An Open Letter To 

My Congressman,

Blake Farenthold, 

27th Dist. of Texas

Dear Congressman Farenthold,


I do not know if you are aware of the threat to free speech posed by Brett Kimberlin & his associates.  Several members of Congress such as Saxby Chambliss have mentioned it the past few days. 


I would like to make sure you are aware of the issue of SWAT'ing & organized lawfare being used against Conservative bloggers to silence their speech.  

Brett Kimberlin was convicted of setting off 8 bombs in Speedway, Indiana in the 1970's.  One of those bombs blew off a Vietnam vet's leg. The man subsequently committed suicide due to the pain & suffering. His name was Carl DeLong. 


Brett Kimberlin was found to have bomb making materials in the trunk of his car, as well as being discovered by an Army investigator as he attempted to purchase more of the rare military explosive used in the bombs.  Kimberlin was also found to have in his possession a fake Dept. of Defense uniform he used in his drug smuggling. 

Tried in court for the Speedway bombings, he was convicted & sentenced to 50 years in prison.  After a number of years he was paroled, but since DeLong's widow had won a civil judgement against him for 1.6 million & Kimberlin refused to pay a dime of it, he was returned to prison for several more years.  He was finally paroled in 2001.  

http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS06/100919012/StarFiles-Speedway-Bombings-Part-1


http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS06/100919013/StarFiles-Speedway-Bombings-Part-2


While in prison, Kimberlin became the ultimate jailhouse lawyer, and has filed over 100 lawsuits by his own claim.  

After parole, he set about re-inventing himself as a political activist, setting up two organizations called 'Velvet Revolution' and "Justice Through Music" through which he solicits funds & donations to supposedly help keep Republicans from cheating to win elections and other political activity.  

He garnered enough fame by making outrageous claims about Republican cheating with electronic ballots to be covered in Time Magazine: 


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1574161,00.html

Kimberlin apparently convinced many on the Far Left that he could use his lawfare skills to make life extremely uncomfortable for those causing problems by exposing/shooting down Leftist Narratives on the internet.  


As a result his organizations receive thousands of dollars in donations to achieve this. 


In the past several years Kimberlin used the funds to attempt through lawfare to effect the arrests of, among others, Karl Rove, Andrew Breitbart, Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, Massey Energy Chairman Don Blankenship and other high-profile public figures.


If people on the Left wanted to throw their donated money away on such enterprises, that's fine. 


But in the past year the story took a turn for the bizarre - and outrageous.  


You see, Conservative bloggers on the internet decided to do their own digging into these two groups - Velvet Revolution & Justice Through Music - who's names kept turning up in these lawsuits against Republican & Conservative public figures. 


And they found out exactly what Brett Kimberlin didn't want anybody to know: That he is the prime mover behind both groups, and he has a criminal background.  And these bloggers began talking about it.  


Brett Kimberlin has an obsessiveness about no one knowing or speaking publicly about the fact he is a convicted terrorist with a criminal record not only for bombing, but also drug-running & perjury.  


Using the hundreds of thousands of dollars at his disposal from donations to his two organizations, he has gone after ANYBODY who dares publicly speak about his past convictions.  


http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/29/terror-by-any-other-name

Within four years of his release from prison, Kimberlin started a tax-exempt non-profit called the Justice Through Music Project (JTMP) which has raised approximately $1.8 million in the past six years, including grants from the Tides Foundation, the Heinz Family Foundation and the Barbra Streisand Foundation. Kimberlin also partnered with liberal blogger Brad Friedman to create another non-profit group called Velvet Revolution.

Kimberlin endeared himself to left-wing bloggers by claiming that Republicans had stolen the 2004 presidential election through vote fraud, offering a $100,000 reward for evidence -- a reward that was never paid, for a claim that was never proven. Failure to prove his allegations of GOP perfidy, however, seemed neither to deter donors to Kimberlin's projects nor to undermine his credibility among progressives. A 2007 Time magazine article reported that Kimberlin had "found a home in the blogosphere" by "repeatedly asserting as fact things that are not true." 

In 2008, Kimberlin's JTMP non-profit collected more than $558,543 in contributions, according to the group's IRS filing, while Velvet Revolution collected $83,560.

The dirty tricks he has used go far beyond just the usual lawfare of dragging the bloggers into court.  One has actually been arrested and several have been 'SWAT'ed, which is where a call is made to 911 reporting a shooting & making it sound as if an armed homeowner is waiting for the SWAT team to try to approach. 

At the Ace of Spades blog, Ace made the point that if this kind of behavior is allowed to succeed, where bloggers with no real resources can be dragged into court & sued repeatedly for stating matters of PUBLIC RECORD by some guy with deep, deep pockets, free speech doesn't really exist in this country.  


I would encourage  you to read the entire 'open letter to Congress' regarding Brett Kimberlin & his friends attempts to silence the speech of others. 


http://minx.cc/?post=329977


This campaign of lawfare & dirty tricks to silence those who are speaking matters of public record must END.  Please speak out about this and get Congress to enact a anti-SLAPP law that will make serial abusers of the court system pay for trying to game the system to abuse the rights of others.  


Bloggers & others who speak out have to know they cannot become the victim of some guy with a personal agenda who has money to burn & can uses the court system to drag them in through subpoena repeatedly until they simply give up and shut up, which is the intended outcome. 


Thank you for your time, and God bless.