DEA Attacks First Amendment!
On December 17, 1997 an event occurred that should dispel any remaining doubts about the true nature of what is euphemistically called the War on Drugs. This latest expansion of prohibition to include the violent suppression of free speech should demonstrate once again that the war on some drugs has now festered into a clear and present danger to our most basic rights.
In this latest expansion of the "War on Some Drugs", the armed and armored paramilitary government agents could not in any way be construed to be protecting the public from evil drugs or drug lords. To the contrary, this latest assault on constitutional rights was aimed directly at the greatest threat to the prohibition itself - rational and reasoned information.
The target of the full violence of this DEA paramilitary assault was not drugs, paraphernalia, or even drug manufacturing equipment, but rather the tools and materials of free speech. The citizens terrorized and abused by heavily armed black hooded government agents were not drug dealers or even users, but rather a small publisher and his employees. The materials seized in this raid were not the drugs, drug money, or drug equipment we're told pose such a public danger, but rather the intellectual property and means of production of a small publisher brave enough to attempt to produce a book exposing the essential flaws at the core of the drug war itself. In this latest attack on constitutional liberty, the DEA abandoned any pretense of protecting the public, and pulled out all the stops in a bid to instead protect the agents of prohibition and their growing wealth and power from the terrible dangers of an informed public.
The target of this violent paramilitary assault wasn't the Mafia, a South American cocaine cartel, or even a street gang dealing crack on the corner. The target this time was Peter McWilliams, author and small press publisher (Prelude Press). Also raided were the offices of Prelude Press, where the disingenuously self-described "defenders of liberty" arrogantly informed the staff that "You guys had better start looking for new jobs. If the DEA doesn't take this place for marijuana, the IRS will. The government will own this place in six months."
In addition to the direct action of their paramilitary raids on McWilliams' home and business, the DEA also called in the IRS to audit Prelude Press' records in the hopes of finding some reason to justify further government actions to suppress this most dangerous practitioner of free speech. Redoubling the evidence of their absolute arrogant disregard of the citizenry and their representatives, at the same time as the IRS was actively engaged in their offensive auditing of Prelude Press, IRS officials were lying to Congress that they never engage in exactly the sort of abusive audits they were actively targeting at Prelude Press.
And just what was McWilliams' crime against society that justified this paramilitary assault on his home and business? McWilliams suffers from both AIDS and cancer, and has for two years been researching a book on the medical uses of marijuana. In order to ensure that the dangerous information in McWilliams' book would never again threaten to provide the public with information the DEA wants suppressed, during their raid the agents of our government seized the author's computer, all of his backup disks, and most of his research materials.
While this latest expansion of the war on constitutional liberties was not surprisingly "overlooked" by the tame mainstream press, it has attracted the attention and outrage of both Libertarians and Conservative Republicans. Among those who have recognized the inherent dangers in this latest expansion of prohibition is that arch conservative Republican William F. Buckley. According to Buckley, "This is the equivalent of entering the New York Times and walking away with the printing machinery."
Further details about this most disturbing expansion of prohibition to include the suppression of the First Amendment are available in the May 1998 issue of LIBERTY or at: www.mcwilliams.com/passion.htm
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