UPDATE: Thanks to RT.com [Russian Television] for including my Towpath Terrorist vignette in this story (even though their story was hell on my idealism).
***
I did a mostly solitary walk on the C & O Canal Towpath yesterday afternoon, though I did text a friend about the jaunt beforehand. I was surprised to see a Park Police cop car sitting right alongside the Towpath, near the entrance of a trail along the river along the route I said I would take. After I walked up and irritated the cop by asking why he was there, the car exited down the trail, coincidentally following me. I stopped to photograph the cop car as it passed by, and two guys who looked like plainclothes cops came up the trail behind me.
“You know that photographing landmarks and the police are two warning signs of terrorists,” one guy says to me.
“Having a scruffy beard is a third warning sign,” I replied. He may have laughed.
I asked those guys if they knew what the Park Police were doing on the Towpath. They offered no insights but pointed out that the Montgomery County sheriffs were coming up behind them. The guy who had listed the terrorist warning signs said he was not from this area and asked about nearby places to visit. I provided him tips on the proper redneck pronunciation of towns in the Shenandoah Valley. We chatted for five minutes before they turned off to a nearby parking lot.
Maybe just a coincidence.
At least the deer didn’t accuse me of being a terrorist.
Mr. Bovard:
Surveillance such as this (i.e., Stalking, Harassment, and Intimidation by both Overt and Undercover Cops) has been part of my everyday life for the past approx. 11 years. It began, while I lived in Massachusetts, after I had posted a review on Amazon in Mid-2010 regarding Mr. Mumia Abu Jamal’s book “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the USA.” Then around Sep-Oct. of that year, I met a lady from Iran online and began an online & on-the-phone romantic relationship with her. This is when I noticed that I was being followed and surveilled, and this “covert surveillance” went on for approx. 4 years in MA.
After I had moved to Florida, the surveillance intensified in Jan-Feb., 2015 to such an extent that it turned into overt and intentional Harassment, Stalking, Menacing, and Intimidation. On Jan. 15, 2016, I was coercively and illegally interrogated at my home by 3 members of the Tampa-Orlando Joint Terrorism Task Force (Tampa-Orlando JTTF) in spite of me invoking “My Right to Remain Silent” and “My Right to Counsel.” Subsequently, using Florida’s State version of FOIA, I found out from the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office that those 3 Cops were members of the Tampa-Orlando JTTF (2 FBI Agents and 1 Special Deputy U.S. Marshal).
I have continued to suffer to this day as a result of the Persistent & Aggressive Surveillance, Harassment, Stalking, Menacing, and Intimidation of members of the Tampa-Orlando JTTF, and on information and belief, members of the Tampa-Orlando ATF. Because of controlling U.S. Supreme Court case law (Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972)) and its progeny in the U.S. Courts of Appeal, there’s not much I can do through litigation, other than silently suffer.
United States Park Police, “Proudly Serving Since 1791?” Seventeen freakin’ ninety one??? So much for the Golden Age of American Liberty during the founding era. Looks like it was about five minutes long. At most.