I am a hacker. Enter my world...
After my judicial crucifixion and shafting, I needed closure. But in a conspiracy this invested, everyone was obviously tight lipped, no matter where I searched for answers. Nobody was going to tell me the truth, I would have to seek it for myself, even if I had only to rely on my clairvoyance to be able to look deeper into these matters, since the truth would not be so easily accessible. Still, I had to investigate.
I emailed Wesley McGrew for the first time. Hell yea, I was nervous. Would he claim I was somehow further intimidating him? He sure had never named me before, and I hoped he would not now. I had to ask him, and I often wondered about the constitutional validity of his role as a government witness since he was not an aggrieved party seeking redress for grievance - I had done nothing to him and how the hell was this a 'federal' crime anyhow? The crime took place on privately owned property, not federal property, so how did the jurisdiction even come into play under the tenth amendment of the U. S. Constitution? (Carol Ann Bond, anyone? Anyone?)
I had been emailing Tr0nik on a daily basis, trying to gain some perspective. I had spoken to her over Myspace a couple of times in early 2007, and she was one of Fixer's good friends. Since my arrest, she had entered the ETA fold to maintain website security and to help X0N, who had assumed leadership, and together they would keep the ETA in line.
Tr0nik had observed alot and had been witness to everything that had gone down in cyberspace between ETA and Wesley McGrew. She specialized in information security and traveled in similar circles as Wesley. According to her, Wesley had been crossing many legal lines and crossing over into my 'hat' specturm with unauthorized intrusions, such as entering Fixer's FTP server and downloading Sun Tzu's Art of War. I worked up the courage to speak to Wesley himself about this over email, which he denied that the access was unauthorized, claiming that the server was open authenticated, therefore publicly accessible. I thought of all the times I had entered a poorly configured account of some kind, having no credentials to otherwise condone off the account from others. Was it still an intrusion? Was there a disclaimer saying "Open to all?"
If the FBI checked me out on the Department of Public Safety website using my name and license number, I am sure United Protective Services listed me as currently employed. Of course, any one of the security companies after my positive identification probably fazed my hiring application to the FBI and ran a thorough background check from my social security number, which is precisely what happened. They utilized a law enforcement database called WsFcic, and from there, they were able to learn where I had lived, worked, the names of my family and relatives, possible co-workers, motor vehicle registration, accident history- you name it.It is a database which essentially 'connects the dots'. But my trail in Google as Ghost Exodus was not very obscure as to offer applause to anybody with an elementary knowledge of simple foot printing to enumerate a list of accounts I used, or the places I regularly visited on public forums. To say anything more is an embellished overstatement.
On August 17, 2011 t 2:18 pm, Wesley emailed me back. On top of my inquiry into him illegally accessing ETA's website and Fixer's FTP server, I asked him not to publish my sentencing transcripts to protect the identities of my family members who were already being targeted by Internet Hate Machine and the others in that small conspiracy. Wesley writes:
"I hadn't planned on republishing those transcripts (as it is my or any other citizen's right to do so) however I am, at the moment, so insulted by the implication that I illegally accessed anything in this case that I am tempted to just for spite. I am not purchasing your transcripts (apart from the normal PACER per-page fees.) They are scheduled to become part of the online public record in your case on PACER. There was a period of time during which your side had opportunity to request redaction of information from those transcripts. To clarify each of your accusations;
*The eoeta awstats page was located in the exact same place it is located on many other common installations of awstats, and had no access controls in place whatsoever to deter access.
*I mirrored a post from the eoeta website that had ETA members attempts at 'dropping dox' on me [Jesse - this was Immortal] as well as their discussion of throwing me in the trunk of a car. The post was publically accessible after they switched forum software and presumably botched the privacy settings.
*Ben's [Fixer] FTP server either allowed for anonymous access, of the login instructions were publicly posted on the ETA's website."
In other words, Wesley's actions and reasoning advocates that if there was no password, it is fair game. At least Wesley and I have THAT in common; LOL!
Prison Routine and Life
I have no real enemies here. Everywhere I go people like to pique my brain about hacking. I have written dozens of pages worth of literature that I have either said or gave away to inquiring minds who have a desire to learn something about hacking or computer security or anonymity. I am a repository of knowledge and I love to see others seek enlightenment through knowledge. Seagonville prison officials have unceremoniously stolen six of my personal journals, two of which contained everything I knew and remember about computers. They can take my writings, but I only continued to write even more, since they can not erase my memory.
I served as a preacher for the Spanish church services for a year, using a translator, and took up drawing portraits to pass the time. Prison is absolute testosterone and drama unlike anything beyond the razor wire you could ever fathom. Nobody knows what the hell is going on because we learn everything from word of mouth. The food is unfit for human consumption - it is so unsanitary and nasty that no responsible pet owner would feed this to his dog. That it, if you consider picking out bone fragments that have been mulched with your chicken a tad bit inhumane. How would you like to find a chicken neck and a string of veins in your food? Our hamburger meat is made up from livers and other organs. Basically, anything that cannot be sold in supermarkets is sold to prisons. Remember that massive recall of melons due to salmonella contamination back in 2011? Poor farmers, losing all that money on contaminated produce... we actually ate the melons. The BOP (Bureau of Prisons) buys stuff like that wholesale, so as we were served thousands of melons until they were pouring out of our ears, just remember - that it was not a total loss to the farming industry.
Once, I ate cupcakes that had been generously sprayed with roach killer. The moment I took a bite, I realized what it was and spit it out, but I had swallowed a little, and it had me violently vomiting minutes later. I have found larva in my green beans, a rat tail in the potato salad, speaker wire and razor blades cooked into meatloaf. and cat feces in pretty much everything else. We have eaten rotten chicken, stale bread, and anything expired that did not get sold at the market. Worms in your beans? Uncooked meat? You name it, I have eaten it. After all, this is considered humane by the debased standards of an immoral prison industry operating behind that blue wall of silence, lacking any outside oversight to ensure we are not being abused. After all, I did not get sent to prison to be punished. I was trafficked and warehoused here as punishment. Therein lies a big difference.
Man, I have had alot on my plate over the years. Always that constant threat of being charged again based on current ETA members activities. In 2011, Fixer had it in his mind to organize a new Devil's Night attack party, which took some heavy convincing on Tr0nik's part to explain to him how detrimental that can only be to any appeal I would have. Also in 2011, unidentified members of the Anonymous collective hacked into my mum's computer after learning her name and proceeded to make death threats. She actually accused me of orchestrating it, and threatened to call the police and report me - as if being sentenced to nearly a decade in a federal prison was not enough. She told others about it, and then I was receiving hate-emails from my own brother, accusing me of the hack, even knowing that my email was subject to monitoring. Rumor had it that Internet Hate Machine was soliciting my dox she gathered from my court records and planning an /i/nvasion against my sister Jessica thanks to the Media's disclosure of Jessica's personal information, although my sister was never found guilty nor indicted for any wrong doing.
Seagonville prison revoked my email access because of my computer knowledge, which means that their email privilege is only reserved for the under educated and computer illiterate. Their Program Statement says that in so many words. So I decided to borrow a friend's email account so I could keep in close contact with my appeal's attorney, Tr0nik and Dev/Null. Having a way to reach my lawyer in ways that would NOT cost me an arm and leg was a dire necessity. But when Dev/Null found out I was using another email account, he immediately accused me of hacking it, in a scathing, monitored email... (what are friends for, eh?) As is my life could not possibly get any worse... this episode opened up the gates of Hell for me.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
This is not easy for me to talk about. Maybe it will get better with time, but over a year later after what I survived, I still find myself in that place. Part of me never really left.
America is the global leader of human rights, my country criticizes Russia for its very obvious and open human and civil rights abuses, having nothing to obscure or hide itself. But even the worse of Russians crimes against human rights and dignity pales in comparison to what America is hiding behind locked doors. American takes the fecking cake. While they herald and trumpet about liberty and civil rights, we have a 2.5 million incarcerated, more than the prison populace of Russia and China combined. We have more laws than we have interpretation of what it means to pursue happiness in one's own way, and while we point fingers at other countries for their faults, it is only a guise in order to cover up the sheer level of global standard of 'just torture', which has gone to new extremes since 9-11 during the Bush administration. All you have to do is research lawsuits pertaining to prisoner abuse and study news articles about stories related to prisoner abuse. And while it is not a easy to face, the fact remains that many prison guards are hired for their tendency towards a lack of empathy, and, like a common bully, they really get off on the power trip. You really have no idea, do you?
EVERYTHING about America, when it comes to your government, is a double standard.
My story begins here...
Tortured and Screaming
am locked inside a concrete 9 x 6 cell. Indefinitely. It is a roasting 125 degrees Fahrenheit in my cell. From where the sun is positioned we are being superheated from the outside in, and what is worse is that these walls stay boiling hot all through the night. We are all screaming, gritting out teeth against the agony. Many just lay on the floor where it is a few degrees cooler, groaning 'ice'... a cup of ice to bring the body temperature down for a few minutes.
Three times I nearly black out from heat exhaustion and dehydration. One man fell out unconscious, his cellie screaming 'Guards! We need medical help NOW!' But nobody was coming, not for another half hour. Irritated, the guard kicks Santiago's cell door while Jackman, his cellie, is frantically trying to reason with the guard to take Santiago to the hospital because he is dying. Santiago lays still on the filthy floor. He is not even seating anymore. "Get up, Santiago, or you're getting a shot" yells the guard. thinking the young man was feining illness. (A shot is a disciplinary write up.) "I said get up, or I'm writing you up!" he shouts. Santiago ended up spending three weeks in the hospital because he was in critical condition from the heat. One man from the jail only spent one night with us back here and he committed suicide by popping all of his pills. They wheeled him out on a gurney that night, we actually do not know if he lived or died.
I can hear a man with schizophrenia screaming hysterically in the suicide unit on the floor beneath me. When I lay my ear to the bed's metal frame I hear him screaming night and day. His screams are terrifying.
Welcome to the most infamous 'hotbox' in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The crematorium, I call it, because it feels like I am being cremated alive every second, every minute of every day - forever.
Back in the summer of 2011 inmates were dropping like flies from the heat, and - according to everyone who was in the know, the heat killed a man that year, which is not hard to believe. It was so intense that prison officals were transfering inmates from the prison to the air conditioned Special Housing Unit (SHU) at the jail, swapping inmates from both SHUs. But the jail's SHU got shut down because it doubles as a suicide unit, and the unit could not be observed 24/7 in order to prevent suicides - like they truly give a damn if we live or die. The nurses that work at Seagonville are psychopathic monsters, sometimes they are even worse than the guards. Namely, Nurse Giffords. There was a lawsuit against her where an inmate kept going to see her every day at sick call seeking medical aid, but she kept refusing him, then finally retorts 'get on your knees and beg!" An attorney that I would be meeting futurewise would cryptically refer to this lawsuit. Giffords is like a demon. The malice she has for us is like a palpable atmosphere that seems to hover about her. She would even use medical equipment to polygraph me, or throw my cellie's medications on the floor because he needed his acid reflux medication and she could not stand talking to him. "Shut the fuck up and get away from the door Chris Foster" she would hiss, obvious hatred for Foster. "Don't you even look at me or I will throw your shit on the floor!" And then she would dump his pills on the floor anyway out of spite.
Seagonville Prison used to be a Japanese interment camp during World War II. The SHU is part of the original architecture and is not modernized to fit any humane standard but to be used as a vice of coercion, punishment, and - of course - torture. I spent almost 14 months in there...
There is no fan. No air conditioning. No adequate ventilation. During the summer it is an easy bake over, and in the winter its called 'the ice box'.
My cell mate for eight months was the notorious Christopher Stewart, aka 'Batman' from Mississippi, who ran the most high-tech organized crime ring in Mississippi history. The Warden at the time, Maureen Cruz, threw him in the SHU and left him there for 8 months to try an coerce him into rolling over on somebody. "Maybe spending the summer in the hot box will make you reconsider," she had told him. But he never would reconsider. I was thrown into the SHU because the 'friend' I borrowed his email account from told Special Investigative Services that I had hacked into his account, he did not want the disciplinary write up. This almost cost me my life.
Begging for Death is a Mercy
The heat was suffocating, and my skin burned like acid. I was caked in layers of sweat and grime, living in only my boxers even though it was too hot even for those. Covering up with a blanket at night meant not waking up the next morning. Batman and I slept on the metal frame of our bunk, being too hot to sleep on the mattress. We were sleep deprived from the constant lighting in our tiny cell, the noise of doors slamming, keys rattling, the endless wailing of the distressed, and, of course, having to wake up to rehydrate ourselves from the milky-colored tap water. Black mold clung to the ceiling and along the walls which were cracked and peeling, revealing the lead paint beneath.
Covering up the toilet bowl helped lower the humidity a little, but on days or nights when it rained, all that trapped heat in our cell super heated like a blazing inferno, and we would gasp for air, lamenting "Oh my God, this is it! I'm going to die in here!" The feeling is similar to drowning, only in fire rather than water. We were only allowed to bathe three times a week for 10-15 minutes, and it was the only thing we truly looked forward to, and the only thing that would cool the heat rashes that had spread under my arms and along my back and chest.
Huge air conditioning units were installed at the end of a hall on every floor with a large, industrial sized fan to blow it down the halls for the guards. Not for us. In fact, the guards actually thought our rooms were cooler because of the AC and fans, but the angle of our doors and the wire mesh window prevented any alleviation. Not until one guard, last name Frank, have the sense to stick his hand through our feeding slot did he realize that brutality of our living conditions. The third floor was by far the hottest, and there was a man named Perry McCullough up there in the hottest room of all, fighting for his life. That room later became vacated entirely because it was kind of a death room, being so intense it was next to impossible to survive in it for any length of time.
If you think your life sucks, try walking a mile in my shoes. And be grateful you have a life to complain about.
SIS Helton Gentry referred my case to the FBI. In the meantime, I just had to sit tight and wait. The lieutenant over the SHU was Lt. Shannon, and he was just as much a part of what they were doing to me. Helton Gentry had stolen my legal materials, which included new evidence that I needed to prove my innocence concerning the fictitious Witness Intimidation. Everybody was giving me the run around. Their possession of my legal materials was illegal, and for three months I did everything I could try to do to get them to stop obstructing justice, and caught it all back up. "They most likely just threw it away when they packed you out," Batman suggested, but I doubted it. I was one of their high-profile inmates, and most of the guards had seen me on the news or googled me, and that media sensationalism helped paint a very dangerous portrait to prison officials watching me. Most inmates did not even want to be seen talking with me for fear of association. So we hung out in relative privacy where we would not be seen on camera or by any guard that knew about my case.
I wrote letters to the BOP Regional office, trying desperately to get help about finding my much-needed legal work. As always, they forwarded all my letters to Warden Cruz. I finally had enough and went on a four-day hunger strike. I was already skinny by now, and suffering muscle atrophy and exhaustion, but as the saying goes: 'I go hard'. I am a warrior, and I fight for what I believe in. Lt. Shannon went on the hunt for my legal work. On the fourth day, he found it. All he would say was that it had been found in the back of a closet, but he refused to elaborate any further. He then threatened to have me strapped down and force-fed oatmeal through a tube fed into my nose and to my stomach. "I assure you, you will not like it," he said. I looked back at Batman and said with a defiant smirk "Worse things have befallen me, and I just so happen to love oatmeal." Bat Man gave me a look that said "Leave me outta this."
Whenever I asked Warden Cruz, or Lt. John Wilson, or Helton Gentry why I was still in the SHU, even after I had clearly admitted to Lt. Smith and Lt. Freddy Wigginton what I had done, so there would be no need for a lengthy investigation, I was told that my indefinite confinement was because of who I am, and what they thought I was capable of. This seemed to have become a fanatical witch hunt of what they thought I could do, and not what I had actually done. The SIS employs inmate informants, giving them stamps or a new radio or shoes for information. All their snitches were saying I had been hacking into BOP systems. They would say anything for free stuff.
The FBI would find no evidence of a compromise what-so-ever. Yet, still I remained indefinitely.
The heat, it was just so extreme. There were some nights when Batman and I would wake up from heart palpitations and dizziness and say to each other "I'm probably not going to make it through the night." My body was shutting down.
I begged God to just hurry up and kill me already. I would silently cry to myself, tears burning their way down my cheeks, praying "Kill me, please." Like that song by FlyLeaf 'In the Dark', I would claw at my face, bang my head on the walls and scream. I would laugh, I would kick the cell door. Pace the floor. Then, the hallucinations came in waves. i would loose all sense of what was real from the isolation. I was drowning in it.
On May 23, 2012 Regional had forwarded one of my letters to Warden Cruz. There were talks of releasing me back in the general population, but once she recieved my forwarded letter the retaliation was forever. "Somebody above me does not want you back in the compound. You pissed somebody off," Lt. Shannon told me. "Is it the Warden?" I asked him, but he never would say, but the look in his eyes told me exactly what I already knew. Maureen Cruz.
Hallucinations
The minds is used to processing a plethora of sensory information, and so remains in a constant state of stimulation. But when you are isolated from environmental and social stimulation, the mind starts to create sensory stimulation on its own, and that is where hallucinations come from. Mine were auditory hallucinations.
Mum believed that I was going through all of this because I was harboring hidden sin in my life, and this was God's way of either chastising me, or purging me of that sin. She is very narrow minded, and completely excluded the notion that I was being tortured by corrupt government employees. "Just give it all to God and the moment you repent, these doors will fly open!" She would say this over and over again. But no matter how many times I repented, or the fact I threw away my notes, evidence from screen shots, and even my 2600 magazine - I remained. Only until it dawned on her that I was actually dying did she start shuffling her feet around.
The hallucinations started with the sounds of helicopter rotor blades 'whomping' just outside my window. I thought it was a helicopter Med-Evac airlifting an inmate that had fainted in the heat. But the phantom chopper never took off. Then I began to hear music. All of us who spent any time longer than two weeks seems to hallucinate different music or radio stations. Then the music got louder and more abstract without form or structure, which itself is tormenting for me because I am a musician. At some point I heard the second half of the Jingle Bells chorus over and over again for five days straight - that is an 8 second sound clip repeated several thousand times. It was nothing short of maddening beyond measure. (Banana phone, anyone?) Yeah, watch 'Banana Phone' on YouTube and you will know what I mean.
Recreation was held for an hour outside, five days a week. Apart from that and three 15 minute max showers a week, we stayed on 23/5 lockdown. The rec-cage was a small chain link cage covered in a heavy tarp, which prevented us from people seeing in or out. We were kept hydrated less we faint in the heat. A guard had fainted from the heat outside, and the ambulance came for plenty of fallen inmates throughout every week. Now imagine being cooked alive 9 x 6 bathroom with temperatures that reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit for over three months straight. That was my summer.
I could not even walk around the rec- cage. I would walk in tiny circles, thinking I was walking the circumference of the cage. If the tarp flapped in the wind, it sounded to me like a large flock of bird's wings beating as they took off. There were no birds, however. No wings. No helicopters. No car horns. No music. No stadium full of people shouting. Yes, I heard that too. I was caving inside my own mind.
I repeatedly lamented my position to the Psychology department personnel, Dr. Joseph Capps and Dr Poulson, but even they ignored or avoided me.
Then I felt an urge to write my dad Jesse. Something felt... off. But he would never receive my letter. Over a video-phone message with Jessica, I was told my dad was dead. As if I could not loose any more people dear to me, my stupid father had to pass away while I was in here. He had just gotten out of jail for making terrorist threats against a family member. He took a Greyhound bus from Texas to California to spend time with a best friend. At the Strawberry Fields in Carlsbad he suffered a massive heart attack and died in the hospital after spending three days on life support, brain dead, until his mum had the doctors take him off life support. He was already cremated by the time the news reached me. He had died in his early 50s having abused his body with too many drugs. All his secrets died with him, and all the burning questions Jessica and I had meant to ask him were voided by the mystery our dad was to us. "You bastard" I said one night, while lamenting his death up on my top bunk. I balled my fists and made a vow, "I swear I'm going to kick your ass all over the AfterLife!" I intended on it. I centered myself into a deep, trance-like meditation as I started to fall asleep. I had been meditating for a year now, diving into the void of nothingness, tapping into the threshold of my astral projection abilities to help get my mind out and beyond these oppressive walls. It is not so easy for me because I am so high strung.
But then, I stepped into the Aethyr...
Meeting Dad on the Other Side
The Soviets, during the Cold War, published a wealth of laboratory funded experiments in parapsychology, and even the CIA's Stargate program which they declassified in the early 90s shows the useful application of the psychic . ETA c0d3 aka 'Zodiak' is an astral projector. My daughter, like myself, displays signs of clairvoyance. My sister Jessica and I are telepathic. Family thing.
The disjoining of the energy-body from the physical-body is an extremely liberating and exhilarating experience, shattering any and all notions of space-time limitations that are exclusive to a third-dimensional reality whereas fourth dimension has no boundaries. Information is limitless. The biblical writing in the Book of Ecclesiastes 12: 5-7 is an obscure reference to the loosening of the spirit from the physical body upon death.
As I enter into the aethyr or ether, I hear a ripping or tearing sound, which is like the sound of a mighty wind roaring in my ears. I am willing my spirit body to detach itself from my physical body, even struggling against it until I hear a tearing sensation like velcro as I free myself from my earthen form. The only thing keeping my body alive is what is called a 'silver cord', which connects the two bodies, and has been called the silver cord for thousands of years. It is actually like a silvery elastic band connected to the forehead of the energy body to the physical body, and the source of the cord is rooted inside the pineal gland, which rests between the two halves of the brain.
My entire family is aware that I can project out of my body. I had just left my body to see my daughter, who was four at the time. "Mommy!" she cried out, excitedly, running up her eyes wide. "I just saw Daddy!" The household was in an uproar because of it. My daughter is very intuitive. Three days in from being in the SHU, she's found clutching a picture of me to her chest and crying. She tells her mother "Where is Daddy? Daddy is in trouble, we need to pray for Daddy."
After my dad died, be began to visit Jessica and appeared to her in dreams, asking for her forgiveness, tears in his eyes. I could smell him, I knew his scent anywhere. He was watching me sleep. "I'll kick your ass all over the AfterLife," I thought as I slipped from my body.
I found him in a dream. It was raining heavily outside, and the sky was painted with dark clouds. He was sitting at a park bench beneath a large tent, speaking to friends of his who had long since passed away. When he saw me, his eyes were filled with a remorse I have never seen before. I marched up to him and grabbed him by his shirt collar, preparing to punch him in the face. But a wordless expression seemed to speak from his eyes. "Son, I'm so sorry."
I could not do it. Instead, I threw my arms around him and cried. The dreamscape collapsed and I somehow found myself standing in somebody's apartment. A lady was taking a nap on the couch in between moving into the apartment. Like an elastic band I was yanked back into my body as I was starting to wake up.
I forgave my dad. He was the living example of the saying 'ball to you fall.' He had always lived life in the fast lane. Now he is dead, yet quite alive on the Other Side. I am no stranger to ghosts nor angels or those truly black and malevolent spirits. A lot of people die in prison. People I know or bunked with. I have always been this way since I was about three or four years old. As a Christian I felt like an aberration and kept it a secret.
I wrote sermons and bible studies for my mum, who was a youth minister, while I was in the SHU. I encouraged the younger generation even when I had no encouragement of my own. I studied the Book of Enoch and decoded its heavy symbolism in the Book of Dream Visions. I used my isolation as an advantage to gain spiritual insight and to seek God - a God that is nothing like any 'Christian' I have ever met. They make Him seem so detached and different. I hate to refer to myself as a Christian because so much stigma is attached to that label. I am really more of a Christian mystic, if I must be put in a category.
Aha! I Have a Lawyer Now!
ETA Tr0nik and my mum Carol and my wife started to put their heads together to find a way to get me out of the SHU. After spending even half a year in this BOP 'Black Site' was taking its toll on my body and mind. This was my Aushiwitz. My Guantanamo detainee camp. My own personal hell. Cut off from the world and everybody I loved.
PhanOp found his way to the SHU with me over the summer, and in the rec-cage one morning he told me about Barrett Brown, alleged unofficial spokesman for Anonymous that had just been arrested in Dallas. Anonymous, having no official face other than the universal Guy Fawkes mask itself, a symbol of revolution that was a thorn in the side and on the mind of the Justice Department - I knew that if the DOJ could paint a face in the perception of the public, it would surely be that the face would be Barrett Brown's, however unrealistic. "Candina is his prosecutor," he told me.
"She would," I replied, knowing Candina was an attention-whore and would never hesitate to jump at the opportunity to take on another high profile cybercrime case for the government.
In October of 2013, I finally was allowed to see the Disciplinary Hearing Officer. PhanOp stood as my witness, having heard from the very mouth of the man who told SIS that I had hacked his email account, which the DHO dismissed as a moot issue now. I cited applicable case law concerning the Constitution's requirement of Due Process of Law, and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment - no, you cant lawfully detain me for an indefinite amount of time without legal justification that shows I am a threat to the security of the institution, ect. He laughed at me. "I have been doing this for twenty years, leave the case law for the lawyers." He eluded to the fact that legal 'loopholes' existed to justify whatever they wanted to do. Hmmm, interesting. After spending ten months back there, he sentenced me to an additional 30 days, with 90 days phone restriction 28 days loss of good conduct time, which extended my release date.
"We are the government. We write the laws. They are to protect US from YOU. So go screw yourself." Seems this was the base f the mater. I had inalienable civil and human rights they would not allow me to invoke. This means that to exercise your rights, someone in the government sighs, rolls their eyes and has to passively step aside for you. I cannot tell you how many times a guard has laughed in my face whenever I cited the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or quoted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "You have no rights, McGraw! So STFU and quit your whining!" they would tell me.
What good are your rights when others prohibit you from invoking them? Then comes the endless retaliation. When I acquired a lawyer, the retaliation became so severe that even he was afraid to come and visit me.
Paul Marone, an inmate in the SHU with me, joined forces after he sent his lawyer a letter about me. Edmundo Espinoza became my lawyer by December 2012.
The winter was terribly cold. Even worse, we were showering in ice water. The sting of the water was so much better than the acidic burning of the summer heat. Still, it was cruel and inhumane. I was somewhere in Dante's Inferno where the dammed resided in a freezing dimension of limbo. Still, I was a fighter, and even more determined as ever before.
Somewhere between madness and intelligence I spent hours of the day scrawling network theory on the walls of my cell, explaining the fundamental basics of TCP/IP to my cellie, who was now Paul Marone, describing how a Distributed Denial of Service attack works on a TCP level, and how worms and port scans behave similarly to ARP poisoning attacks from the perspective of a a network security analyst watching network traffic.
I needed this. "Do not forget who and what you are," I told myself whenever I thought I felt my mind slipping away. I explained to him (and others before him) how a Tor node works, as I scribbled notes on the walls with a pencil only to wash it away again with water and toilet paper so I could scribble some more. I began to design different cryptographic schemes and ciphers as a way to stimulate my brain from the deafening silence. Most of the other long-term inmates were transferred to other prisons. I was still here.
Lt. Shannon told me that after I served my disciplinary sanction I still had to remain there because now the FBI were investigating into other matters concerning me. SIS Helton Gentry explained that the FBI would be coming to talk to me. But I smelled a deception. I laughed manically because I knew why I was still here. Retaliation for obtaining legal counsel. Paul was being retaliated against as well, and they berated and belittled him, saying there was nothing he could do about the retaliation and that his lawyer could not help him. All this is outlined in our civil lawsuit, Case No. 3:13-CV-0740-L . Sadly, the district judge over this case is also the judge overseeing Barrett Brown's case, Sam Lindsay. This case is still pending, and Seagonville will likely escape accountability by claiming immunity.
Paul never was given a lock-up order as required by Due Process for being housed in Maximum Security - the SHU. So what did SIS do? They falsified a government document and forged Lt. Shannon's signature - who was not even the SHU Lieutenant anymore. We gave it to Edmundo.
Our mail was constantly tampered with. Sometimes we would not get our mail for you to 20 days straight. Gentry was obstructing our mail to try and learn what we were telling others about the lawsuit, and what they were telling us, even to go so far as to open our legal mail, which is a crime. The the ol' Ghost Exodus awoke somewhere deep inside my crippled mind and realized that I could use this as a tactical advantage : disinformation. If they needed intelligence by siphoning our mail for details, then I only had to run counter intelligence.
I managed to get a handful of the guards on my side and got them to tell me exactly who was sabotaging our mail. It was none other than Helton Gentry himself. Next, I wrote letters containing my bit of disinfo, stating that one of the Lieutenants had become an informant and was cooperating with my attorney.
In a letter dated 1-13-13 Sunday @ 2:55 pm, I wrote to the fictitious 'Michael N.'
"My in-law, James, asked for some advice from his sister who is a Federal Judge in the D.C. circuit, and she suggested to my lawyer to compile enough probable cause to warrant a wiretap and to fit a volunteering CO here at Seagonville with a wire. So, some Magistrate signed the warrant! 'E' says the case is sealed to protect the integrity of the investigation, but that enough evidence was gathered by the UNSUB {unknown subject} designated as 'CW-1' to take it to the grand jury! I about crapped myself when I heard that! Paul doesn't know about this, technically, that's the totality of what I know." In the words of Denzel Washington from 'Training day' "I'm puttin' cases on all you bitches."
I kept the disinformation flowing by passing messages to the other inmates who were writing Edmundo, knowing that the guards were scanning messages and reporting the contents to Gentry. I wanted them to believe that one of their own guards was rolling over on them, that there was a snitch within that blue wall of silence. Let trust be broken with suspicion, and paranoia disrupt their efforts so I could purchase a time of rest from their endless retaliation. Gentry avoided direct contact with me altogether. Everything he said was only added quote for quote in the lawsuit. The trick is simple - craft tricky questions and get them to self-incriminate.
Support Comes Through
Tr0nik set up an online petition to help bring awareness to the public about what the prison officials were doing to me. She basically carried the work load while my family rode the little waves she was making on my behalf. A lot of people signed the petition, though nothing came of it. Well, save for one woman from the Anonymous collective known as DarkChylde, an activist. We began exchanging letters for support and friendship, which is more than I could say about my own friends, or family for that matter. It seemed like if I was not writing sermons, even my own mother had little to do with me. If I was not praising God, then we had nothing to share. Even when I thought I was going to die during the summer I wrote Fixer my final farewell letter, he would never write one word. At least I had made a friend who had a healthy, realistic perspective of the true face of the Justice System, I thought when thinking about DarkChylde.
I Need Medical Help Now!
I was suffering from two infected, ingrown toenails. The nails had punctured the sides of my big toes and carved their way through the top of my toes. At one point I could not walk at all, and had to drain the wounds every hour or else it would discharge and bleed continually. I carried these painful wounds untreated for eight months until I was forced to take action myself. The nurses refused to do anything about it. They were impossible to reason with. I must have shown them all several dozen times, but they would only give me this blank stare as if it did not occur to them the nails had to be clipped or removed.
Gritting my teeth, I carved out two huge wedges in both big toe nails with a razor blade, pulling the nail back in order to slice away at the fleshy tendons holding my nail in place. It was messy and very painful, with no possible way to clean or sterilize it. With the ingrown nail finally gone, the infection increased, but the pain subsided.
Then, I caught pneumonia from showing in freezing water. Not a single nurse would tend to me. I was drowning in the fluid in my lungs, as I had adema, and I had began coughing up blood. I was dying, but my spirit is fierce and defiant, and I pushed myself to endure it long enough to see the day when I could bring this prison to its knees. This BOP Black Site had to be shut down.
The hallucinations came and went. I could not sleep because I could not breathe without spitting up bloody phlegm. when I saw Edmundo for the last time, I had been in the SHU for over 265 days. That is over 8,760 hours of confinement to a 9x6 cell . False incarceration. I was incoherent. I could not process anything my lawyer was saying. My eyes welled up with tears because the way he was looking at me revealed how mentally lost I was. "They are killing him" he told my wife over the phone. They were trying to kill me so they could cover up what they had been doing to me.
Gross medical negligence. Retaliation. Intentional infliction of mental pain. Torture.
I filled out a presidential clemency application and sent it to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. I wanted a pardon. Hell, I deserved it. Less than a month later, the Facilities Manager B. Brown came by my cell to tell me my clemency had been denied. 'No, sorry, don't have your rejection letter McGraw. ' No rejection letter. I was suspicious. To have a clemency application processed in less than 30 days would set a new record, since they receive thousands of clemency applications daily. Plus, the rejection letter would have to have gone through my counselor or case manager - not some facilities manager, who had nothing to do with me. I asked him about this. Mr Brown responded with "I'm only following orders." his response reeked of SIS Helton Gentry. This was Obstruction of Justice and Mail Fraud. I spoke with my case manager, Mr Sean Smith, who never found any rejection letter in my inmate case file.
I managed to sneak a letter that served as a Freedom of Information Act request to the Pardon Attorney himself who revealed that no clemency application had ever been filed. This could only mean that Gentry had intercepted the clemency document and dispatched the facilities manager to lie to me.
The things your government can get away with... FUCK your government.
Restraining Order
Edmundo filed a temporary Restraining Order against the prison officials holding me in the SHU which would have forced them to release me back into the general population and be taken to a medical facility to see to my many physical and psychological issues, and report the findings back to the Judge, which would have served as powerful, irrefutable evidence against them. The first thing the guards did was force Paul and I to our cell to extract me, by force if necessary. Paul had overheard the guars talking so we knew ahead of time what was about to go down.
"Jesse, they are coming to split us up," Paul explained in a panic. I continued to lay on my bunk and not be moved by what was coming. I did not want Paul to see my fear, which I held behind a mask of calmness. If Paul saw me afraid it would only escalate his terror.
"Don't you care?" Paul asked, the mounting tension in his voice causing him to tremble.
"What happens will happen, my friend. You've got to be strong and don't ever let them see that you're afraid," I reassured him. "If you respond with fear, they will only terrorize you even more."
"What did I ever do to make them hate me so much?" he asked.
"You are an inmate. That's all there is to it."
A loud knock at the cell door, keys jangling as the feeding slot is unlocked.
"Inmate McGraw! Cuff up, its time for cell rotation!" I peered through the screen window and saw five guards coming to take little ol' me away. Flattered, really. They were hiding around all my flanks, trying to keep out of my line of sight.
"I'm not going anywhere," I answered calmly, for Paul's sake. He stood in the corner, wide eyed with fear.
"Cuff up now or we will call the SRTs and they will make you leave that cell," the guard threatened nastily. The SRT is the Special Response Team, sort of the BOP's version of SWAT where they get to dress up in full riot gear, claim you were being hostile, to justify beating you half to death. And they cannot wait to suit up. We call them the 'goon squad'. And, to make things more interesting, Seagonville's FCI goon leader just so happens to be an over-eager racist who hates white people. They wanted to suit up on me so bad.
"Now, why would you want to do that? So you can bounce me all over these walls, hmmm?" I replied.
"I said cuff up now! You're gonna be written up! You are disobeying a direct order!" the guard threatened.
"I'll move as long as the Warden is here to supervise my cell move," I answered calmly. I was so impossibly beyond antagonized that if the SRTs came and put their hands on me, I would have possible killed one or tow of them in self defense before they beat me to a bloody pulp. I would lose the the claim of self defense because the government is so reprobate they just do not care.
"The Warden is busy, McGraw. Cuff up now or we are calling the SRTs!"
Whatever, I thought. I will get your ass on my terms, and on a battlefield that I control. I looked at my terrified cellie and smiled as I backed up to the door so I could be handcuffed. "Keep your head up, buddy" I told Paul as the cold metal chomped tightly against my wrists. He was also cuffed and the cell door opened and five guards proceeded with my extraction. Two of them on either side of me, holding my arms. One behind and one in front, and the last one unlocking another cell door. "You see this?" I shouted for all to hear. Every eye was watching. "This is what happens when you stand up for what you believe in!"
"Shut up, McGraw!" a guard growled.
"Do you see? This is retaliation!"
They shoved me in another cell and locked me in. They moved Paul downstairs, but not so far away that would could not shout to each other from the window.
Prison officials voided the restraining order by quickly transferring me to Beaumont Federal Corrections complex. Hahahaha, go figure. Now the Judge will never really know how bad of a condition I was in.
Beaumont, Texas
I walked out in the open rec-yard after over a year in isolation. It is hard to explain in relatable terms what that feels like. My world had become so small that all i could do for the longest time was look down anywere I went, having been cut off from the open world for so long. I would look up at the open sky and feel fear, it was so impossibly huge, I felt I could fall into the sky. The wind rustling the grass, birds singing, people bustling about along the sidewalks - I was part of the simulation once again. Even after having been out of the SHU over a year now, there is a part of my mind that is still locked away in the crematorium, that 9 x 6 concrete coffin. For the longest time I have suffered PTSD attacks, but I have managed not to succumb to them by a powerful act of will power. I am nobodies victim. I refuse to be a victim, even though I am.
Twenty eight months have passed since that first day in the SHU. I still have a hard time leaving my cell to go outside. But I am getting much better at it because of DarkChylde.
My wife divorced me in 2011. I had only recently learned in December 2013 that she had cheated on me back in 2010 while I had been in jail less than a year. She had been vigorously claiming chastity all that time, using the Bible as cover, and her mum, my mum, and the Bishop of the church had all helped her to lie to me. So I have moved on. It was time anyway. The relationship was dead long before I got arrested. This was liberating. It's not right to have to live like a Memorial to people.
With my new found freedom, DarkChylde came into my heart, and her love is healing my heart-scars. She is the best thing to happen to me since my daughter was born.
Edmundo the Double Agent
Edmundo is a very interesting attorney. He comes off as very anti-government, and part of me would like to believe that some of his ranting is very personal. He also boasts of having been kidnapped by the Mexican cartels - yet fails to explain how it was that they let him go without killing him. Given what I know about him, given what I know of the man, I am inclined to believe that its actually true.
He decided to represent my criminal case back in December of 2012 as pro bono, but requested 90 day extension to push back my mandatory filing deadline, having just taken me on as a client. Judge Boyle denied the application. By July of 2013, he contacted Todd Durden and John Nicholson and asked them to give him my case files. John complied without hesitation, but Todd, for some reason, stonewalled -refusing to give him my files. Todd dragged his feet for weeks, and only when Edmundo filed a complaint against him with the Texas State Bar did he then send me a disclosure agreement form for me to sign and notarize and deliver to Edmundo. His behavior was very suspicious, and Edmundo picked up on it right away. He didn not us moving forward with the Appeal. This would fall back on Todd, exposing his cooperation with Candina.
Edmundo explained to me by letter and over the phone that he was going to mail both John's and Todd's copies of my evidence files on CD to me so that I could compare them because he firmly believed that Todd had deleted evidence from my case file. The Appeal was shelved because Edmundo had set his sights on Todd Durden with the intent of exposing him for Obtruction of Justice. Edmundo mailed the Warden here my CD and explained to him that I needed to review the evidence materials for my Appeals process.
Twice the CD was mailed. The Warden claimed he misplaced the first CD, then claimed the second one was never delivered. Edmundo suspected that SIS was entertaining themselves with my very interesting evidence materials.
But something happened with Edmundo. His behavior did a complete 180 degree turn. He would not answer my phone calls. He refused to write to me, even for up to eight months of silence. Now he keeps threatening to abandon my case whenever I ask for an explanation as to why he is ignoring me.
So when I looked into the matter, I discovered something interesting. Not really surprising, though. When Edmundo called Todd about my case files. Todd contacted Candina Heath that my lawyer was poking his nose in my case. Not long after July 2013, Candina contacted Edmundo and made him a proposition - to stall as long as possible, and allow the case to run cold. What he recieved for his cooperation I do not know, other than the fact he has turned on me, and thus, Candina initiated him in her and Todd's little house of cards. As insane as it sounds, the conduct is relevant.
Some of Edmundo's past clients have left scathing comments about him on his website. Everything from allegations that he is a mob lawyer for the El Chapo Gusman and Arellano Felix Mexican crime families, to turning his back on a client and informing on him to the DEA, and even stealing a guy's wife while he was in prison; all while pretending to be all for his client while he turns on them to help the government. This is such irony in this. He did all those things to me as well. As it was, while I was in the SHU, he was discreetly trying to pursue my wife. The man is an opportunist, what can I say? To make things even more interesting, when El Chapo Gusman was apprehended in Mexico, Edmundo started a flight pattern back and from DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) Airport to Mexico. Also, around the late 1900s - early 2000s he was disciplined by the California State Bar for misconduct involving misappropriation of client funds into various bank accounts (laundering, are we?) that were not client trust accounts.
When my wife asked for a financial record to show where her $5,000 went, he got irate and threatened to leave my cases. He ws holding me hostage out of false charity, knowing I could not afford to hire anyone.
So, I wrote him and told him everything I knew about him. I have not heard back since, and I do not expect to either. But I will end his career as a crooked mob lawyer when I sue him into bankruptcy. Furthermore, since DarkChylde has become head liaison over my new legal team, I learned that Edmundo contacted Candina and reported that Darkchylde was interfering with the much-needed silence and could pose a threat to them. Candina had started plotting to raid her house with FBI agents to perform a search and seizure as a means to scare her and deter her zealous efforts to expose them and free me. Exposing Edmundo only links him back to my prosecutor. Exposing her unveils Todd's role in the conspiracy. Maybe even Special Agent Lynd has a role in this, maybe not. Only the evidence will tell of such things, not what I say and not what I know...
The truth will set me free.
My freedom will mean the doom of many. That is why I am still here, but not for much longer. You can not hold me here forever. You can not snuff the memory of me out. This tiny revolutionary flame that I am, blazing upon a white candle that has only begged for peace for me, my people, and all people who have been affected by the crushing gavel of America's Justice System. There is a window sticker here at this place where I slave labor at. It reads, 'Government Employees, Nobody Does it Better." That says it all on so many levels.
They fancy themselves as superior to the people that created the government, remeniscent of a being named Lucifer, who thought himself superior to the One who created him. God cast this inferior thing out, throwing him down from the heights of heaven, to earth. You see, people forget that even the law itself has said that the government is not superior to the people that created it. But when you live beneath the veil of media slanted, state- sponsored propaganda you are inclined to believe as you are told, and when you live in a constant state of fear, confusion and apathy concerning the world around you, but fail to be a part of the world around you, - if you do not assume responsibility for your country and countrymen, and for the next generation to come, then who is going to pick up what you left for others to take when it was lawfully and rightfully yours? The government. They clothe themselves with YOUR sovereignty.
Look at what they have done. People who kiss their wives and children as they drive away to work, have gone out of their way to destroy my life and by any means possible to ensure that I leave this place either broken in spirit or in a body bag. Political prisoner. Torture survivor.
You have created what I have become... This is nothing short of revolutionary.
What didn't kill me only made me stronger, and I thank you for that.
Now my life has a purpose and meaning. Isaiah 61:1
Let this be the last hacker you destroy. Though I am the very least among my brethren of hackers, we are still the greatest super power in the hands of a fee people - and you hate this. That's okay. You only know hate and fear anyway, look at what your hate did to my fellow brother Aaron Swartz. You hate drove that brilliant, honorable young man to kill himself - because having him in your grasp just was not enough. You had to crush the life out of him with your malicious fist of "Just Us."
I will end my lamentation with a quote I wrote. I hope it inspires you.
"Turn your pain into power.
From victims we become victors.
From lambs to lions."
I am Ghost Exodus. I will be heard. I will be free. I am free. Freedom Fighter to the end.
We are the people you depend on.
We cook your meals.
We haul your trash.
We connect your calls.
We drive your ambulances.
We guard you while you sleep.
We are Jack's outraged mind.
We are true.
We are righteous.
We are Alpha.
We are Omega.
We are Light.
We are Truth.
We are fearless.
We multiply...
We are watching.
We are helping.
We are unstoppable.
We are the Movement.
We are triumphant.
We are the 99%.
We are the People.
We are the One.
We are the many.
We are everywhere.
We are everyone.
We are the leaders.
We are the followers.
We love you.
We are you.
We are Anonymous.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.