There’s not much good one can say about the FBI’s raid on the LRN.FM studio on Sunday morning, but the news coverage has been pretty good. Free Talk Live host TJ the Spy and I have given multiple interviews on the raid to NH-based media, plus liberty-oriented bloggers have weighed in. Here’s a quick rundown:
At 6:00 a.m. on March 20, 2016, members of the FBI, New Hampshire State Police, and Keene PD executed a federal search warrant on our studio in Keene, NH. The search team was greeted without incident upon presentation of the warrant and the studio was secured by investigating officers.
According to the search warrant, the FBI ran an undercover TOR .onion child pornography website from their government servers in Virginia from February to March of 2015. This website was designed to deliver, besides the pictures of abused children, a piece of malware that breaks the anonymity of TOR and identifies the true IP address of the person attempting to access the website. Other information, including the computer host name, username, and MAC address were also supposedly captured by the FBI. Pursuant to an investigation into violation of 18 USC 2252 (child pornography), the FBI seized approximately 46 computer and electronic devices from our studio. No charges have been filed.
Although the seizure of our equipment was inconvenient and resulted in Free Talk Live’s internet network’s (LRN.FM – The Liberty Radio Network) audio feed going offline temporarily, we will have our studio back to normal operations within 48 hours and will continue serving the high quality, liberty-oriented shows our listeners love. No episodes of Free Talk Live have been interrupted.
We look forward to the results of the FBI’s forensic examination. Many people had access to the LRN wireless network and studio computers over the previous year. If someone accessed a child pornography website from our network, it is without our knowledge. However, we feel that in a country that has a free press, journalists should be allowed to investigate all aspects of society, including criminal ones.
Free Talk Live and all of its hosts, as if we should have to, officially denounce child pornography, child rape and child exploitation. We further remind everyone that the only organization that, at this point, is guilty of having anything to do with child porn is the Federal Bureau of Investigations, who admits to distributing pictures of exploited children, a crime worse than what they are accusing their website visitors of doing.
The search and seizure Warrants are, last we heard, sealed. We encourage anyone interested in obtaining them to contact the FBI.
Anyone who has ever been under active threat by the tyrannical system knows the burden it creates. Even though no charges have been leveled at anyone thus far, the FBI stole thousands of dollars in computers that were critical to the ongoing 24/7 radio network I program, LRN.FM. Now the waiting begins as they use forensic tools to comb through dozens of electronic devices including computers, SD cards, flash drives, and phones. Will they come back with false child porn charges or something else entirely? It took them most of a year to finally come back and arrest the owners of Phat Stuff head shop on Main Street after stealing their store’s inventory, their truck, and cleaning out their bank account.
All that time you wonder what is going to happen next? What else are these aggressive men and women calling themselves “the state” going to do to you and your family? Meanwhile, everything you might have wanted to do or create turns into a question mark. Why start a new project or business when the government gang might just swoop in after you’ve just gotten started and throw you into a cage?
That’s where I am with Keenevention 2016. I really have enjoyed creating these intimate conventions three years in a row, but they cost thousands to put on and that money could be used instead to rebuild my more important mission of broadcasting the ideas of liberty and peace seven-days-a-week.
In short, due to the hanging threat by the criminal gang known as “the state”, I feel it’s irresponsible to push forward with this year’s event. If you have purchased a ticket, I’ll be contacting you for a refund. Perhaps Keenevention will return in the future, but for now this website and its dozens of videos will stand as a living record of the amazing speakers and panel discussions we’ve had over the years.
If you were an attendee, I’m grateful. Thank you for being a part of the fun.
The past few weeks as a Free Stater has been some of the most heart breaking moments of my life. I’ve witnessed the witch hunt by OG Free Staters and FSP Inc supporters to label Ian Freeman as a pedophile. There was even a petition that was circulating which has since been removed demanding the FSP to remove FTL/LRN from all business partnerships based off the acusations of Ian supporting pedophelia. These haters have been ferocious and with out mercy. I have also witnessed FSP Inc cut all business ties with FTL/LRN.FM which I may disagree with but business is business. However, in a blog posted by the president of the Free State Project Matt Phillips, they also banned Ian from all future FSP Inc events including Porcfest and Liberty Forum.
Ian Freeman may be wrong on some issues and I am not hundred percent behind his position of age of consent. That being said Ian is one of the most peaceful/pacifist people I have ever met. He has also done more for the Free State Project and liberty than all of his haters combined. Furthermore, with so much hate coming from FSP Inc and their supporters, myself and my fiance Ann Leverette in good conscience could not bare to share our love at Porcfest with our wedding. We have announced that going forward we will be boycotting all future FSP Inc events and we will not be attending Porcfest. The Rebel Love Wedding will also not be held at Porcfest but instead NH Hempfest instead. This all happened relatively quickly and we took to the LRN.FM airwaves Friday night on Anarchy After Dark to go into detail about what has happened and what led us to this heart breaking decision. Never fear though, there is light and love on the other side. Plus the Shire is still an amazing place to live. Listen to this episode to understand why.
podcast:
The Free Talk Live studio and home of Ian Freeman were ransacked this morning by men who left carrying their plunder: computers and other electronics. These uninvited strangers had not engaged in a consensual interaction — say by compensating Ian Freeman, the owner of the gear — but stole it.
So brazen (hubristic?) were these criminals that they acted in broad daylight and displayed no visible sign of shame when questioned by a concerned friend of Freeman. At this time the identities of those responsible is unknown, but their gang affiliation includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New Hampshire State Police, and the Keene Police Department.
Just why did these thieves target Freeman? While that question has been guessed at elsewhere online, this author has yet to hear an answer by someone on the scene. When that changes this post will be updated. UPDATE: Freeman disclosed details on Free Talk Live the night of the incident, March 20, 2016, which is embedded below.
