Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
I’ve received a lot of inquiries about my newsletter’s absence over the last several months. Where’ve I been? Right here, trying to figure out who, and how, someone was messing with my newsletter broadcasts – and what to do about it.
Activist groups across America – beware. This is going to happen to you.
I’ve had several VERY IMPORTANT articles to broadcast for months now – and I suspect I was blocked because of those articles. It wasn’t that big of a secret that I was working on these exposes. A lot of people knew.
In short, one of the strangest, and most “secret” groups I’ve ever come across, a group I call “the Ku Klux Klan of the internet,” decided to block my broadcasts because they didn’t like what I had to say. They decided to falsely label me as a “spammer” so that tens of thousands of Internet Service providers (ISPs) would block my broadcasts to my subscribers.
When that only slowed me down a little, last February of 2006 they went to my server company in Missouri and blocked email service to ALL 12,000 of their customers until they turned me off. I moved my computer operation back to California to be protected by the toughest computer protection law on Planet Earth (California Penal Code Section 502 – Computer Crimes), and began to broadcast again. You can read the article I wrote about this group’s February “interference,” called “US Internet “Free Speech” Tightly Controlled by Secret Group…”
But, it didn’t stop. It got worse.
In July of 2006, despite warnings to these people that they were violating State and Federal law, they, at first, interfered with my broadcasts, then, went to my California server host and blocked all email to their 1,600 customers until they shut me down. One of those criminals even demanded that my server host “destroy all of my data” as a condition of removing the server company from their blocklists – but the server host didn’t do this.
You can read a concise summary of their activities to damage me, by accessing a copy of one of the Affidavits I filed with State and Federal law enforcement agencies. Click here.
In short, I’ve uncovered a criminal conspiracy. And, the fun has begun. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), after my formal complaint was filed (with it’s accompanying Affidavit) , has opened an investigation into this group’s activities.
If your email is being blocked, or your friends can’t reach you, and you find it difficult to communicate on the internet, then click here for a guideline on how to file a criminal complaint against the Spamhaus/SPEWS Project with Federal and State Agencies.
It was apparent, right from the start, that at least one of the sleazy “quackbusters” was involved in this assault. There is no question that my articles raise the ire of the“quackbuster” conspiracy. They don’t like to have a light shined on them.
For years these nitwits have been emailing, and writing, bullying letters to my internet providers threatening them with all sorts of actions. Some of those companies felt threatened but most told them to “buzz off.” A trio of “quackbuster” bullies went all the way to the California Supreme Court (Barrett v. Rosenthal) in their attempt to silence those that criticized them – and they lost.
I haven’t yet determined the real identity of the “quackbusters” involved in this most recent action, but I’m working on it – and they’re going to need all the help they can get once I find them – I promise.
The problem is wide spread…
I found that I’m not the only victim. There are, literally, tens-of-thousands of victims in the US alone. Activists all over the US are finding their emails to their allies blocked regularly – and this same group is responsible.
The primary target, however, of this criminal organization, seems to be legal internet marketing companies sending out lawful, and US government approved, advertising to their subscribers.
The “vigilantes” claim they are stopping “spam,” but that turns out to be a lie. When you trace back who is hiding under those internet “white-sheets-with-eyeholes,”the anonymity, the “fake” email addresses, you find that they, the so-called anti-spammers, are simply people who are using this “secret” organization to shut down their marketing competitors – and control who gets to email broadcast on the internet.
So, who has this kind of power, you ask? And, how is it they can scoff at US laws?
Good question.
It has taken me a while to sift through the morass and figure it out. In short, “health care” is a worldwide battle that has been going on for years. We can pretty well sort out the good guys and the bad guys – and we do. But the internet is relatively “new” and there is, right now, a huge battle going on over who controls what – and one of those battles is over who can send emails to who, and who cannot.
Without knowing anything about anything on the internet – I got right in the middle of that battle. And, here I am.
I’ve got a medium sized subscriber list – about 285,000. Of my 285,000 newsletter subscribers – I have about 12,000 media, 85,000 employees of government agencies involved in health care, 30,000 health care activists,15,000 environmentalists, 130,000 health care or health industry professionals, and the rest miscellaneous.
The “spam” laws in the US, both State and Federal, are very clear about what constitutes “spam,” and what doesn’t. The deciding law in the United States is called the Can-Spam Act of 2003 – and it is very specific about what is legal on the internet and what is not. The US Congress went to great lengths to hear testimony on all sides of the “spam” argument before it finalized the Act. Of course I follow the law.
So, how then did I get the anti-spammers attention? Keep reading.
Meet the “Ku Klux Klan of the Internet.”
I have been attacked, because of my political positions, by an anti-spammer vigilante group, calling themselves the Spamhaus/SPEWS project. You may remember that name from an Associated Press worldwide news article on September 15th, 2006, titled “12 million ordered from anti-spam group.” I was attacked by the same group of lawless scumbags. Of course, I began to investigate. And, of course, I began to look around, and make alliances with, other victims of this conspiracy. I’m no stranger to war.
I have discovered that Spamhaus/SPEWS, in reality, is a “vigilante” type organization falsely characterizing themselves as an “anti-spammer” group. They make up their own definition of “spam” and that definition appears to change from day-to-day. Their definition(s) differ, considerably, from the ones enacted into both US and State laws. In essence anyone they choose gets labeled as a spammer and significant damage is done to those victims. The Spamhaus/SPEWS membership, or whatever they call themselves, is a secret. Those members, or “volunteers,” use “fake” email addresses and identities to conduct their business.
I have learned, for instance, with much effort, the identities of several of the Spamhaus/SPEWS “volunteers,” and have discovered that many of them have business interests that compete with those victims they select for “blocking.” I have also learned that several of their “volunteers” are acting in their capacity to benefit their employers.
The best singular example of the operation of the combined Spamhaus/SPEWS criminal conspiracy is to examine the process that the SPEWS faction of the conspiracy uses to harass its victims. First, no one knows who SPEWS actually is (until now), nor who its members are, nor who they represent. Everything about it is hidden, including location of its offices, names of its directors and employees, location of its website, and who funds it.
Second, when SPEWS lists a victim on its blacklist there is no way to contact SPEWS, no place for an attorney to send a certified letter demanding removal. More, SPEWS will NOT communicate directly with a victim. The only contact is for the victim’s ISP to go on one, or both, of two Google news groups (NANAE, or NANABl) and ask to be removed from the blacklist. The members of those groups use “fake” internet email addresses (white-sheets-with-eyeholes) to communicate with the ISP victim, then use foul language, suggestions of odd sexual activity, and any number of ugly, improper, techniques – to create fear. For the unsuspecting it’s like falling into a cesspool attached to a leper hospital.
Third – The most important facet of the Spamhaus/SPEWS conspiracy is that use of anonymity as a tool to create fear in those they intend to dominate. I believe that there is little, or no, difference between the tactics employed by the Spamhaus/SPEWS “vigilantes,” and the infamous North American Ku Klux Klan. In both cases, the intent is, and was, to dominate by fear.
In the heydays of the “Klan” an innocent family, who happened to be of color, religion, race, or political belief (something different from the Klan members) would suddenly, in the middle of the night, be confronted in their home with gunfire, a burning cross in their yard, and a group of screaming individuals covered in white-sheets-with-eyeholes. The family would be dragged out into the yard, the women raped, the men cut up, and their remains hung from a tree – all, supposedly, because the family had, somehow, broken some “unwritten law” this group of vigilantes wanted enforced.
It is exactly the same situation with the Spamhaus/SPEWS vigilante conspiracy. The anonymity provided by “fake” email addresses has enabled the exact same type of behavior by the “vigilantes.” The white-sheets-with-eyeholes, the anonymity, has created a whole new class of criminal behavior on the internet. This anonymity is the basis for the anti-spammer vigilante operation, attempting to enforce their own “unwritten laws.”
And, they are out to destroy lives. From reading the communications among these conspirators it becomes clear they very much enjoy hurting others. The US Attorney General’s office needs to get involved, right soon.
Even more interesting is that the leadership of this “vigilante” organization, determined to undermine the US economy, is NOT in the United States – or at least, using fake email addresses, they give the appearance of not being in the US.
So, what’s next?
Well, I assume that the “vigilantes” will attack me again. They, virtually have to, for as usual, I’ve become a big problem for them, quickly. How did I do that? Well, in my usual style, I went after them. I went right into their lives, looking to find who was under those “white sheets.” I got right in their faces, demanding to know who they were and what they were up to, and what right they thought they had to damage Americans. They didn’t take my counter-assault kindly. They’ve threatened my life, my well being, and have promised to destroy my business interests.
All from anonymity – “fake” emails on the internet.
But the weirdoes have quite a few problems themselves, right now. Remember earlier in this article when I said “I began to look around, and make alliances with, other victims of this conspiracy.” Yup – I did that – and great allies they turned out to be.
One of those allies is a company called e360 Insight, a legitimate email marketing company operating under the laws, and the blessing, of the United States Government. e360 was attacked at about the same time I was. Like me, they didn’t accept Spamhaus/SPEWS’ version of internet spam law – they preferred the definition that “we the people” decided on – so they sued Spamhaus in an Illinois Federal Court – and wiped up the floor with them so deftly that, in mid-case, the Spamhaus President, Steve Linford, fled home to Britain, walking/running/skipping/hopping/jumping away from the court action.
He ran off like a scalded pup.
When Spamhaus ran home, e360 applied to the Court for, and got, a “Permanent Injunction” preventing further interference from Spamhaus, and then got a “Default Judgment” for 11.7 million US dollars.
But, it’s not over.
Spamhaus, and their “secret” group, are belittling the Federal Court Judge, calling him “senile, looney, befuddled, dishonest, etc.,” and are refusing to follow the Federal Judge’s Order. So, I expect, very soon, the appearance of US Federal Marshals.
Planned, or on the table in front of the Judge, is a series of proposed “Orders” for the Judge to sign, virtually guaranteeing the destruction, and impoverishment, of the entire US “vigilante” anti-spam movement.
I’m all for that.
Stay tuned…
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate