Some 20 months after federal agents arrested nine members of an Ann Arbor, Michigan-area militia on what they called charges of planning to use “weapons of mass destruction” against police nationwide, the case has been floundering, with prosecutors dismissing a number of the more serious charges.
Today, however, prosecutors say that one of the nine detainees, Joshua John Clough, has plead guilty to a weapons charge, and will face five years in prison over it. The group was accused of having “unregistered short-barrel shotguns” among other weapons.
The group mostly hung around and discussed their pet conspiracy theories with one another, including the idea that the Matrix Trilogy was based on a true story. The group had a tenth member, however, who was an FBI infiltrator whose sole purpose was to report all these conspiracy and report back. It was this infiltrator who reported that they claimed to kill police en masse, even though there is no indication that the group ever made any move to do anything of the sort, and it appeared to just be more idle talk.
The other eight Hutaree members who haven’t already plea bargained and weren’t on the FBI payroll at the time will be facing charges of “seditious conspiracy” in a trial expected to start in February of next year, almost two years after the initial arrest.
So what is "Seditious Conspiracy"? Is the Government so concerned with convicting these mindless bozos that they dust off the Sedition and Espionage Acts of WWI? Perhaps they are trying for a little better racial equality in their entrapment cases. Most of the people who have been suckered in have been poor blacks or Moslem.
Seditious conspiracy, eh? You really have to be grasping for straws here to pull that old rabbit out of the hat considering that the Feds have conspired against the public for ages.
John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Lindsay Graham, and Carl Levin represent the "Sedition Conspiracy" that represents the greatest threat to this countries dwindling liberties.
A very profound comment. Also, remember this theory was used to convict the blind Egyptian Sheikh as there was no proof that he actually ordered any attack. Interestingly, the Mubarak government was not able to convict him under draconian Egyptian laws.
I'd be grateful for a link to a fleshed out argument on Blind Sheik.. (Hadn't followed that story at all….)
So… what was the crime here?