Soldiers at Carswell Air Force Base had no idea that I was a U.S. Asset who got in trouble for providing accurate forecasts about the War in Iraq They had no idea I warned about 9/11, and contributed extensively to the 9/11 investigation.
If you read the mainstream media, I was caught “spying for the Iraqis.” That’s what a lot of soldiers on Carswell Air Force Base believed. The indictment was dirty smoke and propaganda. But soldiers believed what they were told. An accused “Iraqi agent” was locked up on their military base. Having lost my rights to due process under the Patriot Act, I lost my ability to challenge their perceptions of my alleged crimes.
At that moment, American soldiers were losing the War in Baghdad. U.S. forces sustained heavy casualties in 2006, including thousands of amputations, paralysis and head injuries from suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). While I was locked up at Carswell, Sunni factions attacked the golden dome of the famous Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra, launching bloody sectarian strife against the Shi’ites. U.S. soldiers had lost control on the battlefield, and were heading back for third tours of duty away from wives and children. Returning U.S. soldiers showed deep emotional scars and post traumatic stress. The U.S. military faced daunting pressure of two battle fronts, with angry Mujahedin in Afghanistan on the sidelines of Baghdad.
Locking up an accused “Iraqi Agent” inside a Texas military base was like waving a suicide bomb vest in front of a battalion. They couldn’t stop Al Qaeda in Iraq. But they could sure as hell punish me, an “enemy non-combatant,” (read that, Iraqi spy).
They tried their damnedest to screw me every chance they got.
My beloved Uncle Ted Lindauer kept his promise to drive 700 miles from southern Illinois to visit me at Carswell Air Force Base, northwest of Fort Worth, Texas. It’s an 11 hour road trip, driving straight through—in each direction.
When he arrived, Ted identified himself as part of my legal defense team, a fully accurate description by this point. He carried documentation to verify his attorney’s license. Critically, the soldiers understood he was visiting the “accused Iraqi Agent.”
The Sentry guard refused to let Ted Lindauer enter that military base.
The first time it happened, soldiers swore there was no prison inside Carswell Air Force Base. And I was not a detainee. Quite perplexed, Ted assured soldiers at the sentry gate they were mistaken. He had Court papers ordering my surrender to Carswell, and letters postmarked from the prison. He asked to speak with a commanding officer. The commanding officer on duty came out to meet him, but refused to acknowledge that a prison was located inside the military base, either.494
Ted explained that he had traveled 700 miles, and he was quite positive the prison was there. They didn’t care. He wasn’t coming onto their base. Ted doesn’t give up easily on anything, and he doesn’t play. So they spent a good couple of hours arguing over whether there was a prison inside Carswell Air Force Base. Above all, Ted argued aggressively for my Constitutional rights to attorney access.
Oh yes, the Iraqi agent wanted an attorney.
Ted warned that he would go to the Judge and file a complaint. And that’s exactly what he did. He notified Judge Mukasey’s clerk that he had been denied access to the prison on a weekend— when it was open for family members, attorneys or not. And he complained that my rights to an attorney visit had been violated.
That was Ted’s first attempt to visit me at Carswell Prison. The second time Ted drove 700 miles and 11 hours from southern Illinois, soldiers had a new excuse for denying him access to the base.
Yeah, soldiers at the entry gate acknowledged. Carswell prison existed. But the Sentry swore up and down that the prison had no visiting hours on the weekends. Again Ted argued that was ridiculous. Again the sentry contacted a ranking officer on duty. He came down and refused Ted’s request to enter the base, with the flagrant lie that the prison had no weekend visiting hours.495
Meanwhile, other families visiting the prison got ushered through the gates around Ted. Inside Carswell, other inmates had visitors all day.
Ted Lindauer had his attorney papers. He had contact names inside the prison. He was on my visitor’s list. None of that mattered. Soldiers told him not to come back the next day, because they would not let him onto the military base then, either.
The Iraqi agent was not getting an attorney visit. End of discussion.
All this time my attorney in New York had done nothing to secure my freedom. If any solution could be brokered, it would have to come from Ted. There was nobody else to do it. This visit was critically important to ending our stand off.
Knowing that, Ted had done everything properly. He notified the Court that he was performing as Co-Counsel for my defense. Judge Mukasey had observed Ted’s presence in Court the day I got ordered to Carswell, and recognized the importance of our relationship. The prison staff on M-1 was fully aware of his close involvement in my case.
He’s also 70 years old, and a very dignified gentleman, with 40 years of senior legal practice. He doesn’t suffer fools. It’s sort of a Lindauer thing.
And still soldiers at Carswell Air Force Base refused to grant him access to me.
Now Ted was furious. This was his second trip to Carswell in several weeks, and he’d been refused entry to the base both times, for the flimsiest of excuses.496
He warned the Commanding Officer that he would return in a few days. And by God, he would bring the U.S. marshals with him. And those U.S. marshals would escort him onto that military base, into that prison, if soldiers tried to deny Ted Lindauer access to me a third time.497
While he was at it, he would see that they all got court-martialed for failing in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. (We know a few Generals, too.)
Unhappily, soldiers guarding Carswell Air Force Base appeared to have a very limited understanding of the Constitution, which is not particularly hopeful, since they’re sworn to protect it. In its most simple maxim, “We, the people of the United States of America” have fundamental protections that define our whole system of government and laws. Those inalienable rights exist to protect us from exactly this sort of arbitrary and tyrannical government abuses like these. For starters, Americans are innocent until proven guilty, with carefully defined rights of due process. And by the way, political prosecutions are expressly frowned upon as tyrannical violations of free speech.
Alas, the U.S. Constitution got fed into the shredder in my case. That illustrates poignantly why prisons should be separate from military establishments. It’s disastrous to allow them to function co-dependently. The military itself does not know how to handle those situations.
Well, Ted Lindauer is a marvelously persevering man. When challenged, he refused to back down.
First thing Monday morning, he called Judge Mukasey and raised all kinds of hell about my Constitutional rights, and how Sam Talkin’s failure to perform had compelled him to intercede, in order to guarantee that I had real, interested legal counsel. He filed a formal protest with the Court, and demanded that U.S. Marshals escort him onto that base.498
Judge Mukasey could see the situation was spiraling out of control. The whole agreement sending me to Carswell for 120 days, in exchange for ending the case, had collapsed. Obviously the original deal had been hammered out in the black of night, without my consent, by an attorney who now appeared impotent to protect my rights, and took no action to gain my freedom. And I was trapped in prison 1600 miles away.
This violation of my rights to legal counsel was occurring at a critical moment. As a defendant, I desperately required the guidance of a senior legal adviser. Judge Mukasey’s hands were tied by the thinly disguised collusion between the prosecutor and my attorney. And here was the answer to our prayers— a senior, savvy attorney anxious to play a very helpful role brokering a workable solution.
With great perspicacity and fury over the abrogation of my legal rights, Judge Mukasey agreed to have U.S. Marshals standing by to escort Ted Li
ndauer onto that military base, when he returned to see me a few days later. Judge Mukasey ordered that this legal visit would be protected by the Court. And he ordered Carswell Prison to open the visitor center just for me.499
Ted Lindauer had Judge Mukasey’s private cell phone number to invoke the power of the U.S. Marshals at the first sign of trouble or delay.
Judge Mukasey kicked some Texas ass that week. Junior staff at Carswell told me he boxed the ears of top prison officers, who sent the message down the ranks that guards had better find me when Ted Lindauer arrived. There would be hell to pay if Ted didn’t get to see me.
As they say, third time’s the charm. It took the threat of U.S. marshals standing by, flanking Ted at the front gate, but we finally got to talk.500
Mercifully, Ted Lindauer possessed the legal insight to craft a workable compromise to our problem. He arrived carrying a pledge for my signature to submit to Judge Mukasey. Very simply, I would have to agree to attend psychology meetings in Maryland. And I would have to agree to use any drugs prescribed locally—
Experience convinced us that once politics got removed from the equation, there would be no drugs. Nevertheless, I had to consent.501
This agreement gave the court a vehicle for addressing the prosecutor’s demands for drugs, while sidestepping my refusal to use drugs prescribed by Carswell for nonexistent conditions that had nothing to do with real life.
It was simple, but it accomplished what my Uncle Ted understood the Judge needed. He’d done his homework, and he got the agreement in precise language that would be acceptable to the Court, in order for me to go home. He forbade me from changing a single word of it. Truly, Ted Lindauer was a blessing, a jewel, given this massive headache for the Court.
Now it’s always risky to extrapolate a Judge’s thinking. Since no defendant can resist doing it however, I confess that we believed Judge Mukasey was alarmed and frustrated by these surprise developments.
We did not believe Judge Mukasey expected O’Callaghan to pull this stunt, demanding forcible drugging after the Court accepted the finding of incompetence. It put the Judge in a bad position, having ordered me to Carswell for 120 days, without a hearing that would have answered questions about my story. I had begged for that hearing.
Arguably, it gave the Court something else to chew over. It proved the strongest defendant could not overcome the hazards of the Patriot Act, whether guided by senior counsel like Ted Lindauer, or junior counsel like Sam Talkin. My attorney relationship was already burdened by “secret evidence” and “secret charges.” Now I was locked up on a military base— without attorney access— facing indefinite detention. Those factors crippled my capacity to prepare for trial. As a defendant, I was totally helpless to overcome these external obstacles, which were flagrantly unconstitutional anyway.
Judge Mukasey possesses an extremely sophisticated legal mind and a profound sense of fairness. Refusing to allow Ted Lindauer onto Carswell Air Force Base for a crucial attorney visit sent a sobering message.
Ted Lindauer particularly believed that Judge Mukasey saw the legal structure impeding my defense. He trusted Judge Mukasey throughout this whole nightmare.
For myself, as a defendant, I didn’t know what to think. It terrified me not to know how the Court would rule. Judge Mukasey appeared inscrutable, exhibiting a fierce and uncanny depth of insight to the law.
Honestly, I was scared to death.
Saved by the Blogs
This was the most evil thing I’ve ever confronted in my life. And I’ve seen evil before.
People ask me all the time how I survived.
I escaped the fate of other inmates, because I fought back as hard as I’ve ever fought anything in my life.
At the outset, the prospect of my success appeared stunningly low. Usually the courts rubberstamp prison requests for drugs, pretty much automatically. There’s no doubt that Carswell expected the same for me.
Carswell didn’t count on my two secret weapons.
The first, of course, was my beloved Uncle Ted, who fought forcefully and strategically, behind the scenes to broker an agreement that would satisfy the Court, and get me home.
The second surprised me, too— my own beloved companion, JB Fields, who desperately appealed for help in the blog community and internet radio.
JB refused to stand by passively, and let the attack on my rights go unchallenged.
“JB” stood for J Burford of all things. That’s just the initial “J” without any other name attached to it. Born in Kansas, raised in Wyoming, JB was a proud Navy guy who spent six years of his life underwater, trawling the ocean floors on naval submarines. In 11 years of active service, he toured on the “Grayback,” the “Barb,” and the “Thomas A. Edison.”
He bragged about surviving a submarine accident, with ocean water spilling into the hold up to his chest. On Hawaii, he ran marathons and swim races alongside friends in the Navy Seals. Afterwards, he worked at the State Department in Washington in computer technology. While living with me, he got his “Top Secret” security clearance, and returned to the State Department as a computer contractor.
So much for my threat to national security.
JB was a generous, warm hearted man, whose greatest passion in life was his motorcycle, nicknamed “Drifty.” Every weekend he blasted off on “Drifty,” exploring the back roads of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Friends joked that JB knew every ice cream stand, every barbecue pit and every diner from Maryland to North Carolina. JB would just smile, and tell you those things mattered most in life.
One Christmas, JB gave me some fancy motorcycle gear for winter riding. With a big grin, he said, “Isn’t this better than an engagement ring?”
Every moment counted with JB. He had the social flair to enjoy black tie affairs with State Department colleagues, ensconced in policy talk. And the next night, he’d eat crab legs and drink beer at the American Legion in Silver Spring, or at some motorcycle bar. He looked sexy as hell in a Tux, and even sexier in blue jeans and a leather jacket.
Different opinions always excited him. That was key to understanding his nature. He was a fierce civil libertarian, and a strong believer that ideas must be respected. Though he was fiercely opinionated himself, and would argue for hours over the most arcane points, he would gleefully defend the rights of others to hold a different philosophy on life and politics. And he believed those differences made conversation interesting.
Above all, he strongly believed the greatest privilege of the U.S. military is to defend the freedoms of our country— which he adored— and to protect the Constitution—which he held sacred.
And woe to the wicked of Carswell!
From my first days at Carswell, JB championed my cause. He was horrified that I got locked up without a trial or hearing He was appalled the national media didn’t care. My case had intense political overtones, involving Iraq and anti-terrorism policy, and a strong human interest angle. Yet corporate media gave short shrift to my nightmare. There was no outcry. My home town newspaper, the Washington Post, showed no curiosity that one of its local gals, a U.S. Asset involved with Pre-War Intelligence, had got locked up on a Texas military base for doing exactly what pundits and Congress swore on the Front Page of the newspaper I should have done.
Journalists wouldn’t touch my story, though JB pleaded for attention. Corporate media watched from the sidelines, abandoning the role of watchdog.
Carswell watched this dynamic, too— closely. Once they saw the media’s indifference, prison staff taunted me that nobody cared. Nobody would help me. They could do anything at all to me, and nobody would stop them.
Sadly, if not for JB Fields, they would have been right.
Terrified by Carswell’s refusal to release me, JB Fields hit the airwaves of alternative radio, with some very cool talk show hosts like Michael Herzog, Greg Szymanski, Derek Gilbert, RJ Hender and Cosmic Penguin — to name a few of the awake and vigilant alternative radio hosts, who broadcast my sto
ry from the very beginning.
Republic Broadcasting, Oracle, Orion and Liberty Radio carried my story to their listeners before anybody else! And their scrutiny made all the difference!
JB was so frightened that he started posting my story on blogs all over the internet, with a cry for help to defend my rights to a hearing, so I’d have a chance to prove my story in court.
The hand of Providence moved for me again, and JB was soon joined by a passionate and highly articulate activist named Janet Phelan, who’s got a long tradition defending America’s liberties in her own right. Janet hosted a radio talk show, “One if by Land.” An incredibly talented lady, Janet brought a deeper perspective on the abuse of women by psychology, and the Soviet style of abusing creative thinkers and activists under the guise of “mental health.” She also fiercely condemned the Patriot Act.
Janet Phelan was phenomenal. Together, she and JB smoked the blogs with outrage over the irregularities of my imprisonment on the Patriot Act, and the outrageous threat to forcibly drug me until I could be “cured” of knowing inconvenient truths that the government wished to obliterate.
Corporate media might have been sleeping, but the blogging community woke up, and gave JB and Janet a forum to fight. What I call “awake blogs,” like “Scoop” Independent News, Smirking Chimp, IntelDaily, OpEd News, American Politics Journal, Atlantic Free Press, and The Agonist joined the battle, appalled by what was happening. Cutting edge bloggers like WelcomebacktoPottersville.com, watching the road ahead, championed my cause from day one.
Later, as my legal drama continued, one of the truly outstanding blog journalists today, Michael Collins, picked up my story. Then we were off to the races!
At Carswell, JB Fields fought like a banshee to free me — what he described as the most lonely and frightening experience of his life. JB declared that he could not say if I was innocent—and he did not always agree with my politics, which made for some lively conversations. But he insisted that I had the right to face my accusers in open court. He urged blog readers to support my right to an evidentiary hearing, so I could a fair chance to call my witnesses to prove the authenticity of my claims!
EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Page 49
