My Experiences With the Secret Service

As some of you may have seen, on February 14^th, I posted a thread entitled “Need Some Freeper Advice Here” on Free Republic regarding something an incident at work where a fellow employee made a threatening comment toward President Bush a couple of days before the President arrived in town for the Daytona 500 race. When I posted this thread, I was pretty sure I knew the answer that I was going to get from my fellow Freepers, but wanted the extra confidence that comes from having my peers tell me that I was doing the right thing in reporting this employee to the US Secret Service. I was also pretty sure that, just by posting the thread, the Secret Service or FBI would be alerted to the situation and that I might be contacted regarding my post. That’s why, because of my initial lack of confidence about the whole situation, I referred to “my friend” in the post rather than myself. I think anyone who read the post could tell without much thought that I was really referring to myself (which should have been obvious to anyone who read the first sentence, in which I put the words “my friend” in quotes).

Anyway, after almost 50 posts came in within a few minutes telling me to report the guy, I did so. You can see in post number 51 that I indicated that “my friend” was actively calling the Secret Service, and then in post number 55, I reported that the call had been made. I then stated in post number 58 that I was really talking about myself, not my friend, and soon thereafter I asked the moderator to lock the thread to further postings because I didn’t want this to become a huge thread which would move to the top of the “Latest Posts” page all night long.

My call that evening was to the United States Secret Service field office in Orlando, Florida, which I reached by calling 407-648-6333. A young lady took my call and seemed to be typing in the details I was giving her, which included my name and home address and cellular telephone number and a general description of what had happened, but not the name of the employee in question. She stated that she was sure an agent would want to contact me about the situation and that I should expect a call.

The call never came. I woke up the next morning for church worried that someone would be contacting me during church, so I actually took my cellular phone into church, which I rarely do. Still, no call ever came. The Daytona 500 came and went that afternoon and the next few weeks were a blur, and still, no call. I finally just mentally wrote it off as evidence that the USSS must not take the type of comment the guy made very seriously, and I stopped thinking about it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, on March 19^th, things changed. I received a call on my cellular phone from a someone who I will identify as “PC”. PC stated that he was a Secret Service agent based in Jacksonville and that he had been forwarded some information from DC that he was following up on regarding this situation and he needed me to call him. I called him that afternoon on my way home from work and we spoke a couple of times that evening, during which time I gave him the whole story along with names of witnesses, etc.. During the course of these conversations, he told me something that concerned me. The reason that it had taken so long for him to contact me was that the USSS had to SUBPOENA Free Republic for my records so that they could track me down by IP address through my ISP.

Now, I was not at all surprised that they were able to track me down this way. To the contrary, I would be surprised if they couldn’t. What I was surprised about was that they felt like they HAD to track me down in this way, considering that I had made a PHONE CALL TO THE USSS to report the guy! I mentioned this to the agent, and he was shocked. He asked me some details about my phone call and then he told me that he was sure that this would spawn some kind of internal investigation on their end to find out why my call was not given any kind of attention at all by the Orlando field office.

Anyway, after giving PC all the details and even doing him the favor of looking up the guy’s home address on the Internet so that he could contact the guy over the weekend, we hung up with the stipulation that he would contact me if he needed more information. This was on Friday evening, March 19^th. The following Monday morning, March 22^nd, I was in a meeting at work when my cellular phone rang. I recognized the number as PC’s number, but couldn’t take the call. After my meeting, I listened to his voicemail and it was a message asking me if I knew if the individual was going to be at his place of employment that day. About an hour had elapsed since he called me, and I returned his call, but could not reach him, so I left him a voice mail.

At this point, I felt that I had to tell our Chief Operating Officer what was happening. I was a little disappointed that PC hadn’t just gone to the guy’s home over the weekend instead of waiting and coming to the workplace, but I figured our COO should know that a USSS agent might be showing up at the job site that day to see this employee, so I told him the whole story. He had a strange look on his face and he said “Well, let me tell you what I know. This morning, during our meeting, two Homeland Security ‘suits’ showed up at the site flashing pictures of you and [employee_name]” and saying they needed to talk to you both.” He went on to say “…any idea you might have had that this would be anonymous was wrong.”

I later contacted PC again and he told me that as far as the USSS is concerned, this is a non-issue and that the employee has been warned that comments similar to this in the future will be taken very seriously. He said that he didn’t think the employee knew for sure that it was me who had reported him, but that he indicated it could be me or one of several other people who he had made the comment to. Of course, by flashing my picture around, I think the USSS made it pretty clear that I was involved.

My question is – would any of you be as upset as I was at this? I’m upset for several reasons. First, that it took so long for the USSS to contact me. I love President Bush, and I’m very concerned that they would not take seriously a threat to his life reported by telephone to one of their field offices so close to his arrival in town. Second, I’m concerned about the way the whole thing was handled when PC showed up at my place of employment. Those who NEEDED to know that I had reported this guy had been made aware of it, but by coming to the front desk at my place of employment waving around a picture of me and making it obvious to everyone, they could have put my life or my job or both in jeopardy.

So, I’m back where I started. I need to know what my fellow Freepers would suggest that I do here in follow-up to this situation. Should I just leave it alone or should I start writing letters to Washington to inform them of what happened here? Obviously the issue of the lack of response needs to be addressed, but of almost equal concern to me is the issue of the way it was handled. It makes me want to think twice next time before speaking up and being a responsible citizen, and nobody should feel like that after doing what was right to report a situation like this. Any thoughts?

See FBI case file IP7- 1690 LOL, I though one would need to do a FOIA request or something to do that.

That's one way. Another is to have an uncle who retired as a fairly senior federal LEO, and kept some material for his personal protection, much the way Director Hoover did. After following the boss's example is the path to attaboys and promotion, right.

Long ago when I asked him about such things, he counseled me against following in his foosteps; even his own agency had more than its share of incompetence, corruption and coverup, and had sunk to a standard lower than he had always held himself. By way of a present and legacy, after his death I got some of the material he'd kept. More I got by horsetrading information related to what I was interested in. And there were others in state and local law enforcement who hadc a pretty good idea of what had happened.

I certainly sympathize with you.

My own respect for law enforcement and the judicial system was horribly shaken by my experiences.

In the end, nobody won and I was financially ruined.

My days were miserable and my nights were nightmares of fear, loathing and the desire to get even, Night after night I formulated dreams of battles where I was victorious over my foes.

After a couple years I went to see a doctor and got help. After a couple years I managed to put my life back together and my loss was only financial, my family stayed intact and I was a changed man. Stronger, smarter and confident.

All this happened because I refused to compromise my integrity and I fought back, but not very smartly or rationally.

I did not win my revenge, but they did not compromise me. In effect, they lost.

If you are carrying this burden around like I did, then you need to end it. It will hurt you.

But I digress.....................................

"You know, MAWG, that was uncalled for. Nothing I have said has in any way indicated that I would even BEGIN to equate what I went through with the type of real and deadly battle those patriots go through every day. I just want to make that clear."

And yet..MAWG does not respond.

Color me surprised.

Should I just leave it alone or should I start writing letters to Washington to inform them of what happened here?

Let it pass. I have a rather informed opinion as to why this happened. I could tell you...but then I would have to shoot myself.

Seriously...just let it pass. Everyone who needs to know the details...already have the necessary information. The government as a whole is pretty damn stupid.......these people are an exception.

Don't get involved with the feds unless you want to get involved with the feds.

That's the real lesson here. And when you get involved, they'll be rooting in your business at least as much as the other guy. They don't know who to really believe about anything when they get the call. "A real threat? Someone dropping a dime on another? We'll break out the shovels to be safe..."

I think the folks who are hughly series about that sort of thing go about it without saying a word to anyone.

All this happened because I refused to compromise my integrity and I fought back, but not very smartly or rationally.
I did not win my revenge, but they did not compromise me. In effect, they lost.

If you are carrying this burden around like I did, then you need to end it. It will hurt you.

I did well enough; fighting the powerful and their dogs to a stalemate, but at least crippling the plans of a corrupt United States senator to become the vice-president of the U.S....at least. And thereby, the candidate who he was to run with had to switch preferred choices, pulling a relative unknown out of the hat, concurrent with a change in campaign chairmen. In the end, it helped cost them that election, and I don't think they want a rematch.

But they've acquired new allies and resources, and may try again; if not in this next election, then down the road a few years. Eternal vigilance is still the price, if we're to maintain our liberty.

You have my respect and admiration for sticking to your guns, and if neither you nor I won any clear-cut victories with bugles blowing nor banners flying, I'll at least settle for what we got. Thanks, pal.

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