[osint] Martha's lesson - don't talk to the FBI

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 10:28 AM -0800 3/24/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>Because she got charged with *lying*  to a fed when she
>was *not* under oath.

So, the point is, as Duncan Frissell has always said on this list, when
confronted with cops of any kind, shut up, and lawyer up.

Period.

I expect you can be nice and all when talking to them, in fact they're
nicer to you that way, less like to, um, tune you up :-), but the point
around here has always been, and as now demonstrated, with feds in
particular, if they merely *accuse* you of lying, you can go to jail, and
they don't have to do much to prove it. As the Martha case shows, all they
have to do is write down that they *thought* you were lying to them, and
you could very well end up in jail.

So, to prevent yourself from lying to the feds for any reason whatsoever,
don't talk to them. If they insist, have your lawyer talk to them. If they
subpoena you as a witness, or depose you, at least you're talking in open
court, or at least with witnesses, transcription, and video tape running,
and your lawyer's there to keep them from twisting your words around so
much.

Which, obviously, was my point. Not some crypto-(emphasis, apparently, on
crypto-)leveller prestilog in Youngrish about how evil rich people are.

:-).

Plutocracy, um, rules,
RAH

Sometimes prose-poetry is prose-poetry. Other times, it's just a pain in
the ass.

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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