The Kimberlin Files: Ali Akbar, the Fight for Liberty and … a Disturbing Silence

Posted on | June 18, 2012 | 71 Comments

 

“If Rauhauser and Kimberlin aren’t under investigation by the FBI yet, why not?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 4, 2011

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
During the Right Online conference, National Bloggers Club president Ali Akbar was interviewed by Christina Corbin of Fox News:

“What they’re clearly trying to do is dampen down free speech, but it goes beyond that — it’s putting people’s physical safety in jeopardy,” said Ali Akbar, who heads a group called the National Bloggers Club made up of conservative online writers.
Akbar told FoxNews.com that he believes he is a target after he claims his mother’s home address in Texas was posted on various Internet sites to “incite someone crazy on the fringe left to do something absolutely awful to one of us for what we’re talking about.”

(Via Memeorandum.) There is a limit to what can be accomplished by defensive measures to protect against such dangerous intimidation tactics. We have seen in the cases of Seth Allen, Mike Stack, Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Aaron Walker that courts and law enforcement agencies have repeatedly failed to take appropriate action against the thugs who seek to stifle First Amendment freedoms. Indeed, in the May 29 Maryland hearing that exemplified the bizarre success of Brett Kimberlin’s abusive “lawfare” tactics, Aaron Walker was arrested — ! — on the basis of dishonest claims made by Kimberlin who, among other things, is a convicted perjurer.

Mike Stack and Patterico were both SWATted nearly a year ago, and yet no arrests have been made in those cases. Patterico demonstrates that he was being harassed on Twitter in September 2011 by Neal Rauhauser’s associates who made specific references to SWATting before Patterico had ever made public mention of having been SWATted.

The FBI knows all about this, and yet they refuse to act.

Patterico has clearly identified those whom he suspects of complicity. Has the FBI inquired with Twitter to find out who was behind the “LulzShack” handle in August 2011? Or who was behind the “Stormpedo” Twitter handle in September 2011?

We are at the point of the story where, if this was a TV crime drama, the detectives would have the suspects locked in a room, confronting them with the evidence and interrogating them for 14 consecutive hours until they cracked.

Is the FBI incompetent? Or — I hesitate to suggest this — has the Justice Department become so corrupted that even the FBI’s hard-won reputation for integrity has been compromised?

This is why Neal Rauhauser’s repeated boastings about his contacts in the FBI disturb me. We know that Rauhauser is a liar and a braggart, but what if he’s actually telling the truth about his cozy relationship with law enforcement? What if the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have actually bought into Rauhauser’s deceptions?

Perish the thought. I have spoken to at least three people who say they have talked to the FBI about what is, supposedly, an ongoing investigation of these matters. These people tell me to be patient, and assure me that the FBI is doing their best. But if they’re doing their best, how to explain the lack of action? 

We know that Rauhauser was in contact with Brett Kimberlin and Velvet Revolution by the summer of 2011. We know that Rauhauser (under his “Stranded Wind” alias) posted a series of items at Daily Kos targeting Patterico for his writings about Anthony Weiner:

• July 4: Weinergate: Patterico’s Penalization
• July 4: Disingenuous Chart, Dishonest D.A. (Weinergate)
• July 17: Weinergate: Patterico’s Petulance
• July 19: Patterico’s Personal Pipsqueak
• July 23: In Which Patterico Imperils Breitbart
• July 25: Patterico’s Prattling Puppets

On July 27, 2011, Rauhauser declared that Patterico “looks to be a pretty good candidate for the planner/operator behind Weinergate.”

We know that, when Rauhauser reached out to leaders of the “Occupy Boston” protests in September 2011, he made the connection through Gregg Housh, who was a partner of  “Anonymous” spokesman Barrett Brown, who was raided by the FBI earlier this year in connection with the “Lulzsec” hacking conspiracy. We know that Rauhauser boasted about his connections to “a very big dog from the Anonymous pen” in October 2011. We know that Rauhauser has written extensively about his methods of online deception and secrecy.

Readers who have carefully followed my “Kimberlin Files” coverage for the past month — since the May 17 post, “Is Democrat Operative Neal Rauhauser an ‘Associate’ of Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin? (And Why It Matters)” — know all of these things and, if FBI agents were seriously investigating the case, then the investigators must know all these things, too.

Reporters are not cops and I’ve sometimes cautioned that bloggers should resist the urge to “play detective,” putting the cart of conclusions before the horse of facts, seeking “evidence” to support their own idiosyncratic theories of suspected wrongdoing. A lot of the confusion over WeinerGate resulted from bloggers like the idiotic Tommy Christopher trying to “play detective” and being led on futile, deceptive wild-goose chases.

Just stick to the facts. Do your job — keep digging in on the story and keep readers informed of new developments — and trust that the cops and other authorities will also do their jobs.

People have asked me if I have talked to the FBI or if I plan to sue anybody about the harassment that I’ve had to deal with. No and no.

All I want to do is keep reporting the story. If the FBI wants to talk to me, they can get my personal cell-phone number from some of the sources I’ve interviewed who say they have been talking to the FBI for weeks and months about this case. As for lawsuits, I long ago decided it was the best policy to heed the advice of Andrew Jackson’s mother:

“Never tell a lie, nor take what is not your own, nor sue anybody for slander, assault and battery. Always settle them cases yourself.”

Lest that historic wisdom be cited as a violent “threat” by Kimberlin and Rauhauser — a couple of lying, cowardly punks who love to deceive fools by claiming victimhood — let me say that telling the truth is the means by which I intend to settle this case.

As Professor Glenn Reynolds accurately remarked, I am not intimidated, which is what Kimberlin sought to do when he contacted my wife’s employer, dishonestly claimed that I was “harassing” him, and made clear that he knew where I lived.

At that point, in my first post from an Undisclosed Location, I asked for intercessory prayer, entrusting my safety and the safety of my family to the Lord of Hosts. And I also trusted that the tip-jar hitters would come through, contributing enough to the Shoe Leather Fund to keep me on this story and relocate my family. God has answered those prayers and I am profoundly grateful for the continued support of readers.

Years ago, when I was still in college, I took a Trailways bus ride to Charlottesville,, Virginia, to visit a girlfriend. And while I was in Charlottesville, I insisted on visiting Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, where I wanted to see with my own eyes something I’d only ever read about in books. Jefferson wrote his own epitaph, and so I wanted to go see his gravestone, which doesn’t even mention the fact that he was president. Instead, as I knew, Jefferson wished to be known for three accomplishments: Writing the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia, and authoring the Virginia statute for religious freedom.

That last accomplishment does not seem, at first glance, to rank in significance with the first two. We can understand Jefferson’s pride in authoring the Declaration, and the founding of a state university is an important achievement, but . . . a mere state law? Why would Jefferson insist that this be inscribed on his tombstone, to the neglect of the many high offices he had held, including Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, and President?

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself … she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”

Truth is great and will prevail. This expresses a faith in the truth, and in the ability of ordinary people to understand the truth, that is almost in itself a religious belief. Jefferson has at times been excoriated (or praised) as a Deist and skeptic, yet I think no Bible-believing Christian could quarrel with his belief in the insuperable power of truth, for the Christian must firmly believe that the truth of God must ultimately triumph over Satan’s lies.

Knowing the power of truth, then, I call to the reader’s attention an interesting bit of information from Mark Singer’s 1996 book, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin (pp. 35-36):

Until the children hit adolescence, Carolyn [Kimberlin] took them to Sunday services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Brett was confirmed there, along with his brothers and sister, but he had no faith.
Brett: “I was the only one who wouldn’t pray. . . . I went to Sunday school and learned the Lord’s Prayer and stuff, but I felt totally alienated from this fraud. From the age of six, I didn’t buy into it at all.”

While I am troubled by the disturbing silence from the FBI’s investigation, I have reason to suspect that this silence is even more troubling — one might say, ominous — for Brett Kimberlin and his associates. And given that he has disavowed God since childhood, there is no one to whom Kimberlin can now pray for deliverance. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

— Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

 

 

 

THE KIMBERLIN FILES:

• May 17: Is Democrat Operative Neal Rauhauser an ‘Associate’ of Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin? (And Why It Matters)
• May 17: Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Received $70,000 From Tides Foundation, $10,000 From Streisand, $20,000 from John Kerry’s Wife
• May 18: Who Warned Us About Brett Kimberlin?
• May 19: Domestic Terrorist Now Using ‘Lawfare’? Convicted Felon Kimberlin’s 501(c)3 Raised $1.8 Million in Six Years UPDATE: ‘Convicted of Perjury’
• May 20: Deadline Loometh, and the Raven Is Croaking Brett Kimberlin’s Name
• May 20: ‘Other Computer Savvy Activists’
• May 21: Never Doubt That God Answers Prayer
• May 22: Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland
• May 23: ‘He Has No F–king Soul’
• May 24: Lying Felon Can’t Stop Lying
• May 25: KimberlinFiles.org
• May 26: Kimberlin v. Walker Hearing Scheduled: 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Rockville, Maryland
• May 27: Brett Kimberlin’s Heiress Aunt Helping Fund His Tax-Exempt Harassment
• May 27: ERICK ERICKSON GETS SWATTED
• May 28: Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again
• May 29: Matthew Vadum Talks Brett Kimberlin
• May 29: REPORT: Aaron Walker Arrested After Maryland Hearing on Kimberlin Case UPDATE: Walker Now Released
• May 31: Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration
• June 1: Radicals Justify Their Evil by Invoking Their Presumed Moral Superiority
• June 2: When Neal Rauhauser Complained About ‘Menacing’ and ‘Cyberstalking’
• June 3: The Profoundly Dishonest Brett Kimberlin
• June 3: Raw Story Disavows Ties to Kimberlin
• June 3: Inside Neal Rauhauser’s Twisted Mind
• June 4: ‘A Faint Whiff of Vigilante Hysteria’: Weinergate’s Kimberlin Connection
• June 5: Ali Akbar Says, ‘World War Three’
• June 5: Fear and Loathing on Capitol Hill: The GOP Caucus Is Decadent and Depraved
• June 6: Walker Files Appeal in Kimberlin Case; Ali Akbar Says: ‘We’re Not Stopping.’
• June 6: Sen. Saxby Chambliss Requests DOJ Investigate SWATting
• June 7: CNN Gets Scooped on Its Own Story UPDATE: ACLJ Joins the Fight!
• June 8: NATIONAL DAY OF BLOGGER SILENCE UPDATE: Remember Seth Allen
• June 8: @AceOfSpadesHQ BREAKS SILENCE: #BrettKimberlin’s Escalating Threat
• June 10: Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, and Their Transparent Empire of Lies UPDATE: ‘Anonymous’ Connection
• June 11: Florida Rep. Sandy Adams Leads 85 House Republicans in ‘SWATting’ Letter
• June 11: #BrettKimberlin Says He Was ‘SWATted’; Why Do Maryland Cops Say Otherwise?
• June 11: HUGE! Neal Rauhauser’s Vicious Lies Exposed by Yet Another Leaked E-Mail
• June 12: ‘Team Kimberlin’ Meltdown Continues
• June 13: A High Time on the Low Road: Smears Target Brett Kimberlin’s Enemies List UPDATE: SWATting Supect ID’d?
• June 13: Time to Ask: What Did Brett Kimberlin Know and When Did He Know It?
• June 14: Patterico: ‘Certain Big Media Reporters Are Scared to Write About Kimberlin’
• June 14: ‘Real Reporter’ @NYT_JenPreston vs. Blogger @Prepostericity (Seth Allen)
• June 14: Neal Rauhauser’s Online Slander Factory
• June 15: Neal Rauhauser’s Game Plan Involving Velvet Revolution and Anonymous
• June 16: Team Kimberlin’s Busted Hustle Now Beginning to Unravel Rapidly UPDATE: Perhaps Not a Coincidence
• June 17: ‘Scrubbed’ Writings Show Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser’s Obsessions 

 

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