says, "are the common use of 'biblical references' [there's the religion card again] in the rhetoric and literature of such movements, and the prevalence of 'conspiracy theories' among them." [ibid.]
The highly questionable "documentation" for the DPS's publication comes largely from such sources as Morris Dees, founder and chief counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) [ibid.], an extremely left-wing organization whose cash flow and livelihood depends on their being able to convince the public that major threats of hate crime exist where there are none. [2]
Other sources (among several) of almost fanatic bias are the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, Ken Stern of the American Jewish Committee, et. al.
The New American makes a powerful observation in its analysis of the astounding bias of the sources used to assemble the DPS training booklet:
It is [a] collection of opportunists, terrorist fellow travelers, purblind ideologues, and snoop-and-smear artists that the New Mexico DPS relied on for an "authoritative" treatment of the "radical right." Of the 102 endnote citations in the report, 42 draw upon Morris Dees and his organizations, 30 refer to ADL materials, and 13 cite Ken Stern's book A Force Upon the Plain. The "documentation" is also cluttered with references to other similarly worthless sources, such as James Ridgeway's notoriously unreliable study "Blood in the Face."
With such an astounding collection of leftist source material, another motive seems to take much clearer shape. The authors of the DPS document apparently searched out those origins for their work which would provide them with the greatest possible damning testimony for their cause. Unfortunately, for them, those sources are also among the most flawed and impeachable.
The official document here discussed is one that New Mexico's Department of Public Safety most likely wishes it had never published. It was printed by DPS's Criminal Intelligence Section, but due to the furor that arose because its contents were leaked to the public, it was recalled. Indeed, according to Paula Buckwald, Assistant to Darren P. White, Cabinet Secretary of Public Safety, it no longer exists.
"Some of the wording," Ms. Buckwald told The WINDS, "conveyed--well it was just recalled." The impression given this reporter was that all this ado about nothing had subverted a good publication merely because its contents were inadvertently brought to public notice. "...It kind of ruined the effectiveness of its use as a training document for law enforcement, so it was recalled."
Was it not the contents itself, rather than public knowledge of it, that ruined it as a "training document"? Was it not realistically the ignoble manner in which the average citizen was portrayed that "ruined" its effectiveness?
William Grigg in his article entitled, "Mark Them as 'Extremists'" draws attention to that part of the DPS document that lumps into one category all who disagree with the government's positions on such items as the UN border treaties and foreign military presence within U.S. borders.
Grigg quotes the DPS document as saying, "the 'radical right' exists as 'a continuum from those who disagree with government, but operate within the law to those who work at nothing less than the overthrow of government. These groups call themselves "Patriots". The "Patriot Movement" is an umbrella term used to describe previously unrelated groups who share a common distrust in the government and a willingness to see it destroyed.'"[1]
Translation: If one even entertains the idea publicly that their government might be doing something wrong or evil, that person is placed into the same category as those who would take violent action to destroy it.
To reference these groups as a "continuum" is literally to label them as a single organ or entity. Mr. Webster defines continuum as: "a continuous nonspatial whole or extent or succession in which no part or portion is distinct or distinguishable from adjacent parts." Much the same as the terrorist organization known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its political wing, Sinn Fein, are indistinguishable in political goals and ideals, the New Mexico State Police document declares that anyone "from those who disagree with government...to those who work at nothing less than the overthrow of government" are essentially the same--enemies of the state.
On July 9th DPS Cabinet Secretary Darin White issued "AN OPEN LETTER TO NEW MEXICO LAW ENFORCEMENT." In that letter Mr. White still claims the publication "serves as a tremendous resource for all law enforcement officers to address extremist group activities..." and also admits it lacks "sufficient specificity such that legitimate lawful groups could have potentially fallen within the ambit of those claims."
"Could have potentially"? The use of the very clear statement about there being a "continuum" (which was completely ignored in the press release) makes clear that the open letter and the weak retraction it contains would never have taken place had the existence of the document and its contents not been inadvertently leaked to those who were part of the so-called "continuum." It also strongly indicates that nothing has changed ideologically within the DPS.
This "open letter" was apparently not sufficient for those New Mexicans who saw what the state was really intending, and six days later White followed the open letter with a press release announcing the recall of the offensive document. Does anyone believe that the recall truly reflects any change whatever in the attitude of the authorities toward those whom they have been expansively labeled as "The Extremist Right"?
One problem extant in this situation is that the Constitution does not clearly enumerate the rights of a citizen to be free from such government snoopery and investigation--it lacks, they say, the so- called "privacy clause." The fourth amendment, however, does make the declaration that people have a right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches...." Could not an individual's personal political beliefs constitute part of their "effects"? Another question is what is "unreasonable"? The law addresses the mind of "the reasonable man". Does it not seem unreasonable that a government agency, while statedly investigating a particular person for a seemingly legitimate purpose, can branch out its investigation at will to those who clearly are not a threat to it resulting in intimidation and fear to the individual?
Dissent and the exercise of one's constitutional rights are seldom squelched at the national level. It is nearly always done locally. In this case, the censorship by fear extends broadly in many directions.
When a person is induced to fear, his or her government, because of actions those citizens engage in that are not only legal but laudable, there is a very effective negation of their First Amendment rights to free speech. As well as free speech the First Amendment guarantees "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Note that there is no restriction as to disagreements with the U.N. or the government listed in that amendment. While it is true that no formal prosecution took place due to Mrs. Vallance's and Mrs. Stone's action, prosecution is unnecessary when it comes to effectively abridging one's constitutional rights. When the awesome power of this government and its mini-feds [the states] are visibly focused on a common citizen; when one is staring down the barrel of a governmental bureaucratic "gun," such a thing can significantly change one's outlook on life--which, of course, is the major purpose behind the government's actions in cases such as this.
It has become clear of late that the state governments--those who in times past were more a bastion or safehouse of individual freedoms--have become but a miniature image of what the American federal government is doing--globalism writ small, as it were--an image to the Beast.
REFERENCES:
1. "Mark Them as 'Extremists'", The New American, William Norman Grigg, November 23, 1998.
2. "Southern Poverty Law Center Promotes Y2K Race War", The WINDS, June, 1998.
 |