Comments on: Innocence of Jackbooted Thugs

By: Stephen Littau

Stephen Littau — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:09:05 +0000

What it boils down to for me is I don’t trust the Obama administration’s motivations. There’s fast and furious, the bi-partisan disasters that are the NDAA and the Patriot Act, the policy that even Americans can be targeted by drones, and the indefinite detention of Bradley Manning (he was held in solitary confinement longer than the Iran Hostage Crisis without the ability to see a judge or lawyer to challenge his detention. Today is his 849th day of detention and will finally have his day in court in the near future). These actions against a filmmaker seems to fit the pattern.

But for me it’s not even just about the Obama administration or even just about our federal government but governments in general. Take Julian Assange for example. His Wikileaks has exposed government corruption and malfeasance around the globe. Now he stands accused of rape. Is he guilty? I have no idea and if it turns out to be a “he said/she said” case, we will never know but I think it’s entirely possible that these charges are false trumped up charges.

The lesson I’m getting is if you plan to blow the whistle on the government, you better be damn sure that you have a non-existent criminal record because if you have even as much as been cited for jaywalking, you are going to get hit and hit hard. If you don’t have a criminal record, they will do their damndest to find something to charge you with.

By: mgd

mgd — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:26:42 +0000

I agree with MingoV here. Being called in for voluntary questioning should involve, as a first step, a telephoned request during business hours to visit his probation officer’s office–not being frogged-marched by five deputies after midnight. I’ll cede the argument about whether he would have been brought in at all had he a dunked a crucifix in urine rather than blaspheme the Prophet; however, you’ll have to convince me that this wasn’t intended to send a message to a couple different audiences.

By: MingoV

MingoV — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:55:15 +0000

Popehat gets this one wrong. It wasn’t probation officers who brought Nakoula in for questioning, it was Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies. The video that triggered this response was released six months ago. Nakoula’s involvement with that video had been known for days, and his home was under police protection. He was readily available for questioning during normal business hours. Is there anyone stupid enough to believe that the usual probation office response to a possible “computer use” parole violation is to assemble a team of Sheriff’s deputies at midnight, invite a gaggle of reporters and photographers, and direct a caravan of vehicles to the parolee’s home to bring him in for questioning in the wee hours of the morning?

A second point: Sam Bacile was used as a pseudonym (which is common among writers and actors), not an alias. Nakoula was not living a double-life with a second name. I think too many people are trying to ascribe benign motives to the politically-directed thuggery.

By: Brad Warbiany

Brad Warbiany — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:23:32 +0000

You know, on this sort of thing, I look to Popehat. As a pretty libertarian fellow, an absolutely ARDENT defender of freedom of speech, and a lawyer and former federal prosecutor, I think he’s got both the right worldview and the right context to best understand these sorts of things.

And he’s looked at this through that lens, and isn’t overly upset about Nakoula being brought in for questioning:

http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/16/further-sunday-thoughts-on-the-innocence-of-muslims-and-the-arrest-of-nakoula/

It is possible that someone in the Obama Administration made a call or leaned on someone in probation, either nationally or in the Central District of California? Yes, it’s possible. Evidence, please. If it happened, I’d like to see a Congressional inquiry into it. But probation offices acting on their own upon a high-profile event involving a probationer is common. I suspect some offices have Google alerts set up; I’ve seen DUI arrests reported in the paper result in almost immediate action by federal probation officers.

(Emphasis added)

Essentially (and Popehat mentioned this elsewhere), Nakoula’s previous conviction involved fraud, aliases, and use of the internet. The terms of his probation specifically referenced aliases and use of the internet. And yet it appears that he is “Sam Bacile”, i.e. an alias, and that he arranged and financed this film as Sam Bacile, and was in the process of promoting it, as Sam Bacile, through the internet.

If someone finds a smoking gun tying the administration to this action, by all means they should be castigated for it as anti-free-speech thugs. But based on what I can see up front, there are a lot of much simpler explanations for why he was questioned, and I’m going to go with Occam’s Razor until there’s actual evidence otherwise.