Tonight on Free Talk Live Jason Osborne of Sakai/CAI called in toward the end of the show to report that earlier today a trap setup for local police was sprung. According to Jason, himself, Sam Dodson and Barry Cooper had rented a house in which they instrumented with audio and video recording equipment, created a faux marijuana growing environment and waited. They placed heat lamps in the home but instead of marijuana they had Christmas trees. The feeds from the multiple cameras were apparently fed into one or more DVRs and also streamed to an external site over the internet. The police got a search warrant (illegally according to Jason who said they had attorneys on hand) and raided the home. Jason was manning and controlling the cameras and mics and after the cops realized what happened Barry and Sam went in with camera rolling to ask them what they were doing. The cops threatened to confiscate the cameras and at some point went back into the home to talk about what was occurring. Jason reported that they started commenting on the cameras and how they would just take them when they noticed a router near the DVRs and realized the data was being stored remotely too. They then unplugged some of the equipment but apparently some of it was running on battery backup so footage was still gotten after they tried to disable it.

Jason said that the footage would likely be the pilot to a reality TV show they are working on called “Cop Busters” or the like. You can hear the info first hand on the 2008-12-04 podcast available here. It’s at the end of the show at 1 hour 56 minutes in. He also said it was to be on the 11PM news in the local TV station. I suspect they will be recording the segment and I will post it when and if it becomes available.

This is really interesting stuff. Makes me proud to be partnering with Sam on the Civil Disobediance Evolution Fund.

• 9:00AM Peymon Mottahedeh’s Live Free off the IRS Lies and Abuse. Not a real lecture. It was really an advertisement for his scam. I’ve read plenty of the arguments from the tax protesters. I’ve read the IRS’s responses to many of them. It’s all bogus. The safest and quickest way to end the federal income tax is to assume it’s all legit and get rid of it by lowering spending, getting rid of the federal income tax and IRS and amending out the 16th Amendment. It disappoints me that those in charge of getting speakers for this Liberty Forum got this guy. I wanted presentations not adverts for possible scams.
• 10:30AM Jim Lark’s Knee-Jerk Libertarianism: A Cure for a Common Disease. It was a well spoken discussion on a common problem in the freedom movement and many other belief systems: poor messenger skills. He was very well spoken and very serious in getting freedom fighters to be better at getting libertarian ideas across. Try not to insult, be empathetic and try to not to convince people your right but give them the info to think about why you are right. Here is the audio from the speech: Jim Lark: Knee-jerk libertarianism
• 1:00PM Barry Cooper of Never Get Busted. He has a bit of that sleazy salesman feel but not like Peymon Mottahedeh. He’s not a full libertarian (though he’s running on the Libertarian ticket in Texas District 31) but he has some good practical instructions on how to deal with traffic cops as a user of marijuana and his new movie Never Get Raided goes further including concealing the growing of marijuana and catalogs police tactics. Sounds interesting but I’m not motivated enough to purchase either movie.
• 2:30PM Jim Babka from Downsize DC. Not sure why I attended this one. I already had met him in the elevator earlier that day. I’m subscribed to the Downsize Dispatch, I very regularly use their services to send messages to my representatives and I donate to them monthly. It was interesting none the less (he’s a good speaker so hearing things over again didn’t feel repetitive) and I got myself a bumper sticker. He presented The Onion’s Bullshit is Most Important Issue for 2008 Voters.
• Glen Jacobs was in attendance at Babka’s presentation. After it was over xyz and I got a photo with him. I briefly talked with him about his contributions to the movement. Acknowledging that given his situation I understood why he was unable to publicly participate in the movement but appreciated his work under his pseudonym and that someone in his position (not to say that professional wrestler is widely looked up to but surely more than I, and he’s got more connections) was very valuable. He seemed genuinely thankful. While I have a guess as to who in the community he is I’ll leave it to you to find out.
• 4:00PM F. Paul Wilson’s Awful Lonely at Times: Being a Libertarian from the 60’s On. Those who know me know I’m not much on reading fiction. I’ve never read any of his books nor did I know who he was till just a few months ago when I started listening to Gardner Goldsmith’s radio show. Gardner is a big fan and was ecstatic to be able to hear him speak and hang out. Mr. Wilson was very well spoken and unfortunately didn’t spend much time on his dealings with libertarianism in the 60’s and 70’s. Many there knew of his work and were fans so it’s understandable that he would also talk about his works and how he integrated libertarian ideas into them. Here is the audio of his speech: F. Paul Wilson
• The dinner was alright. I actually preferred the buffet. xyz and I sat with Mike and Sayh(sp?) from the Manhattan Ron Paul Meetup group and a young freelance writer, Sam, who was at the Liberty Forum to get information on private currencies. He originally just wanted to talk with Bernard von NotHaus but decided that if he was going to make the long trip up from Brooklin he may as well check out the whole Liberty Forum. He’s not a libertarian but was very interested in what he was hearing. If I run across him tomorrow I’ll have to give him a copy of the latest Serf City. The keynote speaker was New Hampshire US Senator John Sununu. A good number of people were not all that thrilled that the Saturday keynote was a federal Republican politician. He was booed when he said we need taxes to pay for needed government. He was called out for voting for the original PATRIOT Act He was heckled to do a Q&A when he finished. Which he didn’t… he grabbed his things and left immediately after his speech was over.