by Ian | Mar 28, 2016 |
In the wake of the Free State Project banning me from their events, Shire Dude has weighed in on his new vlog and announced some of the alternatives to the FSP’s Porcupine Freedom Festival, which many people are choosing to opt-out of this year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZSfTbBJNyo
by Ian | Mar 26, 2016 |
![UBER Grandma Driver Stephanie Franz](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/franz-300x169.jpg?resize=300%2C169)
UBER Grandma Stephanie Franz, courtesy CBS Boston
Two weeks ago, Porstmouth, NH police chief David Mara announced a coming attack against peaceful UBER drivers who are ignoring the oppressive city ordinance that basically outlaws ride-sharing. The city and its cops are running a protection racket for the existing cab companies and this weekend appears to be the first round of aggression as UBER Grandma Stephanie Franz has announced that she received two tickets for driving people home safely on Friday night.
Stephanie, who has become the face of the Free UBER movement, has now racked up six tickets for at least $5,000 seven tickets totaling $7,500 that she is taking to court soon with the help of an UBER-supplied attorney. All of this for helping people avoid getting DUIs.
She’s now not the only one. At least one other Portsmouth UBER driver reports receiving a ticket already this weekend and Saturday night is just getting started as I’m writing this.
Though Stephanie did not join UBER to become a civil disobedience superstar, she appears to have embraced her role and has even taken to task the four cowardly UBER drivers in Portsmouth who have obediently jumped through the city’s hoops and registered like good little slaves. She wrote today in a post to the Free UBER page on facebook:
Why is it that 4 uber drivers have registered with the town of Portsmouth? Don’t you know what this is doing? Every time I’ve been pulled over, part of the statement from the officers has been why don’t you just go on and register…. 4 others already have. I have stuck my neck out for all Uber drivers in the Portsmouth area. I feel that you four have stabbed me in the back. You’re free to do what you want to do but I take offense to you
registering. I can call you something but I’m not. Just remember the next time you see me pulled over with the blue lights flashing I am taking one for all of us even you.
Just to let you other Uber drivers know, they are going to be pulling over Uber drivers tonight. I will be there anyway.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on the Free UBER saga.
UPDATED: 9:30pm Eastern – Stephanie reports via facebook that she has received her third ticket this weekend, her seventh total, bringing the total fines to $7,500.
by Ian | Mar 26, 2016 |
![FBI Raids LRN.FM Studio](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img-FBI-and-Keene-Police-raid-Free-Keene-organizer-s-home1-300x169.jpg?resize=300%2C169)
It’s still stealing when the government does it.
Though the FBI’s early morning raid on the LRN.FM & Free Talk Live studio on Sunday did result in LRN.FM being off-air for several hours, thanks to the outpouring of support from the liberty community, we were back on the same day! Multiple people contacted me to offer their extra computers and phones and so we were able to scrounge together enough equipment to get some audio back streaming that same afternoon. My show, Free Talk Live, did not miss an episode.
LRN.FM – The Liberty Radio Network was back up to full capacity by Tuesday, with its dozens of liberty-oriented shows from around the globe airing live and via podcast around-the-clock across multiple continents via satellite and globally via internet streaming.
One of our listeners (Virgil Vaduva of Cell 411) created a GoFundMe to raise $5,000 for replacing our stolen computers and it passed its goal in 24 hours! It was an amazing show of support from our listeners and supporters in this time where the federal government has set its destructive sights on us. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed. No thanks to the local haters who fraudulently reported the GoFundMe as fraudulent, which did get it pulled down temporarily until GoFundMe could investigate and of course returned the fundraiser to online status. As usual, the haters have nothing intelligent to say and must resort to underhanded, dishonest tactics to try to harm us. Love will win in in the end.
Thank you again for your support during these most difficult days. We will continue to broadcast the message of liberty 24/7 thanks to your help. The GoFundMe has ended, but if you still want to help, please join the hundreds of FTL & LRN AMPlifiers and contribute $5 a month to our efforts.
by Shire Dude | Mar 23, 2016 |
The Manchester Police Department has announced its first sobriety checkpoint of the 2016 year (4/22), continuing its tradition of revenue collection via suspicionless vehicle stops. These ordeals have prevented nearly zero drunk drivers. Instead, the MPD continues to harass Manchester drivers for
victimless crimes, such as cannabis possession, illegal immigration or driving with a suspended license.
Numerous activists have vowed to divert traffic from the upcoming checkpoints. This activism traditionally has a fantastic turnout, and it garners widespread support in New Hampshire’s largest city. Cheers and expressions of gratitude are heard from passing vehicles throughout the evening. Folks walking near the activists often stop to discuss the uselessness of the checkpoints, and activists have even been handed cash tips on several occasions.
I’ll be present at this first checkpoint, livestreaming, so you can watch the event as it happens. Bookmark this link, and it will be easy for you to tune in. Oh, and don’t forget to grab your copblocking gear.
by Ian | Mar 22, 2016 |
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:
Plus, dozens more pickups of an AP article.
by Ian | Mar 22, 2016 |
![FBI Raids LRN.FM Studio](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img-FBI-and-Keene-Police-raid-Free-Keene-organizer-s-home1-300x169.jpg?resize=300%2C169)
FBI Raids LRN.FM Studio
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.
If you have any questions about the FBI distributing child porn, see this story from VICE, and this one, and this one.
by Ian | Mar 22, 2016 |
![Ladies Panel @ Keenevention 2015](https://i0.wp.com/keenevention.info/files/sites/3/2015/11/Ladies2015-300x145.jpg?resize=300%2C145)
Sadly, Keenevention 2016 is not going to happen.
It’s with a heavy heart that I write this. As you may already be aware, Sunday morning the FBI, along with state police and Keene police raided my home, the LRN.FM studio here in downtown Keene. While I don’t believe that anyone in my home did what they are saying was done, I would not put it past the FBI to manufacture the evidence that they or I did. Look no further than the rampant corruption in the Ross Ulbricht Silk Road case or the FBI’s previous attack on Free Keene blogger Rich Paul for proof of their desperation to destroy peaceful activists.
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.