Category Archives: A12M frame up

THE FBI CAN GO F**K ITSELF

THE FBI CAN GO F**K ITSELF:

A History of the State Terror Organization and An Analysis of Its Political Repression of Me, Based on Its Own Declassified Documents

Prepared by:

Anarchist Prisoner Sean Swain

Prepared For:

The Labadie Collection,

University of Michigan

To Accompany the 223 Disclosed Pages of My FBI File

For Posting, Dissemination, and Publication.

***

INTRODUCTION.

I have been through a lot. For more than a decade now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has waged a state terror program designed to drive me to suicide in order to permanently silence me and, in the process, amassed over four thousand pages of files on me, less than three hundred pages of which they are willing to disclose to the public– and most of those are highly redacted.

When you see what the FBI disclosed, and when you begin to contemplate the implications even in what they disclosed, it really makes you wonder just how mind-numbingly disturbing the 3,800-plus pages they won’t disclose really must be.

Initially, I intended to just turn over a copy of my FBI file for inclusion in the Labadie Collection, an archive at the University of Michigan. I didn’t intend to provide any context or narrative explanation of the pages– and then I began leafing through them again. I began seeing the pattern of what those pages revealed.

So, I set out to provide a kind of narrative guide for context to the FBI file. But even as I began working through that, I realized that it was far more important to position my experience within a longer, historical perspective about the FBI and what it does– not just to me, but, potentially, to all of us. It became important to me to shift the focus away from myself and onto the FBI, the character and nature of this state terror organization with seemingly unlimited power and budgets.

I think my own experience is quite revealing. But I think my experience is indicative of a lot of others’ experiences.

What follows is an historical background on the beginnings of the FBI and its evolution as a state terror organization, which then serves as the context for a presentation of my experience as a target of its political repression, and an analysis of the FBI’s own declassified documentation that reveals the true nature of what the FBI is and what it really did.

And still does.

As long as such a state terror organization exists, none of us are free.

Sean Swain

Ohio State Penitentiary

October 18, 2022

***

I. INCEPTION OF THE FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not mentioned in the United States Constitution. It was not formed by George Washington or Thomas Jefferson at the beginnings of this country. In fact, the United States continued for the vast majority of its existence quite easily without the FBI. The agency did not come into existence until the twentieth century.

What was initially called simply the Bureau of Investigation was established by Congress in 1906 under Attorney General Charles S. Bonaparte. [1] By 1910, Congress had passed several pieces of legislation to expand the BOI’s jurisdiction, to include breaking up interstate prostitution rackets– and, naturally, the agency’s funding steadily increased [2]. In 1916, with World War I underway, the BOI became central to enforcing the newly-passed Neutrality Act, as well as investigating acts of sabotage on U.S. soil [3].

When the U.S. entered the war directly in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Espionage Act which, among other things, made it illegal to publicly speak out in opposition to the war. [4] The following year, when Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs was arrested and eventually sent to prison for ten years for opposing the war in a public speech [5], Wilson signed into law the Alien and Sedition Act designed to “exclude and expel from the United States aliens who are members of the anarchist classes.” [6] Thus, the U.S. undertook to waging a war of political repression against a specific ideology, against beliefs, outlawing anarchism and stripping those who identified as anarchists of personhood.

The Department of Justice and its BOI immediately used this legislation as justification to target the anarcho-syndicalist union, The Industrial Workers of the World, arresting 165 of their leaders and putting over 100 of them on trial [7]. All were found guilty; IWW President Big Bill Haywood and 14 others were sentenced to 20 years in prison for being anarchists [8]. Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were each sentenced to 10 years for opposing the draft and were deported as undesirable aliens [9].

In June 1919, bombs went off in 8 cities across the country, including a blast at the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer [10]. None of the bombers were ever identified but, conveniently, at each scene, anarchist leaflets were left scattered about the ruins, making it possible for the BOI to blame anarchists for the bombings [11].

In the “Palmer Raids” that followed, as the Attorney General took out his own personal vendetta against an entire political philosophy he believed responsible for blowing up his house, 6,000 radicals were targeted and 4,000 of those were arrested [12]. One of those rounded up was an anarchist named Andrea Salsedo, held 8 weeks in the New York Bureau office and cut off even from his family and legal counsel– until his lifeless body was found crushed on the sidewalk below [13]. Bureau agents claimed he killed himself, diving from the fourteenth floor window [14].

Assuming the Bureau agents to be telling the truth, the precursor to the FBI was already engaging in state terror to drive its political targets to suicide; and assuming they were lying, they were already assassinating political targets and staging the murders as suicides.

Two well-known anarchists who protested the outrage of Salsedo’s death were Italian immigrants Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both promptly silenced by murder charges related to crimes they very possibly did not commit, and executed in 1927 [15].

Thus, in a consistent pattern, the agency that would become the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, from its very inception, understood its mission as one to silence dissent and to target anyone of the anarchist political ideology. While this mission would expand under COINTELPRO to include non-anarchists, the FBI never departed from its repression of anarchists.

II. THE COINTELPRO ERA

In 1971, a group of activists calling themselves the Citizens’ Committee to Investigate the FBI broke into a small field office and stole all of the files there [16]. Their looting uncovered thousands of documents revealing a systematic FBI effort known as COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program). COINTELPRO was a secret, agency-wide program to suppress political dissent through wiretapping, infiltration, and media manipulation employed to discredit, destabilize, and demoralize political dissenters [17]. The FBI sought to “enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles” and “get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox” [18].

Ideological targets of the FBI included Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; the Black Panther Party for Self Defense; the American Indian Movement; Women’s Strike for Peace; the Communist Party, USA; and the Nation of Islam [19]. Targets also included the Socialist Workers Party; Puerto Rican Independence activists; leftist student activists; and radical professors [20].

Some of the secret activities conducted by the FBI included infiltration of groups by posing as members; getting a socialist professor terminated; disseminating a fraudulent underground newspaper; sending anonymous letters to a preacher’s wife accusing the preacher of an extra-marital affair; soliciting funds for assassination of political leaders in anonymous letters; convincing property owners not to sell to activists; framing activists as CIA agents; and using press contacts to deliberately mislead the public with planted propaganda that saturated the media [21]. In this way, the FBI’s secret and illegal plots to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize activities” of lawful civil rights groups carried over to all of the organizations in the U.S. that the FBI and its right-wing extremist leadership opposed ideologically. In other words, for the vast majority of Americans subjected to COINTELPRO illegalities by the FBI, their only “crimes” were holding philosophically or politically divergent views from the FBI itself.

The FBI was also involved in political assassination. The FBI paid an informant a payment of “considerable value” to pose as bodyguard for Black Panther Fred Hampton and to transmit the floor plan of Hampton’s apartment to police [22]. Using that floor plan, police assassinated Hampton in his bed [23]. Hampton’s family would later receive a $1.85 million civil settlement against local and federal officials for their roles in Hampton’s assassination [24]. FBI memos also reveal a plot to “remove King,” indicating a conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. [25], who was listed as the FBI’s “primary target” [26].

While ostensibly COINTELPRO was officially terminated after public exposure, the FBI never, at any time, ceased its secret and illegal targeting and repression of what it felt to be political or ideological threats. It continued as a right-wing extremist state-terror organization after COINTELPRO officially ended.

III. THE FBI’S POST-COINTELPRO WAR ON “ANARCHISTS”

In 2002, the FBI issued a memo indicating a designation of “anarchists,” “animal rights extremist[s],” and “environmental extremists” as possible “terrorists” [27]. As many as 7,000 Americans were placed on an FBI secret watch list, expressly for their perceived beliefs [28]. This means that thoughtful and law-abiding Americans were subjected to a secret program of surveillance, arguably for having a more sensible political belief system than the right-wing extremists running the FBI. It is unclear whether figures such as former vice-president, Al Gore, who produced the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” were added to the secret FBI watch list for the thought crime of believing in global warming, something that would have been, at the time, a tenet of “environmental extremists.”

Activist Judi Bari, a longtime target of the FBI, was permanently disabled when a bomb placed under her car seat exploded as Bari traveled to a peaceful protest against logging [29]. The FBI aggressively investigated Bari, claiming somewhat inexplicably that Bari had bombed herself [30]. In 2002, the same year that the FBI issued its memo designating “anarchists” as “terrorists,” Bari’s estate won a $4.4 million jury award against the FBI for the the agency falsely framing Bari for the bombing [31]. Legitimate questions still exist as to whether the FBI framed Bari simply to distract attention from their own involvement.

In 2008, Marius Mason was arrested by the FBI for suspected involvement in actions undertaken by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) that caused extensive property damage but injured no one. In testimony before the U.S. Senate, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI testified that the ELF was “today’s most serious domestic terrorism threat…” [32], more serious, it seems, than violent right-wing militias like the one that bombed the Oklahoma federal building; and more serious, it seems, than right-wing racist hate-groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and its host of fellow travellers. So, the property damage caused by ELF members was considered, by the FBI, more serious than bombings and lynchings that took extensive numbers of human lives.

During the investigation and arrest of Mason and others, the FBI reportedly found a copy of a book I had co-written, “Last Act of the Circus Animals”, among the property of suspected ELF members at a suspected safehouse. No documents or other evidence was found to indicate that I had any personal relationship with any of the ELF suspects. It should also be noted that at the time of these raids, I had been imprisoned in Ohio for approximately 17 years and no one could have reasonably suspected that I could have any direct involvement with the ELF.

In an exaggerated response to my fictional story about talking animals at the circus, the FBI notified Ohio prison officials who then immediately segregated me and began the process of transferring me to super-maximum security [33]. Prison guards cordoned off my cell in population with crime tape and systematically removed my property and all of the fixtures in the cell– to include the bed and the toilet. All of the contents of the cell were put through special scanners, searching for hidden bomb materials and the like [34].

The FBI’s Agency Liaison for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) was Assistant ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark. Clark, from that time forward, would exclusively coordinate communication between the FBI and ODRC. Clark would direct the FBI’s surveillance program as it related to me and my communications and, later, Clark would direct the ODRC’s torture program and sexually assault me during an illegal interrogation he alleged to conduct on behalf of the FBI.

Because of a fictional book about talking animals, and absent any other nexus connecting me with the ELF, I was entered into the FBI’s Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File (VGTOF) as an “anarchist.” Corresponding to this, the ODRC, on a state level, secretly maintained me in its Security Threat Group (STG) database, despite the absence of the requisite “gang activity” charge that their own rules required for me to be provided an STG profile. Thus, I became a “violent” “terrorist” and “gang” member in federal and state databases, subject to hyper-vigilant surveillance and counter-intelligence operations, all as a response to a fictional book about talking animals.

At no time did anyone provide me even so much as official notice as to the reason I was segregated and investigated. To date, the FBI nor the ODRC have informed me as to the real reasons I was segregated in 2008. In fact, to mislead me, ODRC officials contrived bogus charges of rule violations, misrepresenting a published statement I had written as “encouraging a work stoppage,” although what I wrote provably did no such thing [35]. This charge was the red herring to justify my 70-day segregation, while no mention was made to me of the ELF or the FBI or a book found at a safehouse.

It is quite likely that, from that time forward, all of my communication to the outside world was monitored, to include opening and photocopying all of my outgoing mail. By rules and policies of the Ohio prison system, all incoming mail was opened and monitored, but outgoing mail was not– at least under normal conditions. It is quite possible that a special regimen of surveillance was established for monitoring me without my knowledge, opening and copying even my outgoing mail from that time forward [36].

IV. JPAY, THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS, THE OHIO GENERAL ASSEMBLY, AND THE FBI

Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio, is a Level 3 prison, considered to be higher than medium security and lower than maximum security. I had been transferred there from Toledo Correctional in 2009.

JPay.

In August 2012, the ODRC announced a sweeping change in statewide policy. The ODRC would, in months that followed, outsource its money transfer processes to a private, for-profit corporation called JPay. Additionally, JPay would be provided the contract for prisoner e-mail communications and the purchase of music and other media, as well as the purchase of hand-held devices.

After several inquiries with staff, I came to the conclusion that the new, proposed JPay policy was, at the very least, legally dubious. I began to formulate arguments for an article I would intend to have published online at seanswain.org, a site managed by a friend and supporter named Ben Turk. Ben was part of a group called Redbird Prison Abolition and would visit me regularly and post my writings. Ben and the rest of the Redbird volunteers self-identified as anarchists, as I did [37].

The Army of the 12 Monkeys.

Around the beginning of September, in each of the sixteen housing units at Mansfield, thousands of flyers and manuals seemingly manifested out of nowhere. The flyers and manuals bore the logo of “The Army of the 12 Monkeys,” a monkey swinging from a clock, as depicted in the movie with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, “12 Monkeys.” Some of the flyers urged prisoners to rebel against prison authorities and disrupt the operation of the prison, providing a laundry list of disruptive behavior like jamming staples into the locks or running the sink water and electric lights in the cells all day to cost the prison money.

The organizing and resistance manuals were more in depth in how to form cells or columns of resistance. The manuals repeatedly referenced Mao Ze Dong, a guerrilla fighter in China who formed the People’s Liberation Army, toppled the existing government, and ushered in the People’s Republic of China. One entire manual contained nothing but quotations of Mao Ze Dong taken from his book, “Quotations”.

This is significant for anyone attempting to accurately identify the actual ideology of those who formulated the Army of the 12 Monkeys and its literature, as those who follow the Socialist teachings of Mao Ze Dong are called “Maoists.” Maoism has a rich history in the United States, particularly since the 1960s. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was Maoist, as was the Weather Underground. The Black Liberation Army, an off-shoot of the Black Panther Party, and the Symbionese Liberation Army, most famous for kidnapping Patty Hearst, were Maoist.

All of these groups embraced the theory of political violence.

This is also significant given that, shortly before the Army of the 12 Monkeys arose, the ODRC had banned all literature from the Maoist Internationalist Movement in California. Thus, the ODRC had banned a Maoist group and shortly thereafter had seemingly Maoist literature floating through its prisons, inciting the prison population to widespread hooliganism.

For anyone with any understanding of political theory, it is easy to distinguish Maoists and anarchists. Historically, Maoists and anarchists are rabidly intolerant of one another, as Maoists have a definite program for instituting their own brand of hierarchical structure and anarchists oppose it.

At any rate, the prisoners responded to the 12 Monkey flyers by jamming locks, lighting fires, shutting down the prison sweatshop factory through sabotage, and collapsing the chowhall plumbing. The level of disruption increased during the first weeks of September.

On September 12, I was provided a security review and was recommended to drop in security and transfer to Marion Correctional where I would be able to avail myself to programs and increase my chances of parole. Given this circumstance, I did not involve myself in the 12 Monkey-promoted hooliganism whatsoever.

On September 17, as the 12 Monkey uprising was continuing, I was approached by RD [38], who was a known informant for the Security Threat Group Office and Investigator Angela M. Hunsinger. RD told me that my name had been floating around in the STG office and that I should be prepared to have my cell searched. On September 18, I spent the entire day cleaning out my cell and eliminating all property I would not be taking to lower security [39], as well as throwing out anything that could ostensibly relate to a rule violation if found during a cell search [40].

On September 19, STG officers came to my cell for a cell search. Two other cells were searched also– the cell of James Dzelajlija, who was in the same block with me, and the cell of Leslie Dillon, who was on the other side of the compound [41]. The cell search went on for nearly two hours. At its conclusion, the officers gave me a chain of custody slip for the two items they were confiscating; they took my typewriter and a 3-page draft of my JPay critique for which I had already mailed out the final draft to Ben Turk at Redbird days before [42]. Significantly, I was not being taken to segregation.

More than an hour later, STG investigators called the block and, having changed their minds, informed the block officers that they were to have me pack up my property in order to be taken to segregation [43].

I did not know it then, but STG officers had confiscated writings from Dzelajlija that appeared in some of the 12 Monkey literature floating around. They had also collected all of the original documents of the 12 Monkeys from Dillon, along with a number of newly created materials that had not yet been disseminated.

Neither Dzelajlija nor Dillon were taken to segregation on September 19, despite the materials that had been collected. Instead, I was taken to segregation [44] after two hours of searching my cell yielded nothing at all connected to the 12 Monkeys [45], and despite the fact that in the thousands of flyers on the compound, the 12 Monkeys had not once mentioned JPay.

The Ohio General Assembly.

On September 21, two days after I was removed from population at Mansfield Correctional, a lawmaker in Ohio received a letter at his or her home address, purporting to be from the Army of the 12 Monkeys. The letter insisted that the lawmaker adopt the 12 Monkeys’ legislative agenda or else his or her address would be posted online. The lawmaker seemingly contacted the Ohio State Patrol who, in turn, contacted the FBI.

In its first report related to these matters, the FBI described it this way:

%%%

On 9/21/2012, Columbus Resident Agency (CRA) received a notice from Ohio State Patrol (OSP) that a state representative had received a letter from “The Army of the 12 Monkeys”. In that letter, the author claimed that the group Anonymous had stolen certain personal identifying information from Ohio state computer systems. If their demands were not met within 60 days, writer would release that information along with primers on how to make certain types of explosives.

Since initial reporting, two more representatives have received identical letters. All letters were postmarked out of Columbus, Ohio with a return address of the Ohio Statehouse. OSP is coordinating their response to the above letters out of their headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. CRA believes with high confidence that, over the coming week most or all state representatives will receive an identical letter from the same UNSUB author.

CRA has began to investigate the above threats as a joint cyber/JTTF matter with OSP.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, dated 9/24/2012.

This report represents the inception of the FBI investigation of the Army of the 12 Monkeys– not for the hooliganism at Mansfield Correctional, but for potential “threats” against Ohio lawmakers conveyed through federal mail. It would appear from this initial report that the “threat” was to post the lawmakers’ home addresses online if “demands” were not met. Curiously, those demands are not discussed in the report.

The FBI, at this point, was ostensibly unaware of the 12 Monkey uprising at Mansfield Correctional and viewed the events of the letters in isolation– but it is interesting the timing of the events, as these letters arrived two days after I was removed from population and they had been postmarked from Columbus, not from Mansfield.

The FBI would not remain unaware for long. That very same day, after this initial report treating the 12 Monkey letters to lawmakers as a matter for the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI received information about the 12 Monkey uprising at Mansfield Correctional and sought to open a subfile:

%%%

Synopsis: (U) To request the opening of a subfile to track the using of “the Army of the 12 Monkeys” moniker in documentation found in Ohio area prisons.

Details:

Writer is opening a subfile in order to track the using of the “Army of the 12 Monkeys” moniker in documentation found in Ohio area prisons. According to CHS

[block redacted].

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 24, 2012.

So, the same day that the FBI opened its Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into the 12 Monkey letters to lawmakers, the FBI became aware of the 12 Monkey activity at Mansfield Correctional. Another FBI Memorandum describes how this came to happen so quickly:

%%%

On 09/22/2012, SA [redacted] received a copy of a letter sent by UNSUB(s) claiming to be a member of the Army of the 12 Monkeys. In the letter writer claimed that his group was loosely aligned with the “Anonymous” hacking group. The letter described how the Anonymous group hacked into the State of Ohio network and exfiltrated personal data for all state assembly members. That data was provided to the writers group who threatened to release it out on the Internet unless their demands were met. See Army of the 12 Monkeys letter uploaded in the case file for details of the demands.

After receiving the letter, SA [redacted] has attempted to validate both the Army of the 12 Monkeys group in addition to their alleged alignment with Anonymous. SA [redacted] has canvassed FBI Intel Analysis, Agents and CHS’ who might have visibility into the matter. All results have come back negative. No online chatter from known anonymous forums regarding the State of Ohio hack or the alleged alignment with the Army of the 12 Monkeys was found.

While validating the writers Anonymous claims, information obtained from Cleveland Division regarding a Mansfield Prison group known as the “Army of the 12 Monkeys” was uncovered…

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 26, 2012.

It would appear from this report that the FBI queried whether any other agency had heard of the 12 Monkeys and received confirmation from the Cleveland Division of the FBI that it had preexisting knowledge of a 12 Monkey group inside Ohio prisons. The report does not explain why the Cleveland Division had preexisting knowledge of the 12 Monkey group inside Mansfield Correctional, or how it had obtained its information so quickly after the “threats” to lawmakers. The report continues:

%%%

…It appears this group is run by convicted felon “Sean Swain” who is serving time for murder. Multiple documents including an Army of the 12 Monkeys manifesto along with State of Ohio information was obtained through a prison search. The documents contain similarities to the letter sent to multiple State of Ohio Assembly members. Also uncovered was the existence of the group “Redbird Prison Abolition” who appear to be supporting Swain’s cause through their Internet website.

SA [redacted] is attempting to validate if Swain’s prison group is the same group behind the letters and/or if the Redbird group believed to be sympathizing with Swain have any involvement in the delivery of the letters.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 26, 2012.

Here, not only had the FBI already heard of the 12 Monkeys and their activities inside Mansfield Correctional Institution, but had already concluded that I was the leader of the group. No explanation is provided for this conclusion, given that I had only been placed in segregation a week prior and that I had absolutely no connection with the Army of the 12 Monkeys. Recall, I had been placed in segregation after STG officers confiscated a rough draft of my JPay criticism and my typewriter. That was all. No one had so much as suggested that my placement in segregation was connected with the 12 Monkeys.

How did the FBI conclude that a prisoner who was suspected only of writing an article for publication critical of JPay was the leader of a group inciting insurrections and threatening lawmakers? Further, and just as troubling, the FBI had already assumed a nexus not just between the 12 Monkeys and myself– seemingly absent any connection whatsoever –but then assumed a nexus between the 12 Monkeys and Redbird Prison Abolition, the group to which Ben Turk, the site manager of seanswain.org, belonged.

It turns out, the FBI had already been receiving a steady stream of information from Mansfield Correctional about the 12 Monkeys since September 21– ironically, the same day that the 12 Monkey letters to lawmakers had arrived at their homes:

%%%

Employee [redacted] of MANCI provided photocopies of prison propaganda with AOTTM markings on it. The propaganda was reported to be found in various locations within the prison grounds and that the identity of the person who delivered the paperwork is not known. The propaganda encourages resistance to authority, as well as methods in which prisoners can create financial burdens and sabotage within the prison. The paperwork includes writings that are signed from [redacted] as well as quotes from Malcolm X. Also included was a handwritten letter on MANCI grievance paper that said “We don’t bar the bitch with the gun in the yard flat out!!!” According to [redacted] the prison had been on lock-down status frequently, and in doing so, officers are positioned within the yard with pepperball firearms as a visible deterrent as well as for riot control purposes.

Warden Terry Tibbals also created an e-mail regarding the discovery to other prison staff as a matter of officer-safety.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 25, 2012.

It would appear from this that Mansfield Correctional did not provide the FBI with information about the 12 Monkeys in response to the FBI query, but that Mansfield officials had begun providing information about the 12 Monkeys before the FBI asked for it. This means that Ohio prison officials were sharing information with the FBI to assist the FBI in an investigation that had not started yet.

Important to keep in mind, the FBI only became involved in investigating anything related to the 12 Monkeys when the “threats” to lawmakers arrived at their homes on September 21. The FBI, as a federal agency, only had jurisdiction to investigate federal crimes– such as potential terrorist threats through the federal mail. The FBI would not have had any jurisdiction or interest in investigating jammed locks and hooliganism at a state prison. So why, then, had Mansfield Correctional, seemingly in advance of any FBI investigation into possible threats through the mail, been over-sharing such a volume of information about the 12 Monkeys… when the FBI had not asked for it yet? Just as importantly, why were Mansfield officials seemingly indicating to the FBI that I was the leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys just two days after placing me in segregation without any evidence at all connecting me to the 12 Monkeys?

Consider the timing: Mansfield officials placed me in segregation on September 19, likely the same day the lawmaker letters had to have been mailed from an outside location in Columbus, not from the prison. [46] Then, two days later, Mansfield officials bombarded the FBI with information about the 12 Monkeys before the FBI even knew they would be investigating the 12 Monkeys later in the day for the letters mailed September 19. It would almost seem from their conduct that Mansfield Correctional officials contacting the FBI were anticipating the arrival of the lawmaker letters. They were already priming the proverbial pump.

But prison officials were not just guiding the FBI’s attention to connect the 12 Monkey uprising at the prison with the FBI’s criminal investigation that had not happened yet; they were guiding the FBI to conclude that the 12 Monkeys were led by “Sean Swain” and that “Sean Swain” was connected to “Redbird Prison Abolition.” This too is quite curious when considering what Mansfield investigators had uncovered: Leslie Dillon was found to have all of the original 12 Monkey materials in his cell along with yet-unreleased materials; James Dzelajlija had writings that had appeared in 12 Monkey materials; and I had absolutely nothing related to the 12 Monkeys at all.

From that, Mansfield investigators had concluded that I was the leader of the 12 Monkeys– not Dillon, not Dzelajlija –and they had shared that conclusion with the FBI seemingly before the FBI had asked for it. It would seem that the fixation was on my criticism of JPay. But, that criticism of JPay in no way connected me to the Army of the 12 Monkeys, given that the 12 Monkeys never mentioned JPay or JPay policy in any of their literature.

At any rate, it appears that almost immediately after initiating an investigation into threatening letters sent to lawmakers, the FBI quickly experienced mission-drift, losing focus on the question of the letters, and began instead investigating the 12 Monkeys at Mansfield Correctional… then me… my ideology… my writings… and the ideology of my friends and supporters. In short, within three days of their investigation’s inception, the FBI went from investigating a potential crime to chasing anarchists– something the FBI has always done.

Consider this report just a day after the FBI began investigating the letters to lawmakers:

%%%

Synopsis: (U) On 9/21/2012, SA [redacted] and SA [redacted] received documentation from officials at the Mansfield Correctional Institution (OH) regarding inmate SEAN SWAIN’s ideology for anarchy and anti-establishment as related to the Army of the 12 Monkeys.

Details:

On 09/21/2012, SA [redacted] and SA [redacted] received information and documents from officials at the Mansfield Correctional Institution (MANCI) regarding the presence of members of the Army of the 12 Monkeys (AOTTM) within it’s prison population. Specifically, the documents captured by prison staff are from outgoing US Mail from an inmate identified as SEAN SWAIN (Male/White, DOB 09/12/1969). SWAIN, who had been admitted into the Ohio Correctional system in 1995, is serving a 20 years-Life sentence for Aggravated Murder. No release date is noted.

Employee [redacted] of MANCI provided photocopies of an prison-investigation intercepted letter that SWAIN had written, and intended to have delivered to the following address:

[redacted] + Everyone

Redbird ____ ____

PO Box 1291

Columbus, OH 43216″

The content of the letter is a three page note entitled “JPAY, SOCK PUPPETS, AND OUR REDUCTION TO SLAVERY.” The article specificy[sic] mentions MANCI administrators who have chosen to accept a third-party payment plan system called JPAY, in which citizens can deposit funds on the accounts of incarcerated inmates. SWAIN explains that a part of this problem is that only registered visitors can add funds to the accounts of prisoners, and in doing so, a percentage per dollar is withheld for a processing fee. SWAIN also argues that by implementing JPAY systems, that the identities of citizens who place funding on prisoner accounts have the propensity to be subjected to identity theft. The mailing also includes grievances that SWAIN had sent and subsequently received from prison officials in regards to the JPAY system and his concerns…

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 25, 2012.

The FBI was no longer investigating letters to lawmakers. The FBI was exploring my ideology and my writings, my “ideology for anarchy and anti-establishment,” and going to great lengths to document in detail my written criticism of JPay (although slightly misconstruing the arguments) which was completely irrelevant to either the lawmaker letters (for which the FBI ostensibly had jurisdiction) and to the 12 Monkey uprising at Mansfield (for which the FBI had no jurisdiction at all).

The FBI would continue this focus on me, my writings, and JPay. In a three-page Memorandum written October 1, 2012, the Cincinnati Division of the FBI returned to this JPay article, attaching copies of the envelope where I had mailed the article to Ben and Redbird, the article itself, and a number of kite communications from me to Mansfield administrators related to JPay.

These attachments are quite revealing. In fact, close examination of these attachments provides great insight as to how this trajectory of investigating my ideology and writing actually began.

The envelope contains handwriting on the back that is obviously not mine. It says, “Will be published in a wk or so… Redbird Abolition + seanswain.org.” It appears to be the handwriting of Mansfield Investigator Angela M. Hunsinger. This reveals the real concern– the publication of material online that is unflattering to the prison system.

But, more importantly, the envelope as handed over to the FBI contained not only the three-page article I had written, but a number of kite communications, totalling 13 pages. It would seem that the FBI simply accepted that those 13 pages had been included in the mailing.

Provably, they could not have been. Because of weight restrictions for a standard postage stamp, only 7 pages could have been mailed in that envelope. As point of fact, the only pages that were placed in that envelope for mailing were the 3 pages of the JPay article. The kite communications were not included– and could not have been included –in my mailing to Ben.

That means the copies of the kites that prison officials forwarded to the FBI actually originated somewhere else.

The dates on the kites are “24 AUG 12,” sent out to multiple administrators and inquiring about the legality of JPay. Dates of the administrators’ answers, while the names are redacted, are still on the kites. It appears that the kites were answered by various administrators on August 27 and August 28.

These are communications that predate the lawmaker letters, predate my placement in segregation, predate even the beginnings of the 12 Monkey uprising at Mansfield. Why would prison administrators have been keeping copies of these kites and later turning them over to the FBI?

Ohio prisons do not keep files of all kite communications from prisoners. Mansfield Correctional, for instance, would not scan or copy the hundreds of mundane communications sent from prisoners to administrators, and responses sent from administrators to prisoners, each and every day of the year. So, why were administrators keeping copies of my kite communications in August 2012 before they had anything at all to investigate?

The handwriting on the envelope says it all: “Will be published in a wk or so… Redbird Abolition + seanswain.org.” Prison administrators had me under a permanent investigation, monitoring and surveilling all of my communications and keeping copies of even my kite communications to administrators, and they had been doing it since well before the outbreak of 12 Monkey hooliganism, likely since the 2008 discovery of my published work in possession of the ELF.

Implications of These Materials and How They Absolutely Vindicate Me.

Consider for a moment all that it would require of someone in prison to pull off everything that the 12 Monkeys did. First, the prisoner would need to have the computer-generated materials mailed in to him for him to get them copied and distributed, as prisoners at Mansfield could not have created those computer-generated materials. Second, the prisoner would have had to write and send out through mail the lawmaker letters for re-mailing. This means that every aspect of the 12 Monkey conspiracy would have involved a high volume of mail traffic to accomplish their aims.

The attachments that prison officials shared with the FBI prove that prison officials were not just monitoring and photocopying my incoming and outgoing mail since well before the 12 Monkey outbreak, but they were copying even my kite communications. How, with such hyper-vigilance in monitoring and surveiling my every communication, could I have possibly received the 12 Monkey flyers from outside the prison and gotten them copied and disseminated? How could I have possibly sent out the 12 Monkey threats to lawmakers to get them re-mailed from Columbus?

Given the depth and scope of prison officials’ and the FBI’s permanent investigation into my communications, I was likely the only prisoner at Mansfield Correctional who could not possibly have been responsible for the 12 Monkey actions [47].

Moreover, prison officials knew it. They knew conclusively that I could not have accomplished the 12 Monkey activities because they had me under an intense microscope at all times… and they told the FBI that I was responsible for the 12 Monkeys anyway.

Prison Officials Invent New Evidence That the FBI Debunks.

After searching my cell on September 19 and segregating me, Mansfield officials communicated what they had confiscated from me to the FBI. See, FBI Memorandum, September 25, 2012. However, it was not until after disclosing what they had confiscated from me that prison officials learned from the FBI of the 12 Monkey letters sent to lawmakers. So, realizing that what they needed was evidence connecting me in some way to the lawmaker letters, prison officials supplemented their initial disclosure of the article and typewriter with a bombshell:

%%%

On or about 09/25/2012, correctional officers at MANSFIELD CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, Mansfield, Ohio performed a search of the cell of inmate SEAN SWAIN. During the above referenced search, correctional officers recovered (among other items) two pieces of paper containing the following typed text:

Document One:

[block redacted]

Document Two:

[block redacted]

Writer’s note: While much of the information contained in document two could be sourced from public documents, writer could not locate any document where the information was contained in the above format, the above order, or containing the previously-identified typographical error (with respect to [redacted].

Writer’s note: Of the above Ohio senators and representatives, only three [redacted] were among the 8 individuals that received a letter from the Army of the 12 Monkeys.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, October 1, 2012.

What this memorandum recounts is a communication from prison officials who allege to have re-searched my cell a week after the original two-hour search, and that prison officials located an address list that included the home addresses of Ohio lawmakers (that they did not find in the prior search). Because this memorandum is highly redacted, it is difficult to analyze, but the final writer’s note provides enough detail (“Of the above Ohio senators and representatives, only three [redacted] were among the 8 individuals that received a letter from the Army of the 12 Monkeys”). What is described here is the same address list that FBI Liaison Trevor Clark would present to me several months later, claiming it to be the proverbial “smoking gun” that connected me to the 12 Monkey letters to lawmakers.

Point of fact, prison officials conducted no second search of my cell and did not confiscate the address list from me. That was a complete fabrication. Prison administrators simply lied to the FBI when attributing that address list to me and when claiming to have conducted a second search that did not occur. But, all of that is also completely irrelevant. The FBI Memorandum notes, “Of the above Ohio senators and representatives, only three [redacted] were among the 8 individuals that received a letter from the Army of the 12 Monkeys.”

Only 3 of the 8 lawmakers receiving letters from the 12 Monkeys had home addresses on that list. That means 5 of the home addresses were not on that list… and it was therefore not the source information for the 12 Monkey letters.

Having debunked prison officials fabricated evidence, the FBI continued to search for the actual source information, where the 12 Monkeys obtained the home addresses of lawmakers. They discovered not only the actual source, but, in the process, came to the realization that they were investigating a non-crime.

Clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives.

In an attempt to locate the actual source of the lawmakers’ home addresses, the day after debunking the address list that prison officials had sent to them, the FBI interviewed the clerk of the House of Representatives. This is recounted in the FBI Memorandum of October 2, 2012:

%%%

…According to [redacted] the House of Representatives received a letter from an individual identified as Sean Swain. [Redacted] provided interviewing officers with documents in their possession. The letter requests “a current roster of the members of the Ohio House of Representatives”, signed by Sean Swain. The envelope has a return address marked Swain 243205, Manci PO Box 788, Mansfield, Oh 44901…

…[Redacted] said she did not fulfill this request from Swain.

According to [redacted] their office would not handle this as a public records request based on the fact this information requested is easily accessible and ready for dissemination… The information they would have provided, would include the representatives name, home address, and their aid’s (at that time) name.

Previously the House of Representatives printed booklets that were available in the lobby of the Clerk’s Office…

%%%

FBI Memorandum, October 2, 2012.

While establishing that the request for the home addresses was not filled [48], the FBI learned that the clerk’s office routinely gave out “the representatives name, home address, and their aid’s (at that time) name,” and that they had previously “printed booklets that were available in the lobby of the Clerk’s Office.” Thus, the home addresses of Ohio lawmakers were already public information in color brochures available upon request.

That being the case, what potential crime had the 12 Monkeys committed? The 12 Monkeys, recall, threatened to publish the home addresses of lawmakers. As the addresses were already published, that would mean the 12 Monkeys threatened to make public information public. What the 12 Monkeys threatened to do, then, was no more criminal than what the clerk’s office had already done, or what the lawmakers had voluntarily done to themselves.

The implication of this is that the FBI had been, all along, investigating a non-crime. Whoever the 12 Monkeys were, and whatever their ideology or aims, what they sent to lawmakers through federal mail was not a criminal threat but was, instead, an annoyance that is incidental to public life.

What happened next is quite curious. Rather than conceding that their investigation had no basis, rather than ending their ever-shifting witch-hunt into other matters, the FBI seemingly chose to pretend they had not uncovered what they had uncovered. Continuing their investigation into what they reasonably now knew was a non-crime, the FBI pretended that the October 1, 2012 memorandum did not debunk the address list that prison officials had turned over, and returned to the false narrative that an address list that contained only 3 of the 8 requisite addresses was actually the source material for the 12 Monkey letters:

%%%

On 10/22/2012, SA [redacted] provided [redacted] State of Ohio, a copy of a document that was obtained from Mansfield Prison. The document contained partial State of Ohio legislature information. This information was believed to have been used to draft the Army of the 12 Monkeys letters. These letters were believed to have been drafted by Mansfield inmate Sean Swain. Swain is believed to be the leader of the Army of the 12 Monkey movement inside Mansfield prison. It is also believed that the six letters sent to the State of Ohio Assembly members were orchestrated by Swain…

According to [redacted] the website “Gongwer” is used by the State of Ohio Senate and House of Representatives to post information. This website requires a login and password to access some of the content. A document containing information from Gongwer was provided to SA [redacted]. The content listed the Assembly members and their aids name with addresses.

Its unknown if Swain or any of his conspirators had access to the Gongwer website that would have helped facilitate the delivery of the letters…

%%%

FBI Memorandum, October 25, 2012.

Note that after the previous memorandum had excluded the address list attributed to me as the source information, this memorandum picked that false narrative up again, wondering if prisoners with no internet access hacked into the Gongwer site, rather than concluding that perhaps a disgruntled Maoist picked up a color brochure from the Statehouse lobby like everybody else… and then committed a non-crime by writing cranky nasty-grams demanding that lawmakers change the name of a Cleveland baseball team that cannot win a World Series.

Other Evidence: My Typewriter and DNA.

With nothing else connecting me whatsoever to the 12 Monkeys or to the letters to lawmakers, the FBI conducted forensic testing on my confiscated typewriter and attempted to get DNA off of the only 12 Monkey letter to lawmakers that was unopened.

With regard to the typewriter, the FBI noted:

%%%

In October 2012, case agents submitted the typewriter of Mansfield Correctional Institution inmate SEAN SWAIN, inmate number A243-205, along with six (6) envelopes and letters sent to various Ohio legislators to THE BUREAU OF CRIMINAL IDENTIFICATION AND INVESTIGATION for THE STATE OF OHIO (the OH BCI).

The OH BCI provided the results of their analysis by a letter dated November 28, 2012 addressed to OHSP – the Office of Investigative Services, c/o [block redaction].

The OH BCI letter assigned the matter an internal laboratory number of 12-17012 and an agency case number of 12-010002-1233.

According to the BCI letter, “[t]hese findings indicate that the letters and envelopes… could have been made by the submitted typewriter… however, there were insufficient individual characteristics for purposes of positive identification.”

The OH BCI letter was signed by Forensic Scientist [redacted] business telephone number [redacted] business e-mail address [redacted].

%%%

FBI Memorandum, February 13, 2013.

Note the way that this report is written. The expert asserted that the typewriter “could have” been the one used to type the letters and envelopes but there were “insufficient individual characteristics” for “positive identification.” This seems to say they really want it to be the typewriter that did it, but the evidence just is not there.

Also, it should be noted that forensic matching of a typewriter to typed material relies upon “individual characteristics” to make the match. Each typewriter has its own typeset “fingerprint.” So, to conclude that a typewriter “could have” been the one used but that it lacked “individual characteristics” for “positive identification” is a totally contradictory conclusion; like saying the fingerprint matches except that it lacks the characteristics to make a positive match.

At any rate, the fact that the FBI returned the typewriter [49] is an indication that it was no longer evidence of anything.

As to the effort to obtain DNA from the unopened letter to a lawmaker, that was successful. In a memorandum from February 7, 2013, in a longer summary of the case, the FBI described:

%%%

…Of the six envelopes/letters received, five were opened and contained the same two page letter. The sixth, unopened letter, was sent to [redacted] This unopened document was submitted to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification which contained DNA belonging to an inmate at Mansfield State Prison.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, February 7, 2013.

In the following paragraph, the memorandum notes:

%%%

Sources inside Mansfield State Prison have identified Sean Swain as being the leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys…

%%%

FBI Memorandum, February 7, 2013.

Given that the memorandum listed me as the “subject,” and given the meticulous attention to detail provided in this memorandum to make the case that I was the “leader” of the 12 Monkeys, it is inconceivable that if the DNA belonged to me, that my name would not have been included. It would not have said, “DNA belonging to an inmate at Mansfield State Prison,” but would have said, “DNA belonging to subject SEAN SWAIN.”

The reason it did not say this is, the DNA was not mine.

Also, consider the great lengths that prison officials and the FBI went to validate evidence that was no evidence at all; going so far as to continue to say that the typewriter was a “match” when their own reports impeach them, and maintaining that the address list they attributed to me was the source information when their own reports demonstrate it was not. If the DNA that they had uncovered belonged to me, they would have most assuredly pointed to that instead of the flimsy evidence they had themselves debunked.

Reasonably, the question arises as to why the FBI and prison officials would continue to pursue a case without evidence and without a crime. The answer, of course, is DNA– not mine, but the FBI’s. It is in the FBI’s DNA to chase anarchists, to employ the machinery of state terror to identify and neutralize political enemies. The FBI did not just want to get me, it wanted to get all of the anarchists associated with me.

FBI and Anarchist Ideology.

Almost immediately after initiating an investigation into a non-crime involving mail, the FBI focused on me. Within days, they were analyzing my phone history (FBI Memorandum, September 28, 2012, “Swain’s recent telephone contact) and my visitor list (FBI Report, September 28, 2012). See also, FBI Reports, October 11, 2012 and October 15, 2012.

More than anything, however, the FBI was focused on my mail. In fact, 143 of the 223 pages of declassified documents relate to my mail communication to and from others and a particular interest in my “ideology,” which is to say, my identification as an anarchist.

In two Memoranda dated September 28, 2012, the FBI wrote, “Synopsis: …inmate SEAN SWAIN’s ideology for anarchy and anti-establishment…,” and in the details, “SEAN SWAIN’s… ideology relative to anti-establishment and anarchist activity.” On October 11, 2012, the FBI authored another Memorandum entitled, “Self-Proclaimed anarchist from [redacted] attempting communication with SEAN SWAIN,” with the synopsis, “Documentation of a self-proclaimed anarchist from [redacted] attempting to communicate with SEAN SWAIN.” In a twenty one-page report written October 22, 2012, FBI agents quoted entire letters to and from me and attached dozens of pages of photocopies of that correspondence. All of that mail is to or from suspected “anarchists.” Important to note, none of these memoranda or photocopies include letters to or from my elderly parents or my conservative cousin in Iowa. All of it is focused exclusively on mail to and from “anarchists.”

Of course, the FBI attempted in a tangential way to link their inquiry into ideology to their investigation of the 12 Monkeys and, therefore, to the letters sent to lawmakers. The problem is, however, that the 12 Monkeys were not “anarchist.” The word “anarchist” never appeared in their flyers or manuals. As already described, the 12 Monkeys were clearly Maoist [50].

But that did not matter to prison officials or to the FBI. In fact, not until a Memorandum of February 7, 2013 did the FBI even assert that the 12 Monkeys were anarchists:

%%%

On 09/25/2012, Federal Bureau of Investigation was informed by Office of Investigative Services (OSP-OIS) that six Ohio Representatives had received an extortion letter from a group calling themselves “The Army of the 12 Monkeys”.

In that letter, the author claimed that the group Anonymous had stolen certain personal identifying information from State of Ohio computer systems. If their demands were not met within 60 days, writer would release that information along with primers on how to make certain types of explosives. Of the six envelopes/letters received, five were opened and contained the same two page letter. The sixth, unopened letter was sent to [name redacted]. This unopened document was submitted to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation which contained DNA belonging to an inmate at Mansfield State Prison. All envelopes are similar in appearance containing the Purple Marlin printed postage marking, all with a postage processing stamp from “COLUMBUS OH 431, 20 SEP 2012 PM 5L” and a return address of the Ohio House of Representatives, 77 South High Street, Columbus, Ohio. It was later determined that all letters were sent from a [redacted].

Sources inside Mansfield State Prison have identified Sean Swain as being the leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys…

***

…A cursory review of the documentation revealed that the 12 Monkeys group is Anarchist in nature and encourages individuals to revolt against the government. A Columbus group known as Redbird Prison Abolition had visited him. One person in particular [redacted] visited Swain the most and appears to be the leader of the Redbird movement.

Redbird appears to be sympathizers for prisoners who believe to be wrongfully imprisoned. Swain is someone they are posting content on their website for. It is unknown the nature of their relationship but due to their post about him and the letters being mailed out of Columbus it is believed they may have facilitated the mailing of the letters.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, February 7, 2013.

Thus, it was five months into investigating “anarchists” before the FBI took the opportunity to mischaracterize the 12 Monkeys– an obviously Maoist group –as “anarchist” in order to justify their departure from investigating the 12 Monkeys and investigating anarchists instead [51].

Investigating Ben Turk and Redbird Prison Abolition.

As early as September 26, the third day that the FBI began writing reports in this case, the FBI had zeroed in on Ben Turk and Redbird Prison Abolition as targets. The title of the memorandum was, “Orchestrating Manual and Redbird Prison Abolition.” For synopsis, the agent wrote, “To document database searches into Redbird Prison Abolitionists and individuals identified as being involved in Redbird Prison Abolitionists”:

%%%

On 09/24/2012, writer received an e-mail from [redacted] Cleveland Division, informing writer that Cleveland Division had received information that a group calling itself “THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS” was operating inside of MANSFIELD CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTE [SIC] (MANSFIELD CI). Based on the information received by Cleveland Division, THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS had some Anarchist leanings, as well as purported links to non-prison groups OCCUPY and ANONYMOUS. Much of the material identified at MANSFIELD CI is prison based propaganda (though well done I must say, given their limited resources).

On 09/25/2012, writer received an e-mail from [redacted] Cleveland Division, informing writer that Cleveland Division had received a copy of a series of articles taken by employees of MANSFIELD CI from the cell of inmate [redacted] social security account number (SSAN) [redacted] inmate number [redacted] date of birth (DOB) [redacted] date of incarceration [redacted].

[two blocks redacted in entirety.]

On 09/25/2012, writer received an e-mail from [redacted] Cleveland Division, informing the writer that Cleveland Division had been informed that another inmate, SEAN SWAIN, inmate number A243205, DOB 09/12/1969, date of incarceration 02/15/1995 had been identified as being an active participant in THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS.

According to [redacted] SWAIN had a website (www.seanswain.org) that he posted information on from MANSFIELD CI. In addition, SWAIN also sent letters to a website called “REDBIRD” based out of Columbus. Whenever SWAIN would send documents with a message related to THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS, SWAIN would send it to “REDBIRD” in Columbus. “REDBIRD” would then typically scan and upload the document and its contents for its website within one week or so.

A subsequent search of public websites and information by writer and SA [redacted] identified “REDBIRD” as REDBIRD PRISON ABOLITION (www.redbirdprisonabolition.org), a group dedicated to prison abolition in Ohio. According to the “About Us” page to their website, REDBIRD was tied to four individuals: (1) [redacted] LNU, (2) [redacted] LNU, (3) [redacted] LNU and (4) [redacted] LNU.

Subsequent searches of public websites and information by writer and SA [redacted] (including, but not limited to [redacted] positively identified [redacted] and [redacted] as the following individuals:

[whole block redacted]

In addition, subsequent searches of public websites and information by writer and SA [redacted] (including, but not limited to OHLEG) identified the following individual as being associated with REDBIRD (by organizing a fundraising and awareness event):

[whole block redacted]

A copy of the OHLEG results for each of [redacted] and [redacted] has been submitted as a digital file to a 1A package related to this document.

Writer has not been able to identify [redacted] with any degree of confidence as of the date of this document.

Writer’s note: Based on a review of REDBIRD’s website and affiliated websites authored, in whole or in part, by [redacted] and/or [redacted] it appears that each of the above individuals has anarchist sympathies.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 26, 2012.

This memorandum artfully demonstrates the irrationality of this investigation’s trajectory. Note, first, the conclusory way in which a Maoist organization is characterized as having “some Anarchist leanings”– the same description often provided for the Grammy award-winning member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Green Day [52]. After this conclusory and baseless characterization, the memorandum then provides two long paragraphs of redacted narrative that relates the significant evidence that someone other than me is a member of the 12 Monkeys (that no one is allowed to read, since that prisoner is not connected to any anarchists the FBI wants to investigate).

The memorandum then turns to me, describing me as having “been identified as being an active participant in THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS.” Of course, the memorandum does not indicate who, exactly, identified me… or how they identified me… or whether the person who identified me knows what they are talking about. Again, this is very conclusory without so much as a reference to anything that might support such a conclusion. But, having connected the 12 Monkeys to anarchists (without cause) and connected the 12 Monkeys to me (without cause) and redacting several paragraphs of evidence pointing to someone else, the memorandum got to the fun part– where it made the case for a nexus from the 12 Monkeys to Redbird Prison Abolition. In the midst of this is an absolute fabrication: “Whenever SWAIN would send documents with a message related to THE ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS, SWAIN would send it to ‘REDBIRD’ in Columbus.”

As point of fact, at no time had I ever sent documents or messages related to “The Army of the 12 Monkeys” to anyone. It appears that the agent who wrote this report equated any writings by “Sean Swain” as “12 Monkey material,” and all “12 Monkey material” to be writings by “Sean Swain,” and therefore anything sent by me to Redbird could be equated with “documents” and “messages” related to “the Army of the 12 Monkeys.”

But to look at this another way, consider if this were true. If this were true, then there would be two websites, seanswain.org and redbirdprisonabolition.org publicly espousing 12 Monkey materials… while the originators of those materials, according to the FBI, were attempting to get away with fomenting a prison riot and sending threatening letters to lawmakers.

People who foment prison riots and threaten lawmakers advertise their crimes online before doing them?

The irrationality of all of this notwithstanding, the FBI began aggressively pursuing Ben Turk and the other members of Redbird Prison Abolition just as the FBI had always pursued its political enemies. On October 11, 2012, a memorandum was authored to memorialize a photo of Ben Turk (FBI Memorandum, October 11, 2012).

FBI agents coordinated with the Columbus Police Department to investigate “Columbus, OH area anarchists.” See, FBI Memorandum, November 9, 2012. They tracked activity on both seanswain.org and redbirdprisonabolition.org. See, FBI Memorandum, December 19, 2012. More than 3 months into the investigation, with nothing connecting the 12 Monkeys to me or, by extension, to Redbird, the FBI wrote:

On September 24,2012, Cincinnati Division — Columbus Resident Agency (CRA) opened the captioned full investigation based on information that several Ohio state legislators had received threatening letters from “The Army of the 12 Monkeys” and bearing postmarks from Columbus, Ohio.

During the course of the investigation, CRA identified three inmates at Mansfield Correctional Institution (MANCI), Mansfield, Ohio as possible authors of the above-referenced letters. CRA further identified several residents of Columbus, Ohio (Collectively identifying themselves as REDBIRD PRISON ABOLITION) as possible collaborators in the distribution of the above-referenced letters…

FBI Memorandum, January 9, 2013.

The following day, the FBI even went so far as to surveil their home, noting in a highly-redacted memorandum that Redbird members’ home “…was located in a largely residential neighborhood…” (FBI Memorandum, January 10, 2013).

Even into February 2013, after acknowledging that the vast amount of materials were found in someone else’s cell [53] and he signed a sworn statement that he was the leader of the 12 Monkeys… and after returning my typewriter… and after DNA matching someone else… and after debunking the address list that prison officials attributed to me as not being the source of lawmakers’ home addresses… and after the realization that lawmakers’ home addresses were public information in brochures in the Statehouse lobby (and the 12 Monkeys committed no crime when threatening to make public information public)… the FBI still wrote:

%%%

[Rest redacted…]

%%%

FBI Memorandum, February 7, 2013.

They still pursued obviously-unconnected anarchists for a non-crime.

Closing the Investigation.

On March 11, 2013, the FBI officially pulled up its tent stakes and packed up its tent, writing:

%%%

Ultimately, eight (8) state legislators received letters from “The Army of the 12 Monkeys”. All letters were postmarked on September 20, 2012 out of Columbus, Ohio with a return address of their personal secretary/assistant having an address of the Vern Riffe State Office Tower, 77 South High Street, 12th Floor, Columbus, Ohio).

Shortly after the opening of the captioned investigation, CRA determined that the letters had likely been authored at Mansfield Correctional Institution (MANCI), Mansfield, Ohio by one or more MANCI inmates. CRA ultimately determined that the members of “The Army of the 12 Monkeys” were:

Monkey #4: MANCI inmate SEAN SWAIN, inmate number A243205;

[block redacted]

CRA never positively identified [redacted] during the course of the captioned investigation.

CRA believes with medium confidence that [redacted] REDBIRD PRISON ABOLITION, an anarchist group headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, was [redacted] CRA believes with high confidence that [redacted] was involved in the distribution of letters to Ohio legislators and

personally distributed the letters from Columbus, Ohio.

Given the nature of the correspondence from SWAIN, [redacted] CRA believes with high confidence that one or more members of REDBIRD [redacted] the posting of radicalization materials related to “The Army of the 12 Monkeys” online.

Given the nature of the investigation, CRA coordinated the captioned investigation with OSP out of their headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.

Logical & Reasonable Investigation

CRA performed the following logical and reasonable investigative steps during the course of the captioned full investigation:

Interviews of Swain, [redacted] On September 27, 2012, joint terrorism task force (JTTF) task force officer (TFO) [redacted] interviewed SWAIN, [redacted] at MANCI. None of the three interviews resulted in information that addressed the alleged cyber nexus to the captioned investigation. In TFO [redacted] professional opinion, SWAIN, [redacted] were all involved with “The Army of the 12 Monkeys” and one or more of them were involved in (and had knowledge of) sending letters to Ohio legislators.

[large block redacted]

Leads

No open leads remain in this investigation.

Evidence

Due to the joint nature of the captioned full investigation, all evidence seized during the course of the investigation was retained either by OSP or by investigators at MANCI.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, March 11, 2013.

The investigation had ended, but the torture had not [54]. A month after the end of the investigation, the FBI was still providing “threat briefings” to Ohio prison officials and to other branches of Ohio government, designed to characterize me, in particular, as a dangerous terrorist [55]. See multiple FBI Memoranda dated April 1, 2013, related to threat briefings for Mansfield Correctional, Warden Terry Tibbals, the ODRC, the Ohio State Patrol, the Department of Public Safety, and ODRC Direcotr Gary Mohr.

Seven months later, the FBI would implicate me in a bomb threat, though I was held in a cell at the supermax prison in Youngstown and had no way to communicate a bomb threat to anyone:

%%%

Sean SWAIN (SWAIN) DOB 09/12/1969) is an inmate incarcerated at ODRC’s Ohio State Prison (OSP) in Youngstown, Ohio. SWAIN is affiliated with a group known as the “Army of the 12 Monkeys”. The “Army of the 12 Monkeys” claimed responsibility for a recent bomb threat in Columbus, OH. SWAIN has a website which is “seanswain.com” [sic], and he is scheduled for release on 09/01/2016. SWAIN has ties to Erie County, Ohio.

%%%

FBI Memorandum, September 27, 2013.

Even as late as 2020, the FBI was communicating to Virginia prison officials after having engineered my illegal rendition to that state. See almost-completely redacted FBI emails, August 24, 2020, through October 20, 2020.

V. CONCLUSION.

The FBI began as an ideologically-driven, repressive hate machine; it perfected its illegal state terror methods during the previous generation, and it continues its illegal state terror today. It operates as a tool for right-wing extremist suppression.

As borne out by my experience, and supported by its own declassified files, the FBI, in this case, used a non-crime as justification to aggressively pursue an anarchist prisoner clearly unconnected to the non-crime they were ostensibly investigating. The FBI then expanded their investigation into the anarchist ideology and perfectly law-abiding citizens who thoughtfully hold that ideology– despite the fact that anarchism or anarchists were in no way relevant to the matters that the FBI claimed to be investigating in the first place. And when this state terror organization could not connect anarchists to a non-crime, it responded with a decade of retribution and endless investigation designed to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” its list of hand-picked, ideological enemies– including me.

During a time when the FBI amassed a veritable warehouse of over 4,000 pages of unactionable files on me, dedicating untold human and economic resources to their misadventure, the FBI was simultaneously allowing Larry Nasser to get away with serial-raping the U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastic Team through their inaction… and allowing the right-wing extremist coup attempt on the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2021. Continuing to terrorize someone whose vision of the future is better than their own was more important to the FBI than preventing unspeakable crimes.

The continued existence of the FBI is a crime in itself. This state terror organization should be abolished, dismantled, erased permanently from the face of the earth in the name of intellectual freedom and integrity.

In the meantime, in the interests of public disclosure, the FBI needs to be pressured to release the 3,800-plus files about me that it is currently concealing, files for which they are apparently too ashamed of their own crimes to let the world see.

For now, the pages they have declassified and released, accompanying this summary, provide a limited glimpse into the matters that the FBI did not have the good sense to be too ashamed to conceal. Perhaps, for now, that is enough for us to measure the distance between the world as it is… and the world as it should be.

The FBI can go fuck itself.

***

End Notes

[1] Churchill, Ward and Vander Wall, Jim, Agents of Repression…, Black Classic Press, 2022. p. 17.

[2] Id., at P. 18

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id., at p. 19.

[6] Id., at p. 18.

[7] Id., at p. 19.

[8] Id.

[9] Id., at pp. 19-20.

[10] Id., at p. 21.

[11] Id.

[12] Id., at p. 22.

[13] Id., at pp. 22-23.

[14] Id.

[15] Id.

[16] Jalon, Allen M., Break-In to End All Break-Ins, L.A. Times, March 8, 2006.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] Churchill, Ward and Vander Wall, Jim, The COINTELPRO Papers…, p. 111.

[20] Chomsky, Noam. “Introduction,” COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, pp. 6-7.

(14)

[21] Churchill and Vander Wall, supra. See, U.S. Gov’t Office Memorandum from LV Boardman to AH Bellmont, CP, USA, p. 40; U.S. Gov’t Memorandum from FBI Director to SAC Phoenix, p. 55; U.S. Gov’t Memorandum from FBI Director to SAC New York, p. 58; Memorandum from FBI Director to SAC Albany, p. 92; Memorandum from SAC St. Louis to FBI Director, pp. 112-13; Memorandum from FBI on Blackboard Underground Newspaper, p. 116; FBI Report on Potential Land Sale, p. 122; Memorandum from FBI on Conveying Impression That Activist Is A CIA Informant, p. 128; Memorandum from FBI Director on Proposed Anonymous Letters, p. 150; Memorandum from SAC Newark to FBI Director, pp. 181-82; Memorandum from SAC Albany to FBI Director, p. 183.

[22] Id. See, Memorandum from SAC Chicago to FBI Director, p. 141.

[23] Id., at p. 140.

[24] Kifner, John, Ex-Panther in Prison Says Evidence Was Concealed, New York Times, April 3, 1989, p. B1.

[25] Churchill and Vander Wall, supra., Memorandum from WC Sullivan to JA Sizou, p. 98.

[26] Id., Memorandum from FBI Director to SAC Albany, p. 111.

[27] Davis, Ann, Data Collection Is Up Sharply Following 9/11, Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2003, p. B1.

[28] Id.

[29] Bari, Judi. Timber Wars 264 (1994), iww.org/unions/lul20/local-1/EF/JBari11.shtml#notes.

[30] Id.

[31] Zamora, Jim Herron and Lee, Henry K., Earth First Activists Win Case: FBI, Cops Must Pay $4.4 Million For Actions After Car Bombing, San Francisco Chronicle, June 11, 2002, p. A1.

[32] Eco-Terrorism Specifically Examining the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 109th Congress (2005). See, epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=237836.

[33] This occurred in May 2008, the same day that Daniel McGowan, a federal prisoner and alleged ELF member was transferred on FBI orders to the Communications Management Unit at Marion, Illinois, because McGowan’s personal correspondence was allegedly found at that same location where the book I co-wrote was found. I was never informed of this actual reason for my 70-day segregation and intended transfer to super-max; the information was related to me by a former correctional captain who knew about the FBI investigation and the connection to the ELF matters.

[34] It was this highly irregular search that led the former correctional captain to inquire as to what was really going on. He or she was not supposed to reveal any of this to me.

[35] I would challenge this in Sean Paul Swain v. William Fullenkamp, et al., U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Western Division, Case No. 3:09-cv-2659, Judge Jack Zouhary. When I demonstrated that the passage that prison officials falsely attributed to me never appeared in the text of what I actually wrote. Rather than properly finding this to violate free speech, Judge Zouhary simply substituted another passage that appears nowhere in what I wrote as justification for targeting me. It appears that, even then, the FBI was colluding with federal judges to influence the outcome of my litigation– something that would appear all more obvious later.

[36] I would only learn much later, in 2013, just how extensive the monitoring and copying of my communications had been; during an illegal interrogation conducted by ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark, Clark had a stack of copies several feet tall on the desk– all copies of my outgoing mail to that date. Looking through it quickly in cuffs and bellychain, I saw mail photocopied from as far back as June 2012.

[37] Defining what it means to be “anarchist” is quite problematic, as there is a wide spectrum of beliefs within the anarchist mileu– from “anarcho-syndicalists” who seek to organize the working class into unions to combat the ills of capitalism; to what might be termed “social anarchists” in the skateboarding and punk scenes who generally do not share the political outlook of other anarchist subgroups; to so-called “anti-civ anarchists” who question more than just the hierarchical structuring of human society but posit that recourse to mass agriculture led to hierarchical structuring. In a general way, however, what anarchists share, for a variety of reasons depending upon subgrouping, is rejection of the validity of hierarchical structuring of society; and anarchists offer, depending upon their subgrouping, a plethora of solutions to replace this hierarchical organization, as well as a spectrum of means for achieving those solutions that also differ according to subgroupings. To parse it all out would require hours of lecture in political theory as the word “anarchist” means a lot of different things to a lot of different self-identifying anarchists. Suffice to say that most anarchists are not big fans of institutionalized government structures.

[38] I list him by his initials, as revealing his name in publication online might be construed by the ODRC as an effort to cause him harm; but for purposes of validating my claims, I will reveal his name to investigators if asked.

The reason RD would extend this courtesy to me is that he and I had been part of the same Dungeons and Dragons game when I had resided in a different block. At that time, I had not known that he was suspected to be an informant.

[39] When transferring between prisons, prisoners are only permitted to take 2.4 cubic feet of property. All other accumulated property must be disposed, either through mailing it home (and never getting it back) or throwing it away (and never getting it back). Thus, in anticipation of transfer to lower security, I used this opportunity to drastically scale down my property and dispose of anything that could remotely be construed as violative of any rule.

[40] This is significant in light of later claims by the ODRC that they confiscated an address list from my property that contained the home addresses of Ohio senators and representatives– a list that they assert was used for sending the 12 Monkey letters, described shortly. The truth is that, if I had ever possessed any such address list, I would have disposed of it on September 18 when I cleaned out my cell.

[41] For further clarification, I was on what was termed the South Side of the prison and Dillon was on the North Side. Each of the two sides had separate chow halls, separate gymnasiums, separate prison yards. Prisoners from opposite sides would never mingle. Further, I was held at 3A security, which provided more freedom of movement, and Dillon was held at 3B security, which was far more punitive. 3A and 3B prisoners never mingled either.

[42] I did not know then, but my mailing to Ben Turk had already been opened and photocopied, and prison administrators were already well aware of my critique of JPay policy. What I also did not know (and would not learn until years later in litigation) was that JPay served secretly as a metadata collection tool for the FBI to monitor financial transactions to and from prisoners and to expand hubs of investigation into prisoners’ known contacts. Thus, both the ODRC and the FBI had ulterior motives for neutralizing my criticism of JPay and for punishing me for writing it.

[43] Even then, I was permitted to pack my own property, providing me yet one more opportunity to dispose of anything that could even conceivably be incriminating.

[44] I was not taken to segregation. Rather, I was taken to a row of cells behind the medical clinic universally referred to as Suicide Row. I was held in freezing conditions without a bed in the cell, forced to pace all night to keep from freezing. I would leave there sleep deprived and hallucinating, only because outside supporters flooded the prison with calls of concern for me.

Two months later, within weeks of each other, two prisoners would die on Suicide Row. They clearly did not have outside supporters to flood the prison with calls of concern.

[45] It would appear, all things being equal, that the determinative factor in all of this was not the 12 Monkey materials or the lack of 12 Monkey materials. What was determinative was that I had written a critique of JPay that had been intercepted in my outgoing mail… and the search of my cell had uncovered a draft copy of that same article… and their true intention was to silence my public exposure of their illegal policy, not to catch the masterminds of the 12 Monkeys.

Inversely, consider: In the search of Dillon’s cell they uncovered the veritable jackpot of original 12 Monkey flyers and manuals and did not segregate Dillon. Why? Dillon had not criticized their JPay policy.

Dzelajlija and Dillon, seemingly as an afterthought, would be placed in segregation the following day, September 20.

[46] To clarify, the letters were not mailed from the prison, as confirmed by the FBI in its initial report of September 24, 2012. The letters were postmarked out of Columbus, not Mansfield. Further, as the FBI would document later, all mail from Mansfield Correctional bears the same stamping that indicates the mail is originating from a correctional institution.

[47] I am reminded of the case of Geronimo Pratt, described in “Agents of Repression”, by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, pp. 77-94. Pratt was under FBI surveillance in Oakland at the time of a murder in Santa Monica for which Pratt was convicted. The FBI knew Pratt to be innocent, but concealed its own evidence for decades.

[48] Provably, this request for addresses was not from me. A photocopy of the envelope was attached to the memorandum. The return address was conveniently omitted.

Not only was this envelope not addressed in my handwriting, but it was clearly postmarked from Mansfield Correctional in 2007 while I was housed at Toledo Correctional, hundreds of miles away. I could never have sent that letter.

[49] This is only half true. The FBI returned a typewriter but it was not mine. The typewriter I had turned in had been a simple typewriter. The one returned to me was a word processor.

A suspicion that I cannot prove, that I will share here in footnote:

At my recorded disciplinary hearing, Leslie Dillon submitted a sworn affidavit that he was the leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys and that I was not part of his group. In testimony, Dillon was asked the source of the 12 Monkey materials distributed across the compound. Dillon answered that the materials originated with Mansfield Investigator Angela M. Hunsinger. In follow-up questions, Dillon invoked the Fifth Amendment on grounds that he might incriminate himself.

Let us assume for a moment that Hunsinger really was the source of the computer-generated materials that no prisoner could have created. That would mean that Hunsinger manufactured the entire 12 Monkey crisis– to include the “threat” letter to lawmakers.

Let us also assume that Hunsinger’s purpose was to frame me, the problematic anarchist, for the entire 12 Monkey problem. Hunsinger would have known from prison records that I owned a typewriter but, unless she kept up with recent developments, she would not know that previously-sold word processors were no longer provided to us; I had only a typewriter, not a word processor.

Hunsinger could have easily obtained a typewriter from the prison vault, where the appliances like televisions, radios and typewriters of prisoners who went home were stored. Investigators often used these items as rewards for their informants and would acquire them from the vault without question.

Hunsinger could have typed up the letters and envelopes of the lawmaker letters on that throw-away typewriter, then sent her officers to confiscate my JPay article and typewriter from my cell. Hunsinger could then swap out my typewriter with the throw-away that she obtained from the vault to type the lawmaker letters.

The problem is, when she received my typewriter, it was a different model than the one she had used. Too far along in the frame-up, she switched them out anyway and then bombarded the FBI with information before the lawmaker letters (that she actually wrote) ever surfaced– explaining why prison officials were out in front of the FBI investigation before it ever began.

She did not count on the forensic experts returning the typewriter to me, and would not have to worry that the model was different than the one that was confiscated from me… except that was what happened, and I received back a typewriter that was not mine.

The question naturally arises as to why Hunsinger would do this. The answer is, she was promoted to deputy warden after “catching” the “leader” of the “12 Monkeys.”

[50] Whatever they were, they were not anarchist. Anarchists do not form cells and columns or organize themselves into armies. Maoists do (People’s Liberation ARMY; Black Liberation ARMY; Symbionese Liberation ARMY). Anarchists also do not write snarky letters to lawmakers in an effort to achieve legislative reforms. The very letters the FBI began investigating were letters from people who clearly recognized the authority of the legislature and sought to have that legislature act, not letters from people who do not recognize the validity of hierarchical government in the first place.

[51] In fairness, in one memorandum, an agent tangentially noted early on the observation that the 12 Monkeys appeared to have “anarchist leanings,” whatever that means. See, FBI Memorandum, September 26, 2012, entitled, “Orchestrating Manual and Redbird Prison Abolition.”

[52] The agent writing this report is clearly an American idiot. Get it? American idiot…?

[53] The FBI acknowledged Dillon’s possession of the 12 Monkey documents in a report so highly-redacted as to make it nearly incomprehensible. Note, if the name of the prisoner was “Sean Swain,” it would not be redacted because “Sean Swain” is the subject who requested the disclosure of the documents:

%%%

On 9/28/2012, writer reviewed the documents recovered from the cell of inmate [redacted] at MANSFIELD CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, Mansfield, Ohio and provided to SA [redacted] Cleveland Division, on 9/21/2012. The following is a summary of noteworthy portions of the documents based on a review of those documents.

The bulk of the materials recovered from [redacted] cell were propaganda materials related to the ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS.

The materials contained an approximately 24 page workout guide. On the first page of the guide, there was the following handwritten note (attributed to [redacted]

[Block redaction]

Another document (attributed to [redacted] further identified the author of the above materials as having

[block redaction]

Writer’s note: Another document was an article

[block redaction]

The materials also included an article titled

[block redaction]

%%%

FBI Memorandum, October 1, 2012.

[54] For my account of the domestic torture program that the FBI was working in conjunction with Ohio prison authorities, check out my book, “Opposing Torture”, available from Little Black Cart and LBCbooks.com.

[55] While a total of 4 prisoners were designated as members of the 12 Monkeys– Leslie Dillon, James Dzelajlija, myself, and later Shawn Marshall –only I have been subjected to a decade of hyper-vigilant state terror. Two of the other three prisoners have been released and the third is scheduled for release shortly… while I write this from a cell at Ohio’s super-max after scoring out on my security instrument as a Level 1 (minimum) Security prisoner. It would appear that the disparate treatment is only attributable to the FBI’s and ODRC’s right-wing extremist hatred for self-identifying anarchists.

Shawn Marshall Reading Materials Request

A12M SOCF Shawn Marshall, who was pulled into the special manglement unit shortly after Sean, Dillon and Blackjack last September on accusations of participating in the A12M, has been transferred to Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

He has written us looking for solidarity and reading materials. Please send him some rad stuff.

Shawn Marshall 461-448
SOCF
P. O. Box 45699
1724 St. Rt. 728
Lucasville, Ohio 45699

Violence! Violence! Violence!

An open letter to ODRC Legal Counsel Trevor Matthew Clark, Esquire, on his favorite topic–my unapologetic advocacy of political violence (written in the hopes of inspiring others to adopt my position and engage in revolutionary action).

Dear Trevor:

In the interests of full transparency, I’d like to begin this letter by making my aims clear. I advocate political violence. I contend that political violence is absolutely necessary for the success of a revolutionary project, and I defend its morality as well as its practicality. I write this in the admitted hope that my reasonable and articulate arguments will reach rational people who will embrace the position I advocate, and that theywill take back the future from oppressors and tyrants by engaging in effective revolutionary action.

I present all of this as a letter to you for a few reasons. First, your written positions related to my prison disciplinary situation provide a pretty good representation of the State’s position, or at least can be used for extrapolating authority’s position on political violence. Second, you are an attorney, which makes you an expert at law and at argument, so if and when I can dispose of your stated positions and reduce your claims to nonsense, that will then demonstrate the superiority of my position to yours, and will prove pretty conclusively that political violence makes sense. And third, I know that once this is posted, given your emotional instability, the presence of this letter online will drive you completely bonkers for the rest of your life–which I will find personally satisfying, given your role in the State’s efforts to destroy my life; as listening to my disciplinary proceedings made you feel like “shooting [your]self in the face,” I imagine this will too. By all means, do not let me dissuade you.

I think that takes care of the disclosure ad transparency, so we should proceed to the topic of political violence. Typically, I will predicate a work like this with a few relevant quotes. I think that approach appropriate here.

So we begin.

“We are anarchists specifically because we do not water down our critique of social ills. We seek to strike the system at its roots.” –Crimethink, After the Crest III:Barcelona at Low Tide

“The revolutionary project of anarchists is to struggle along with the exploited and push them to rebel against all abuse and repression, so also against prison. What moves them is a desire for a better world, a better life with dignity ad ethic, where economy and politics have been destroyed. There can be no place for prison in that world”
“That is why anarchists scare power.”
“That is why they are locked up in prison.” –Alfredo Bonanno, “Introductory Note,” Locked Up

“Men [sic] will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last pope.” –Denis Diderot

Defining “Political Violence”

What is violence? No one can reasonably adopt a position on something before we define what it is. My dictionary gives five definitions, but the first one, I think, is more than adequate for our purposes here: “physical force exerted so as to cause damage, abuse, or injury.” By this definition, “violence” would include property damage and sabotage, though most purists would object to this definition and assert that “violence” is only “violence” when directed at living beings. I’m inclined to accept the definition that property damage is also violence because that’s more consistent with the position you’ve put forward on behalf of the State when you argued that I advocated violence against “people,” “destruction of property,” and “harassment,” and I would prefer not to quibble over the smaller details. So, for our purposes, we can accept that property damage is violence.

I think it’s important, though, that we point out that the definition of violence doesn’t include any qualifiers. What I mean is, by our definition, it matters not whether I’m punching you in the face or whether you are punching me in the face; a punch in the face is “physical force exerted so as to cause damage, abuse or injury,” no matter who the actor is. Violence is violence.

I know, that’s kind of self-evident as far as observations go. Kind of a no-brainer. I just wanted to point it out though, for future reference, for when we get to the point where you want to shoot yourself in the face.

But we don’t want to talk about just any violence. Interpersonal violence isn’t our topic. I don’t think either one of us is, for instance, advocating “domestic violence.” The question before us is whether or not we advocate political violence. Again we consult a dictionary and the first definition for “political” is, “of or relating to the affairs of government, politics, or the state.” I think that’s workable for the definition of “political.” If we put that together with our definition of violence, we create our working definition of political violence: “Physical force exerted so as to cause damage, abuse, or injury…of or related to the affairs of government, politics, or the state.”

I suppose we could go further and ask what the State is, particularly in this age where the State is so inextricably linked with the management of the economy and in the affairs of large corporations, but that’s really a whole other discussion unto itself, isn’t it? Our topic here is already ambitious enough, I think. So we can forego the question of, “What is the State?,” at least for purposes of identity, and we’ll suffice to say that the State is “the government,” the incorporated entity that exercises its assumed powers and authority, by and through its agents–like you. You qualify as an agent of the State.

Belief in Political Violence, Part I

Having defined political violence, we now address the question of whether or not I “believe in it.” If by “believe in it” we mean, “do I believe that political violence is real, then I would have to say, no, I do not believe in political violence. I know that political violence is real.

Political violence–“physical force exerted so as to cause damage, abuse, or injury…of or related to the affairs of government, politics, or the state”–is a fact of reality. It is happening at all times. It is ubiquitous.

The reality of political violence cannot rationally be questioned.

Belief in Political Violence, Part II

If by “belief in political violence” you mean to ask, “Do I believe political violence is practical?,” I would again have to answer, no. I do not believe that political violence is practical. I know that it is.

The reason I know political violence is practical is, I took a sociology class with Ashland University. I read the textbook. In it, the writers pointed out that movements like the Irish Republican Army that employed violence achieved at least partial success an overwhelming majority of the time, as opposed to strictly nonviolent movements where just the opposite held true.

So, we can say objectively and without a doubt that, as a practical matter, political violence works.

And, I think I need to point out here, I’m not yet making an argument for political violence. Nothing so far related to how I “feel” about political violence or whether I “like” political violence or not. Political violence is real and it works, however we “feel” about it, the same way that the planet is round, gravity persists, and the earth goes around the sun, all independent of the question of whether we “believe” in the planet’s roundness, or gravity’s legitimacy, or the earth’s trajectory.

Gravity does not seek our consent. Neither does the efficacy of political violence.

Belief in Political Violence, Part III

If you ask, “Do you believe in political violence?” and by “believe in” you mean, “Do you think political violence should be employed?” I would answer with an emphatic yes. But if you were being honest, Trevor, you would also answer with an emphatic yes. You accept political violence as moral and legitimate, and I can prove it to you.

You work as ODRC Counsel–as an attorney for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The ODRC is an agency of the State of Ohio, established by the Ohio Constitution of 1803. Ohio is the 17th state of the United States; the United States gained its independence from the British crown with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1787.

By calling yourself “ORDC Counsel,” you are implicitly stipulating to the truth of all of those facts. You have to be. If any one of those statements above are untrue, you aren’t ODRC Counsel. You’re just a dude in skinny jeans with a lot of college debt and the FBI on speed-dial. If the ODRC is not an agency of the State of Ohio, then you have no claim to exercise authority on behalf of the State. If the Treaty of Paris didn’t provide the United States independence from the British crown, then the United States is not a sovereign nation, Ohio isn’t part of its confederation, and Ohio is not a state. Again, that leaves you in your skinny jeans chatting with the fascists and wondering how you’ll pay off all that college debt since you don’t have a job.

So, in Trevor Clark’s world, the Treaty of Paris is valid. The revolutionaries in the colonies who engaged in open, violent rebellion against the rightful authorities–rightful authorities under existing international law–were not criminals, traitors, offenders against the peace and dignity of the British crown, but were instead signatories to a treaty, the proper representatives of a nation whose independence was gained through the means of political violence.

You’re an attorney, Trevor. Do you practice British law in British courts? Are you a member of the British bar? When you introduced yourself to me on 27 March 2013, did you refer to yourself as Counsel for the British Crown?

I guess that means you accept the legitimacy of the political violence employed by Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and the rest. I guess that means that you, like every other U.S. citizen, have to concede and stipulate to the acceptance of political violence and its validity.

So much for your categorical rejection of political violence, huh?

This is an important point because it proves that you and I have more in common in our thinking than we have uncommon. We both know that political violence exists. We both know that, as a practical matter, it works. And we both accept that recourse to political violence is legitimate. We only argue, potentially, over the questions of when political violence should be employed, by whom, to what end, and against whom.

So let’s shift gears for a moment. Let’s stop talking about my advocacy of political violence and start talking about yours.

Back to our Definition of “Political Violence”

You’ll recall that earlier I made the point that “violence” as it is defined, has no qualifiers, that it matters not whether I’m punching you in the face or whether you are punching me in the face. A punch in the face is violence no matter who the actor is. Violence is violence. And so we get to the point I foreshadowed, where you want to shoot yourself in the face.

On 19 September 2012, without any justification at all–and admittedly so, because everything I was accused of related to my apprehension was dismissed–you, the State, removed me from the prison population. You put me in cuffs. You “exerted” “physical force…so as to cause damage, abuse, or injury,” forcibly taking me into custody and putting me in a torture cell for days. That’s violence. And it’s violence “related to the affairs of…the state,” as it’s violence employed by the State in the (mis)management of its affairs. I was then subjected to conditions that the CIA described as “the simple torture situation” in its KUBARK Counterintelligence and Interrogation Manual, an insidious how-to manual for torturers and state-terrorists like yourself.

It was also on 19 September 2012 that you, the State, “seized” my typewriter and then destroyed it in retaliation for me calling the ODRC director a “sock puppet” for the JPay corporation. You’ll recall, by our definition, when you “exert” “physical force…so as to cause damage…,” that’s violence. And in this case, the violence, destroying my typewriter, is directly “related to the affairs of…the State,” as “the State” is the entity destroying my typewriter for its own political agenda.

See the problem you have here, Trevor? It’s very, very difficult to hear your indignant and self-righteous condemnations of “political violence” because every time you try to speak, more and more corpses fall out of the mass grave we know as your mouth.

But while we’re on the topic, let’s also analyze the larger context of your political violence. In my own case, I’ve been held without a legitimate legal justification according to your own laws, for twenty-three years. That means I’m not a prisoner; I’m a kidnap victim.¹

Kidnapping is a violent crime, Trevor. Violence. State violence, and State violence is, de facto, political violence.

When you continually employ political violence against someone, it seems more than a little bit irrational and hypocritical for you to assert that the victims of your political violence do not so much as have the right to “advocate” its use against you.

And, of course, the ultimate irony is, if you had not abducted me and tortured me and mounted an all-out assault on every aspect of my life in flagrant violation of your own written laws (not that anyone, particularly you, pays any attention to those), I never would have been provoked to “advocate” a politically-violent response.

You will recall that you wrote to my attorneys, “The types of violence and intimidation that are advocated for [sic] in his writings fall clearly within the legal exceptions to that right [of free speech].² ODRC will not tolerate threats, harassment and attempts at intimidation.” That’s what you wrote.

See your problem? If the State will not tolerate “threats,” perhaps the State should get out of the “threat” business. If the State won’t tolerate “harassment,” whatever that means, perhaps it should cease its torture and state-terror operations. If the State won’t tolerate “intimidation,” maybe it should stop using its machinery of violence to silence, neutralize, and destroy its critics, whistleblowers, and political opponents.

Just an idea. Otherwise, if the State is going to be in the threat, harassment and intimidation business, as it clearly is now, then the State is going to be turning a lot of people into enemies, the same way you have made a lifelong enemy of me, and you will soon have to confront thousands of Sean Swains…all of us recognizing that we have no other recourse but political violence. Not all of us can easily be tucked away at super-duper-uber-mega-ultramax.

You’re got something like twelve million people in Ohio. And lots and lots of guns.

I read somewhere that estimated gun ownership in the U.S. is more than 200 million. That’s a lot of guns. If you divide that evenly among all 50 states, which is unrealistic since only 12 people live in Montana, the people of Ohio alone have at least 4 million guns. That’s a gun for every third person.

I suppose for the remainder of this, I can address my arguments directly to those people. The literary device of directing my arguments to you has served its purpose. So, by all means, don’t let me hold you from any important business. Feel free to shoot yourself in the face at any time.

12 million People, 4 million guns, and 1 Common Enemy Subjecting Everyone to Political Violence…Arrogantly Assuming We Won’t Do Something About It…

The Trevor Clarks who run the State of Ohio will not tolerate your “threats” or “harassment” or “intimidation.” They will, however, take your money without your consent to pay their own salaries. They tax you, supposedly for your own good. Supposedly to provide you “services,” like roads, schools, and protection.

But you’re reasonable. You’d voluntarily pay for services. You voluntarily pay for services every day. If the State really offered services, you would gladly pay for the value of those services.

The State doesn’t give you that option. Instead, the State “exerts” “force” to fund “the affairs of government,” to your loss, to your “injury.” The State engages in political violence in your every transaction. The State knows that reasonable people like you would never pay outrageous sums for shoddy services, and so it resorts to political violence to keep itself going, not for your own good, but at your expense.

The Trevor Clarks who steal your money from you make a good salary. You pay them generously, not for roads, schools, and protections, but for chuck-holes, illiteracy, and political repression. You pay for the government hackers who are reading your e-mails and listening in on your phone calls. You pay for the miseducation system that convinces a new generation that they cannot possibly handle ruling themselves, that they need the government’s “services” of chuck-holes, illiteracy, and political repression. You pay for the Apache attack helicopters the government buys to “protect” you…and then points the helicopter at you.

The State will not tolerate your “threats” or “harassment” or “intimidation.” The Trevor Clarks have spoken. You 12 million people with at least 4 million guns will do what you are told and you will pay the bill…or else.

Does that sound like “freedom”? I could be wrong, but I think real freedom doesn’t involve your government constantly employing political violence against you and intimidating you if you start talking about freedom.

Not that it matters because we have no duty to defer to the documents of the Trevor Clarks who are stickingit to us, but the Ohio Constitution expressly provides that we have the “right” to “abolish” the government. Article I, Section 2. We can do it whenever we “deem it necessary.”

I don’t know about you, but I deem it necessary. I don’t want to die at super-duper-uber-mega-ultra-max because I defended my own life and then told the truth about the prison directors’ crimes. And, more importantly, I don’t want others to die for what they believe, locked away or shot by agents of an irrational State.³ So, that means the State has to go.

We deserve better.

Something to consider. There’s us… There’s them…

We have 12 million people and at least 4 million guns.

Any questions?

Just a quick reminder to any remaining pacifists out there–your choice is not between “violence” or “peace.” If it was, we would all choose peace. But if we do not choose to engage in violence, that does not create a situation of peace; that creates a situation of unilateral violence where the State continues to “exert” its “force” to your “injury.” So, an absence of action, on your part, facilitates State violence. In fact, the longer you refrain from acting, the more lives are devastated. Objectively, anyone who is really, truly for peace will struggle–by any means necessary— to destroy the State completely and as quickly as possible so that the principle cause of State violence will cease and we will then finally have the option of choosing peace.

You can’t choose “peace” with a loaded shotgun in your face. Once you address the issue of that loaded shotgun in your face, you have the option of choosing peace.

And personally, I cannot wait to choose peace.

The State and its political violence are an obstacle to that peace. Let’s remove it. Completely. Immediately.

As someone else who confronted terrorists at the controls once said, “Let’s roll.”

We own the future.

It starts now…if only we have the will.

Freedom or Death,

Sean Swain
Ideological Prisoner
Ohio State Penitentiary
Youngstown, Ohio

End Notes

1. I was kidnapped by the State in 1991 after defending my own life in my own home. Erie County Case No. 91-CR-253. My false conviction was reversed, Sixth District Case No. E-91-80. On remand, the trial court refused to follow the mandate of the Court of Appeals. I remain imprisoned for 23 years, still awaiting the fair trial ordered in 1993. To avoid having to recognize my innocence and the illegality of my captivity, the Erie County Court of Common Pleas simply refuses to file anything I present.

2. You have asserted that the First Amendment does not protect speech that “advocates violence.” If that’s the case, it was illegal to support the bombing of Iraq or the invasion of Afghanistan. Bombs are violence, Trevor. It would also be illegal to advocate the executions of the Lucasville Uprising leaders.

Killing people is violence, Trevor.

So, clearly, the question of whether speech advocates or does not advocate violence is perfectly irrelevant to whether it enjoys First Amendment protections. In fact, if you read all of the U.S. Supreme Court cases that delineate prisoner free speech rights, the question of “advocating violence” is no part of the calculus. The question isn’t related to content, but to the forum and the purpose–in this case, a public forum, and the purpose is political speech; so, the speech in question is afforded the most protection according to your highest court’s decisions. See, Jones v. NCPLU, 433 US119 (1977); Pell v. Procunier, 417 US 817 (1974; Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 US 401 (1989); Turner v. Safley, 482 US 78 (1987); Procunier v. Martinez, 416 US 396 (1974; and Simon & Schuster Inc v. Members of the New York State Crime Victims Board, et. al, 502 US 105 (1991). Simon & Schuster stands for the proposition that the State cannot create a “disincentive” for prisoner speech in a public forum…like, say, sending me to super-duper-uber-mega-ultra-max for my communicated ideas to a website.

3. The Cleveland Police reserve the right to shoot unarmed people 137 times. “To Protect and Serve” looks a lot like “To Enslave and Oppress.”

4. Some excellent resources:

Computer Security: crypto.com anonymizer.com colt.org/crypto c4m.net fbi.gov/hq/lab/carnivore/carnivore.htm netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois

Special Training: nasta.ws operationaltactics.org bad-boys.net swattraining.com specialoperations.com

Ohio Militia: oomaac.com

I have no idea about the politics of any of these groups, but I suspect they are armed. That’s a start. Whatever your politics, they can teach you how to shoot. That’s a start.

Or, apart from firearms, you could descend on the Ohio Statehouse in ski masks with cans of gasoline and books of matches. That’s a start too.

Article I, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution affirms your right to do it.

—————————

Sean Swain is a prisoner in Ohio State penitentiary and a regular contributor to Fubar. He does not have computer access and cannot receive email. Sean’s website http://seanswain.org is maintained by his supporters.

Sean’s address is:

Sean Swain 243205
Ohio State Penitentiary
878 Coitsville-Hubbard Rd.
Youngstown OH 44505

Days of Teargas, Blood + Vomit

How prisoners overwhelmed fascist forces in the July 4th rebellion at ManCI. A participant’s account from inside the special manglement unit. (Follow up to this post.)

Ghandi would not approve.

It’s 11 July 13, 8 days since my last dispatch when Blackjack was strapping the plastic lunch tray to his arm. Since then, its’ been a rough-and-tumble bucket-o-blood back here in the Special Manglement Unit of Mansfield Corruptional Institution. Backjack’s missing 3 teeth (that he really doesn’t use much back here anyway) and my stomach injuries had me puking for a time (no blood, a good sign), but as of today, neither of us are leaking fluids and the fascist fuckweasels have now moved us to the veritable suburbs of the SMU.

This is the whole story, and most of it is true.

July 4 began with emergency lockdown, the fascists all hopped up on adrenaline, coffee, and the news of the escape that happened the previous night. Turns out, a prisoner escaped the old-fashioned way. He leaned a steel ladder against the fence and left. No shit.

But as with any other situation where popular forces strike a successful blow against the fuckweasel control system, those of us still locked in the showbox take the full brunt of it. Breakfast was shit and there was no recreation. So even before Warden Terry Tibbals, a.k.a, BLACK LIGHTNING, arrived at his office with his bag of donuts and cup of decaf, all hell had already broke loose in the Special Manglement Unit.

Forty steel doors banging, busted sprinkler heads pounding thousands of gallons of rusty water down the stairs and cascading over the top range, the nazis jacking cans of pepper spray and running for the exit.

Fuck them. It’s not like they planned to have a barbecue anyway.

So, if you’ve been locked in the shoebox for any length of time, you know what’s coming. A captain or a major will soon be on-station to announce his own importance, only to find every fucking cell-door window blocked and barricaded, whereupon he will slosh with wet socks and shoes back to an office to call in the Extraction Team- a crew of genetic oddities on brain-entrancing drugs, clad in jackboots and helmets, shields and flak vests. Their whole reason to exist is to crush human skulls and reckless abandon, cell-to-cell, breaking bones and spirits, but from the rumbling of the steel doors, we knew they’d better get some chips and beer because they were gonna be there a while.
In SMU4B, Blackjack and I occupied the cell closest to the entrance so by dumb luck and a twist of fate, we were the front line of the very first battle, ground zero in the struggle between the rebellion and the goddamn stormtroopers goose-stepping in mechanical unison, hopped up on their innate hatred of humanity and the echoes of unhappy childhoods.

It would be seven on two, close quarters blind fighting, the hierarch machine coming to exterminate the anarchist tendency once and for all, and for our part, the possibility that we would fight and die, not for some inglorious cause, but driven by the simple sad reality that it’s better to fight and perhaps die than to live as slaves.

Blackjack and I took a quick inventory and came up with an impromptu battle plan. They might kill us, might pound us to death, but they were going to know we were here. The least we could do on the way out, with the snapping of bones and growls of rage, is scar these fascist fuckweasels for life so they wake up from sweaty nightmares decades from now and realize that yet against they’ve shit the bd, screaming my name, “SWAIN!”, since no one know who to pronounce Blackjack’s (Blackjack included).

WELCOME TO WACO

We know how it goes down. The Extraction Team opens the food slot and sprays an industrial sized can of outdoor-use-only pepper spray into the cell, a space the size of a bathroom, blasting some napalm-death that peels off skin and lights the lungs on fire. So we had to prepare for that. Then, they’d key the door and bullrush in, a phalanx behind riot shields and helmets, pounding ahead and crushing anything organic in their way. At least 7 of them, taming, breaking, punishing.

We had to stop that too.

The fascist fuckweasels had the latest technology for violence and brutality. We had a plastic bag, styrofoam cups, shampoo, toothpaste, sheets, blankets, a broom, socks, soap, 2 lunch trays, a razor blade and a stapler.

I don’t know where the fuck we got the stapler but it was brand new and had a full compliment of staples. We quickly concluded that the stapler, while convenient for all our segregation office needs, really proved quite irrelevant in a violent struggle for liberation against the forces of fuckweaselry. But all that other shit could kick a fucking dent in their machinery.

By the time those goose-stepping goons arrived, we were prepared- and the fascists would wish they could trade places with ATF agents crawling across the roof of some half-baked cult leader clinging to his bibles and guns in a podunk Texas town.

Welcome to Waco.

THE STANDOFF – NO SCRATCH THAT: THE EPIC MOTHERFUCKING STAND-OFF TO END ALL STAND-OFFS

If you’re reading this on your I-phone in study hall, don’t try this at home.

Well, unless you really, really hate your parents.

Unable to see into the cell because the window in the cell door was blocked, the fascists opened the food slot, only to find a bed sheet hanging in front of the door. They still couldn’t see. On top of that, a blanket was wedged in the 4 inch frame of the outside window with a roll of toilet paper to block the light from the sun, making the cell pitch dark. The lead fuckweasel reached his hand into the food slot to grab the sheet and yank it down, only to take a bar of soap in a sock across the knuckles, quickly withdrawing his hand in a stream of obscenities.

I was a pitcher in little league. I can swing the shit out of a sock.

Angered, they went straight to the pepper-spray, letting loose with about a gallon of it. What they didn’t know is that we used a whole tube of toothpaste, minty fresh and approved by the American Dental Association, to adhere a plastic bag over the food slot. That bag caught every bit of the pepper spray and when I hit that bag with the soap-in-a-sock, it coughed its contents right back at the fuckweasels who unleashed it.

That sent them running and sprawling into the cascading toilet water, coughing and cussing with gallons of snot pouring down the flesh of their inflamed faces.

Cancel the family outing with the fireworks. You’re not gonna be feeling very festive.

So as they splashed in the toilet water and rinsed their faces, the door rattling reached a savage pitch and I knew the maniacs and wildmen behind those steel doors were chewing on the inside of their own mouths just to get the taste of blood.

And here’s an abject lesson for all the forces of fascism from the colonizer troops in the oil wars to the pigs firing rubber bullets into occupy encampments to the fuckweasel prison guards imposing the program at the hot end of a can of pepper spray: It’s all fun and games until someone loses and eye. And then it’s just FUN.

They formed up, fueled on rage and pain, a seething hate machine, and keyed the door. It swung wide open and they came in behind the shield, into the dark unknown. They still could not see because the sheet wasn’t fastened to the door; it didn’t move when the door moved. It remained in the doorway because we hung the sheet from a curtain rod we created out of styrofoam cups- a lot of styrofoam cups, stacked, like 50 of them, and then wedged them into the door frame. So when they came marching into the battle dome, they came in blind with the sheet draped in front of their faces.

They didn’t see the shampoo on the floor or the plastic cup lids floating in the shampoo. The shield-man’s jackboots slid on the cup lids and we went hydro-planing forward, shoved from behind by the six-man phalanx that followed.

Keep in mind, there’s a steel bunkbed 3 feet in from the door and it’s bolted to the floor, creating a bottle-neck, a 3 foot square killing-floor where the goons must come in single-file across shampoo and cup lids sliding under their feet, as they follow a blinded shield-man into a dark room, a sheet hanging in his face.

The shield-man didn’t see me in the shower, pulling the trip line tight. It caught his foot and he fell forward, his fuckweasel friends piling up behind him. Blackjack and I both began yelling, “I got him! I got him!” and “Stop resisting! Stop resisting!” giving the impression that the shield-man hadn’t fallen, but had instead tackled one of us.

I let go of the trip line and pulled the strip of sheet we had cut with the razor blade to hook into the sprinkler. I yanked it hard, unleashing thousands of gallons of black gunk fire suppressant pushed by tens of thousands of gallons of water. It was cold and disorienting and blinding, immediately blasting the pile of fuckweasels like a fire-hose from the ceiling.

That was Blackjack’s cue. They hadn’t seen him under the mattress on the top bunk. He sprang to his feet, all possible pepper-spray neutralized by the water filling the air, and with his half of the broomstick secured to his wrist with a strip of bedsheet (just in case he might drop it, he could recall it to his hand with a flick of the wrist) he leaped down from the top rack onto the fuckweasel heap, swinging like a madman. From the opposite side, out of the shower, I rushed into the maelstrom with my half of the broomstick tied to my wrist, and the soap-in-a-sock in my other hand screaming and snarling like a savage. In no time, we were behind the bewildered pile of drenched muscle and heavy equipment, and we bolted for the door.

Fuck everything else. If we got through the open cell door and out into the block, we faced one guard with a cell phone taking video and another guard with a handful of keys.

Yeah. Keys. The great equalizer. We had 2 primitive clubs in our fists, rags wrapped round our faces, and as many as 78 other comrades trapped behind steel doors – doors that could be opened with those keys. We only had to get out of the cell and lock the extraction team inside. But, as we reached the door, the fuckweasels outside the cell dropped everything and threw themselves against the closing door. Blackjack got his club wedged in to keep it from closing as he struggled against the door, I swung on the extraction team trying to regain their feet, and a helmet flew against the wall.

Unfortunately, there was no head inside it.

Maybe next time.

Blackjack thrust against the door and it gave, knocking down the guards on the outside, and we tumbled out of the cell and into the block, the rattling doors and cheers completely deafening. We crawled forward in the ice-cold water and gunk, clawing at the fallen guards, but before we gained purchase, the extraction team had us by the legs, dragging us back into the containment of the cell, our nails dragging on the concrete, one pig’s tasteful yet understated loafer still gripped in my left hand, pepper spray firing from every direction.

Strange, but they didn’t beat us to death. Sure, they got their random kicks and punches in as they held us down and confiscated our weapons, but then they bolted, leaving us sprawled, broken and bloody in a flood of toilet water on the concrete floor.

It was surprisingly comfortable, but I still had all my teeth. As amazing as this is, with all the damage the fascist fuckweasels have inflicted over the decades, the dentist tells me that my teeth are in fantastic shape. Blackjack’s missing 3 teeth. We couldn’t find them. And, even if we could, they had been floating in toilet water.

I pulled something in my abdomen that caused me to puke from the pain for a few days and we both have scorch marks from random pepper-spray blasts, but no broken bones. Our eyes are still firmly in their sockets, and neither of us appear to be leaking any vital fluids.

It took a long time for the fascists to regain control of SMU 4, as they faced inspired and courageous resistance in every fucking cell. The extraction team left the unit at the end of their shift dispirited and haunted by their experience.

Brave new world, shitbags. Brave new motherfuckin’ world.

THE AFTERMATH

We should be dead right now. I mean, several prisoners died here in Terry “Black Lightning” Tibbals’ mismanaged care for a hell of a lot less. Our survival seems a complete absurdity. But here we are.

The official story is that the video of events was lost when the pig dropped the cell phone in his effort to contain us in Cell 1019. I suspect that’s bullshit. I suspect that nobody wants to explain why we had a broomstick in the first place (general incompetence by the pigs on cell-cleaning day), or why the extraction team marched into a cell without visual capacity, or how to starved-out captives out-manoeuvred and out-fought their best fuckweasel fighting force. Whatever their motive, I’ve been told that these events didn’t happen… not the way they happened, anyway.

HELLA HELLA OCCUPY

Four days later, we remained in a burned out shell of a cell, paint peeled from the walls, chunks of concrete missing out of the ceiling. So on July 8, as Pelican Bay revolutionaries undertook a monumental, historic hunger-strike, Blackjack and I were cuffed and escorted out to the outdoor recreation cage. No shit.

Beginning at 6:30 in the morning, we announced to the fuckweasel establishment that we were occupying the recreation cage and not giving it back until our demands were met. Inside the block, the rest of the SMU4 prisoners were again off the chain, rattling doors and flooding the unit. By dinner, they sent in a negotiator to use his “interpersonal communication” training to talk us out of the cage. When that failed, they called the extraction team… who simply did not show up.

Officer Miller, a shitbag of the highest order and a regular feature on SMU4 (who can be reached by calling ManCI and then dialing 806 and extension 6101), took a cell phone video of our demands for coming out of the recreation cage. When told all demands would be met, we surrendered, only to be dragged, handcuffed, back to our burned-out cave to find our food in the toilet and most of our property destroyed. Miller and Bradshaw had taken all of our soap, toilet paper and pens. As if we needed them.

Amazingly, the stapler we hid under the steel sink and toilet combo remained there, and was in perfect working condition.

Very durable.

Officer Miller threatened to put his dick and balls in our food, so- as a natural consequence, Blackjack and I went without food the entire day, right along with the heroes of Pelican Bay and the thousands of hunger strikers across the country and around the world. Miller’s threats sparked a night of mayhem, leading the Gestapo High Command to conclude that Blackjack and I are a dangerous influence, and they moved us out of that stagnant cave in SMU 4 to the veritable zombie suburbs of SMU2- a comfortable peaceful corner of the special manglement unit where we are surrounded by prisoners incapable of action if you lit their asses on fire and chased them with a super-soaker filled with gasoline. The mentality of the entire unit revolves around a betting ticket put out by a prisoner called Vegas, and daily discussions of professional sports events. No revolution here.

Though we’ve been put out to pasture, the situation has greatly improved. Our food portions are back to standard; the laundry service has resumed; the cells are clean and dry, without toilet water pouring from the ceiling; and Blackjack and I are now in a cell where we can sleep without steel doors 3 feet away, banging us awake every ½ hour.

Some kind of disciplinary action was taken against us, but we don’t know what it was since we refuse to answer any more conduct reports. When the officer who came to shackle us heard we refused to go, he asked, “Are we gonna have to do this the hard way?” We responded, “you better go ask the extraction team.” He left, never returned.

So, there’s a lesson to derive from all this: the only effective answer to state terror in any form is equal and opposite revolutionary violence. Plain and simple. It’s the only thing the fascist fuckweasels understand.

I think of the last 9 and a half months that Blackjack and I foolishly tried to go along with the fascist program, to appeal to reason, to employ the non-violent processes made available to us – while our captors reduced us to conditions that where inhumane and intolerable, starving us out. If only we had undertaken this path nine months earlier, and maintained it, we might be drinking martinis by an olympic-sized swimming pool right now.

A point Derrick Jensen made in Endgame applies here: more prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps survived by resisting than by going along with the program.*

So I think about the events of these last 8 days and consider how the world would be different if this approach had been undertaken by the occupy encampments across the US and around the world, undertaken by everyone rejecting the global concentration camp imposed on us all. Imagine if the skull-bashing and finger snapping pigs of the State-terror machine, instead of being met with passive resistance to the dismantling of the encampments, had been met with molotov cocktails and bowling balls raining from roof tops; and resisters sporting helmets shoulder pads, and baseball bats appropriated from Dick’s sporting goods; or had faced man-hole covers blasting into the sky and streets collapsing under them from improvised explosive devices in the sewers – perhaps the trajectory of history would be quite different today.

All I’m saying is, if a former gas station attendant and a former sandwich station tech at Wendy’s can nearly defeat the hyper-fascist forces inside the State’s mind-fuck control unit by employing styrofoam cups, a tube of toothpaste, and a broken broomstick, what hope exists for the crapitalist pigs and their fuckweasel enforcers? If only a small fraction of so-called anarchists, revolutionaries, freedom-fighters, libertarians, tea-partiers or occupy supporters got serious for a moment, all the world’s officer Millers would have to remove their balls from our instant potatoes and run naked, screaming for their miserable and worthless lives, chased by angry hordes carrying pitchforks and torches, demanding a reckoning. I don’t want to impress you. I don’t even want to inspire you. I just want to wake you up. The state is a can of pepper-spray and there’s no reasoning with it. Freedom means destroying it.

We don’t need Gandhi’s approval. This is reality, however it is we feel about it. We need Gandhi to pass that tube of toothpaste and get that lunch tray strapped to his arm.

This is how you take back the future.

Brave new motherfucking world, Mohandas. Brave new motherfucking world.

Freedom or Death,

Sean Swain

Anarchist Prisoner of War

Mansfield Corruptional Institution

Super Mind-fuck Unit 2

11 July 2013

*BTW Sean doesn’t have access to the internet, so he doesn’t know about DJ being a a transphobic salmon touching turd.

Correspondance with Authorities

This is a series of letters Sean wrote to legal “experts” in Ohio regarding the accusation that his proposal to create a BLAST! Blog constituted a threat.

32 July 2013
Dear Chief Counsel:

I write to you to relate grave concerns regarding the conduct of the ODRC Counsel Trevor Matthew Clark, Esquire. I send copies of this correspondence to Mr. Rob Jeffreys, Chief, Bureau of Classification; to Joanna Saul, Director, C.I.I.C and to my legal counsel, Robert Fitrakis. I also retain copies for forwarding to the Ohio Disciplinary Counsel and the Bar Association.

Some background: In September 201 here at MANCI I was ideologically targeted and profiled, absent any accusation of misconduct, by investigator Angela M. Hunsinger, for my beliefs and protected speech. Admittedly so. When I retained activist attorney, Robert Fitrakis, the director reversed the entire case (MANCI-12-007219).

However, prior to that reversal on 24 April 2013, I was interviewed by Mr. Clark on 27 March. In that interview, Mr. Clark gave me the home addresses of Ohio lawmakers, some of which I memorized, including the address of Robert F. Hagar (562 Madera, Youngstown). I questioned then as I do now the propriety of Mr. Clark giving legislators’ private information to convicted felons. His conduct was highly irregular and conceivably criminal. I have since reported it to the Ohio Disciplinary Counsel and the Bar Association, as Mr. Clark may pose a serious danger to the lives of Ohio law makers.

Also on that date, Mr. Clark sought to coerce Les Dillon, ad admitted member of the Army of the 12 Monkeys, to retract his sworn statement that he had voluntarily written on my behalf and to falsely implicate me in that group. While Mr. Dillon resisted Mr. Clark’s coercion, this event reveals that Mr. Clark’s intentions were not to un-do the unconstitutional actions taken against me, but to find a pretext for justifying what had been done.

This is further supported by kite communications from Lt. Barlow here at MANCI. On 23 April 2013, the day before Director Mohr reversed MANCI-12-002907, referenced my guilty finding in that case, and my referral for security level increase – ALL 16 DAYS BEFORE THAT R.I.B. CASE WOULD BE HEARD. How did he know, 16 days in advance, that I would be found guilty, and referred for security increase? He claims he was informed by Mr. Trevor Clark. That means Mr. Clark had orchestrated my guilty finding more than 2 weeks before my R.I.B. Hearing.

Further, on 30 April 2013, Mr. Clark sent a fax to my counsel, Robert Fitrakis. In it, he wrote: “Inmate Swain’s disciplinary and classification hearings will be completed forth with.” Please note that a classification hearing would only be required in the event that (1) I was found guilty and (2) I was recommended for a security level increase.

So, now, the question naturally arises: How did Lt. Barlow, the R.I.B. Chair, and Mr. Trevor Clark, ODRC Counsel, both know in advance of my R.I.B. hearing that I would be found guilty of charged rule violations and recommended for a security level increase? Absent a paranormal explanation it would appear quite clear that Mr. Clark had engineered a “fix”, a predetermined outcome for my disciplinary process, contrary to all statutory requirements and constitutional safeguards.

Lt. Barlow’s 12 April Local Control Review is available on DOTS and Mr. Clark can provide you a copy of his fax to my counsel. My counsel can also provide you a copy of both.

To make matters worse, Lt. Barlow has admitted in a kite communication that he did not find me guilty in MANCI-13-002907 based upon the evidence presented at the hearing (as no evidence was presented at the hearing), but instead based on the “evidence” presented by Mr. Clark in my absence at a secret tribunal conducted prior to my hearing. By R.I.B. Chair Lt. Barlow’s own admission, he and Mr. Clark conspired off the record, ex parte, in my absence, and determined my guilt based on “evidence” I was never permitted to review nor challenge.

Does the Ohio Administrative Code, Ohio Constitution, or U.S. Constitution allow for “secret tribunals”?

Then, during the R.I.B. Hearing, Mr. Clark, on the record, confiscated all of my defense paperwork, alleging that “the FBI” wanted it.

I believe this long and documented pattern calls into question Mr. Clark’s judgment and propriety, if not his integrity. I ask that you intervene in this matter, investigate, and take appropriate action to correct this situation before Mr. Clark’s bizarre behavior must be addressed in a more formal and more public forum.

Please feel free to contact my legal counsel, Mr. Robert Fitrakis, at (614) 307-9783.

Thank you for your time and kind consideration of this matter.

Sincerely

Sean Swain

c: Rob Jeffreys, Chief, Bureau of Classification
Robert Fitrakis, Legal Counsel
Joanna Saul, Director, CIIC
A. Alysha Clous, Assistant Bar Counsel, Columbus Ohio Disciplinary Counsel

Here is The Columbus Bar Association’s response: Letter about Clark

And Swain’s response to that letter.

23 July 13

Dear Assistant Bar Counsel Clous:

I received today your letter of 18 July 2013, in which you indicate that you cannot determine whether Mr. Trevor Clark acted in an unprofessional or unethical manner when he gave home addresses and phone number of Ohio legislators to a convicted felon accused of creating his own terrorist networks. Thank you. Your correspondence will soon be posted at seanswain.org.

As I am sure you yourself are legal counsel, your assessment must be correct. If Mr. Clark handing out lawmakers’ home addresses to convicted felons and accused terrorists violates no ethical standards, then certainly it violates no law. If Mr. Clark was violating the law, he would be violating ethical standards. So, you done me the invaluable service of confirming that giving Ohio lawmakers’ home addresses to strangers without their consent is perfectly okay And if it poses no public danger to give Ohio lawmakers’ addresses to strangers, then certainly it should be okay to give out addresses of, say, corrections officials. And if it s okay to give out home addresses of corrections officials, there is no conceivable threat in someone proposing a web features where corrections officials addresses might get posted on a message board.

Again, Thank you.

Freedom,

Sean Swain

c: seanswain.org

23 July 2013

Dear Governor:

I’m very confused and I hope you can help me. Because I’m a prisoner and a simple guy, I’m going to write this in plain, simple language. I hope you don’t mind.

To give you an idea of what I’m facing, I have 3 cases in point to present to you:

FIRST CASE IN POINT. In August 2012, ODRC Director Gary Mohr outsourced prisoner financial transaction to the Jpay Corporation, and in the process he gave the personal information – Ohioans’ home addresses, phone numbers, and photos – of upwards of 700,000 prisoner visitors to Jpay without the consent of those 700,000 citizens. When I challenged this, every Ohio agency I contacted claimed that Gary Mohr’s conduct is okay.

Now, there’s a proposition of law in this, I think. A general principle. Director Mohr can bundle my elderly parents’ personal information and give it away to whomever he chooses without consent. And if “all men are created equal” under the law, that means anyone else can do what Director Mohr did. It’s okay for anyone to give away personal information of anyone else without asking consent.

The legislature said it’s okay. Your administration said it’s okay. Law enforcement said it’s okay.

SECOND CASE IN POINT. The ODRC has a website that posts my photo, name, and a description of my criminal convictions. The ODRC posts the same information on 50,000 Ohio prisoners. This is done without our consent.

Again, we have a general principle here. It’s okay to post public information on-line without someone’s permission. The law is the law. If the ODRC can do it, so can you, and so can I.

Your administration says it’s okay. The legislature says it’s okay. Law enforcement says it’s okay.

THIRD CASE IN POINT. On 27 March, ODRC Counsel Trevor Matthew Clark interviewed me and during questioning he handed me an address list that included home addresses and phone numbers, including yours, of Ohio officials. I held the list long enough to memorize some of the addresses. Senator Teresa Fedor, for example, lives on Belvedere in Toledo. Representative Hagar lives on Madera Avenue in Youngstown. Speaker of the House Louis Blessing lives on McGill Lane.

I found ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark’s conduct absolutely bewildering. Imagine if I was actually guilty of murder, and if I had actually formed the international terror network that Mr. Clark falsely alleges I formed. It would seem completely irrational to hand your personal, home address to a convicted murderer accused of terrorism.

It really makes you wonder about this bozo’s motives, doesn’t it?

Well, as it turns out, he did nothing wrong. That’s what the ODRC Director Gary Mohr says. That’s what he legislature says. And that’s what the Ohio State Highway Patrol says.

There’s nothing wrong with giving your home address to anybody without your consent. ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark did it and admits it in recorded testimony at my disciplinary hearing (MANCI-13-002907).

So now, having presented those 3 cases in point, I’m confused. I hope you can help me. The situation is this: I was falsely accused and provably framed for prison rule violations, facing supermax for no valid reason, and I proposed to friends in the free world that they created an on-line feature to expose the corrupt officials who maliciously framed me. I proposed posting their names, faces, and descriptions of their misconduct.

Sound familiar? I got the idea from the ODRC. I know it’s okay to do it. You said so. Director Mohr said so. The legislature said so. Law enforcement said so.

But now, with the original frame-up exposed, even Director Mohr said I did nothing wrong, and still I am going to maximum security because I proposed a web feature to expose prison staff crimes to the tax paying, voting public. And this is very confusing if you consider the 3 cases-in-point I’ve presented.

Remember, it’s okay for Director Mohr to bundle and give away my elderly parents’ personal information to anyone… And it’s okay for the ODRC to post my photo and name and offense description on-line without my consent… And it’s even okay for Trevor Clark to give your home address and phone number to a (falsely) accused terrorist in prison. So, my confusion lies in this: why is Trevor Clark, who gave me your home address, having me sent to maximum security simply because I proposed a web feature (that does not exist) that would post the same information about him and about Director Mohr that the ODRC posts about me?

It’s either okay to post someone’s name photo and conduct descriptions without their permission, or it isn’t.

You say it’s okay. The legislature says it’s okay. The courts say it’s okay. Law enforcement says it’s okay. Director Mohr doesn’t just say it’s okay – he does it… But ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark (who hands out your home address to accused terrorists without your consent) says it’s not okay.

Trevor Clark says if I post names, photos and conduct descriptions of ODRC bad apples, or even by simply proposing that someone else should do it, I am promoting “violence,” “property damage,” and “harassment of persons.” But if this truly the case as he says, my questions is, why has the ODRC for decades promoted “violence” and “property damage” and “harassment of person,
against me and against 50,000 other prisoners whose information is posted at the ODRC website? Also, why is Director Mohr promoting “violence” and “property damage” and “harassment of persons” against my elderly parents and the 700,000 prisoner visitors whose information he bundled and gave away without their consent? And why is the ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark promoting “violence” and “property damage” and “harassment of persons” against you when handing your address out to convicted felons accused of terrorist activities?

I hope you understand my confusion. As a model prisoner trying to earn a parole and go home, I seek nothing more than a means to hold corrupt prison officials accountable and I’ve done nothing more than propose a web feature to expose the crimes of my captors to tax payers and voters, and I am subject to a regiment of torture and terror by prison officials whose own conduct, which may in fact be criminal, reveals their knowledge that my lesser conduct is no violation of their rules.

Prison officials present that my proposal for publicly exposing staff crimes “threatens” the “security” of the prisons. I would suggest to you, Sir, that the crimes of my captors threatens prison security. I would suggest that Gary Mohr’s pirating of 7000,000 identities of Ohio citizens to an out-of-state profiteer threatens “security”. I would suggest that an unstable attorney for the ODRC handing out your home address to convicted criminals violates “security”.

Exposing bad apples to public scrutiny so systems can be reformed and the corrupt can be weeded out is not a threat to security. It is good policy. It is a public service. And the very fact that the ODRC feels so threatened shows just how far down the rabbit hole we really are.

I am a whistle-blower victimized by corrupt bureaucrats circling the wagons and defending the status quo, punishing me for what amounts to good citizenship. We’re through the looking glass. I am being subject to a terror campaign by an unstable bureaucrat who hands your home address out to prisoners and then tells those under his mismanagement, “Don’t do as I say, and don’t do as I do.”

Please investigate this matter and take appropriate action so that I do not die in prison for being a model prisoner. My legal counsel, activist attorney Robert Fitrakis, may be reached at (614) 307-9783.

Thank you for your time and kind consideration.

Sincerely,

Sean Swain

c: Counsel Robert Fitrakis
Mr. Rob Jeffreys, Chief, Bureau of Classification
Ms. Joanna Saul, Director, CIIC

Rules Infraction Board Fails to Mount Coherent Case, Finds Swain Guilty Anyhow

On April 30th, 2013 the Mansfield Correctional Rules Infraction Board (RIB) held a hearing for Sean Swain where they again tried to make the case that he is the leader and founder of the Army of the 12 Monkeys (A12M), an anarchist prison gang / guerilla army. The hearing lasted an unprecedented three hours and forty-five minutes. Leslie Dillon, admitted founding member of A12M testified that Swain is innocent and that the charging official, investigator Angela Hunsinger actually provided the guerilla manuals. The hearing and conduct report were rife with inaccuracies, jurisdictional issues, illegal investigative procedures, and absurdities, but still resulted in a guilty verdict against Mr Swain.

A summary of some of those irregularities (more detailed analysis, from Sean is online here.:

1. They admitted that the first conduct report was harassment and unconstitutional targeting- and described the current conduct report as a rehearing of that conduct report. In other words, they are saying that they are repeating and continuing harassment and unconstitutional targeting.
2. This is NOT a rehearing, there are new charges and a whole new set of supposed evidence, collected in March of 2013. 200 days after the investigation was supposed to be over.
3. Legally, there is no conduct report. ManCI investigator Angela Hunsinger signed the conduct report, she’s the charging official, but in the hearing, she disavowed the entire thing and testified that she did not write it.
4. Leslie Dillon’s testified in Sean’s favor, re-affirmed his affidavit. This exonerates Sean completely and proves the entire process is just malicious harassment.
5. No evidence was admitted during the hearing by the charging official. None. Not one piece of paper. The guilty verdict of the RIB was based on Hunsinger’s totally inaccurate and blatantly false characterizations of letters written by 12 Monkey-accused prisoners.
6. ManCI investigators should not have had access to those letters. They can only review prisoners’ outgoing correspondence for a 21 day investigation. The investigation started September 19th and ended October 10th, 2012. The letters referred to in the conduct report (but not presented as evidence during the hearing) were written in March of 2013.
7. Three of those letters were written by other prisoners and have no bearing on Swain’s conduct.
8. None of the letters Sean wrote are conceivably threats to the security of the facility or indications of involvement with the army of the 12 Monkeys.
A. Letters in which he mentions that 12 Monkeys manuals can be found online at http://ge.tt/2ckaeFo/v/0 and http://ge.tt/6UJJ4xp. He has presented this information to people he wrote to (including ODRC Director Gary Mohr) as evidence that someone outside the prison with access to the internet must have created A12M.
B. In one letter he makes a joke that outside supporters should capitalize on 12 Monkeys notoriety by printing T-Shirts. He compares them to the famously ironic Che Gueverra t-shirts. This is obviously irrelevant and protected speech.
C. In another letter, he proposes a feature to a website he does not own or control (seanswain.org). A proposal which was rejected by the people who do control the website, and which, even if adopted, would be considered protected free speech by precedent set in federal courts.
9. Trevor Clark- who assisted in writing the conduct report (or, based on Hunsinger’s testimony, likely wrote the report and had her sign it) was visibly agitated and left the hearing. Later, he repeatedly burst back in to interrupt the hearing and tell everyone that he was on the phone with the FBI and had told them about that time when he shared the home addresses of Ohio politicians with Sean during one of their interviews. Clark seemed to intend this as some kind of threat… we’re not sure how stupidly sharing his mistake with more people hurts Sean. Clark said he would be writing a new conduct report against Sean.

Despite all of these absurdities, the RIB hearing found Sean guilty and will continue to hold him in the control unit and deprive him of basic rights and human needs, like sleep and adequate meals while he files his appeals.

Swain’s supporters believe this is ManCI’s true intention. They want to keep Sean there, so they can continue to torture him. If we beat these charges, they’ll just manufacture new conduct reports to keep Sean under investigation permanently. The conduct report Clark threatened to write would be the fourth frivolous and nonsensical report filed against Swain since September: 1.the admittedly ideology-targeting report, 2. the “redo” report producing this hearing, and 3. a frivolous report filed by Uriah Melton– Swain’s supposed advocate at ManCI are the other three. 4. Clark’s new report, to be uncovered.

Please send Sean mail, please donate to his legal fund. We are going forward with the lawsuit and could use all the help we can get. Thanks to hours Kate from RedBird spent on the phone with central office, Sean and the others can receive zines again. Please send things to read.

It seems like the mailroom continue to throw Sean’s mail away, randomly. If you mail him, or any of the A12M accused prisoners anything, please drop redbirdprisonabolition@riseup.net an email so we can verify if he received it (via Mr Fitrakis’ legal mail).

Sean’s Statement before RIB

Sean sent us a copy of what he wrote for his opening statement before the RIB board on April 31st. We transcribed it and combined it with other notes and details he has sent to us.

I have four issues to raise for the record before addressing the facts of the case, if I may.

First, the State of Ohio is in breach of contract, which precludes the holding of a disciplinary hearing and qualifies as grounds for dismissal of these charges.
The State of Ohio is a “creature of law”. It is not a living thing. It is brought into existence by a legal document. In this case, the Ohio Constitution. That legal instrument, the Ohio Constitution, is the creating document for the State of Ohio, bringing it into existence.
Like all contracts, the Ohio Constitution describes the duties and powers of the parties. In this case, there is The State of Ohio, the government, and the People, who are subjects. The state has powers designated to it – the power to make laws and enforce them – and it also has duties – the duty to protect rights. Those are terms of the contract.
Subjects, you and me, also have powers and duties. We must obey the laws, which is a term of the contract.
Article I of The Ohio Constitution provides in part that the State of Ohio must protect my right to free speech. This is a duty The State of Ohio has – a contractual duty. On 19 September, the State of Ohio breached that duty. I was placed in a torture cell on torture cell row, my rough draft of a published article and my typewriter were confiscated and I was subjected to a long ordeal admittedly for protected speech. The State of Ohio has undone the disciplinary findings and in this conduct report the State admits that there was a focus on my protected expression. When the State of Ohio did that to me, it violated the terms of the Ohio Constitution. It violated the contract.
There are consequences from violating a contract.
If you and I have a contract that I will de-ice your windows in the morning if you pay me $5 per day, we have a contract. On Monday, I de-ice your car windows. On Tuesday, you pay me $5 and I de-ice your windows. But on Thursday, I don’t de-ice your windows. When I come to you on Friday for $5 will you pay me? I ask, because your part of the contract requires you to pay me $5.
You certainly won’t pay me – because I breached the contract. When I breached the contract, I released you from your obligations. You no longer have to meet your end because I defaulted on my end.
Well, the same situation here. The State of Ohio had a contractual duty to protect my right to free speech. It’s part of the contract, and in breaching the contract, it released me from my obligations.
The State of Ohio crumpled up the contract. Ohio’s laws are passed by the legislature, which derives it’s power from that contract. No contract, no laws. The State of Ohio told me the laws do not apply. It released me from its laws. It breached the contract. I no longer had to follow its laws anymore than you had to pay me $5 for services I’m no longer performing.
The State of Ohio released me from the contractual obligation of following it’s laws on 19 September when it breached its contract. Its actions said the laws do not apply here. Lt Dahlby expressly told me the laws do not apply here. So, from 19 September, 2012 until The State of Ohio admitted what it did and attempted something curative – at least until then – there was an absence of law between The State of Ohio and me. You, the State of Ohio, said so.
Well, herein is the problem. The rules of conduct that the State is now attempting to prosecute are a product of the Ohio Administrative Code – the very law that the State of Ohio released me from following when it breached the contract on 19 September and punished me expressly for protected speech.
As I was released from the contract, I cannot be held to its terms. The State of Ohio has no standing to bring these claimed rules violations and the conduct report, as a matter of law, must be dismissed.
I move for its dismissal on this basis.

Second, this disciplinary case lacks jurisdiction. I was confined beginning 19 September 2012, admittedly profiled and targeted for protected speech. After 217 days, the guilty findings were reversed. Now, the form says that it is overturned by legal for re-issue and rehearing of new conduct reports, and it says that the charges may be reheard. However, legally, there’s a problem in all of this. In fact, there are a few problems.
1. This is not a rehearing. I am not facing the same charges – two new charges have been added and one old charge was dropped. So, this is a new case with a new code number, not a rehearing of the old case.
2. I am not accused of the same conduct. The conduct previously was protected speech for which I cannot be legally punished. So, now, it appears that the State is proceeding as if I am not being punished for the reason the state has already admitted it is punishing me, but, instead the State tossed me in the hole last September for alleged rules violations I was going to commit 6 months later.
3. You can’t shove the poop back into the mule. We know why Angela Hunsinger ideologically profiled me. We know why I came to the hole. We know why I was subjected to torture where two men have since died. It was admitted in the first conduct report. Ideology. Jpay. Anarchist. So now, with a new conduct report and new charges and new allegations of new misconduct, we have an effort to shove the poop back into the donkey. We’re going to pretend this ordeal did not happen for the reason it happened, and we’re going to try to put a legally-acceptable excuse on the legally unacceptable events that have already happened and are now ongoing. This is illegal. It is continued free speech persecution under a pretty mask.

On that basis, I move for the dismissal of the conduct report.

Third, there is a jurisdictional problem in this case. MANCI had the legal authority to open and photocopy my outgoing mail for a 21-day investigation. That means MANCI had until 10 October 2012 to investigate my outgoing mail. Charging officials allege that the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation requested that they open and photocopy my mail for the extended period giving rise to this conduct report.
I don’t know if that’s true. Neither do you. Such a written request is not mentioned in the conduct report, and if such requests did exist, they would necessarily have to be mentioned in the conduct report, pursuant to Policy 56-DSC-01 (VI)(1)(b), requesting all relevant facts. I would assert that documents establishing jurisdictional authority are relevant facts.
Having said that, even if such documentary requests exist, the charging officials are without jurisdiction to bring these charged rules violations. Assuming the FBI requested my photocopied mail that does not justify this disciplinary process. The FBI has power to investigate federal crimes. Ms Hunsinger and Mr Clark can by all means, photocopy my mail and turn it over to Special Agent in charge, C. Frank Figliuzzi can consider federal charges; the US attorney can bring an indictment. Neither of these people are Special Agent Figliuzzi. This is NOT a federal court.
Likewise, if Lt RS Chapman of the Ohio State Highway Patrol requested a mountain of my mail, he is entitled to it. He can review it for violations of state law. If he find violations of state law, he can urge the Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine to bring state charges in an indictment. But this is not an indictment with state charges.
If Special Agent Figliuzzi cannot find federal charges, then he can take my photocopied mail over which he has jurisdiction, and he can dispose of it. If Lt Chapman cannot find state charges, then he can take his copy of my photocopied mail, and he can dispose of it. But legally, neither of them, obtaining my outgoing and incoming correspondence under the justification of investigating state and federal crimes, can hand those materials to prison authorities in order to bring disciplinary charges based upon materials that prison authorities had no authority to obtain directly.

On that basis, I move that my conduct report be redacted to remove all references to any correspondence from me that was sent after the institution’s investigation expired on 10 October, 2012. And I move for dismissal of all charged rule violations that have their basis in my outgoing correspondence after 10 October 2012. To use that correspondence is to continue the lawless exceptionalism that has been the hallmark of this case from the start.

As a fourth and final matter before addressing the facts, this conduct report is beyond the time limits allowed by local policy 3D 011 (vI(J)(3)(b), requiring an RIB hearing to be held within seven business days following the date I was placed in security control for other than investigative reasons. That means that, by the mandatory timelines, you had seven business days from Oct 10, 2012. That period elapsed on 19 October, 2012. You are now [at the time of the hearing] 200 days late. Assuming an argument that this is a re-hearing, I would remind you that it is not. It is a distinct, new case number with new charges and a totally new infrastructure of fact. It is not a re-hearing of MANCI-12-007219. It is not a re-hearing of those charges. It is not a re-hearing of those charged instances of alleged misconduct. This new conduct report, stating the date of offense of 19 September, 2012 at 4:00 PM had to be heard months ago pursuant to the Ohio Administrative Code, DRC policy, and local policy.

On that basis, I move for the conduct report’s dismissal.

Should I continue with the facts of the case, or permit you to address those legal arguments first? If you want, I’ll continue w/ the facts. I’ll try to be brief and thorough.

In 2009 I came to MANCI. Model prisoner- no fights, no major misconduct, locked up since 1991. No gang activity. But right after I got here, Ms Hunsinger put me on the gang list, absent the requisite gang ticket, because a website called SeanSwain.org featured my published work.

August 2012, JPAY policy happened and I wrote an article for seanswain.org saying it’s identity theft to take 750,000 visitors information without their consent and give it to Jpay. Shortly after that, someone- not a prisoner- posted 12 Monkeys manuals on the internet. Staff printed them off. In a prison where 3A + 3B prisoners don’t mingle, staff had to be involved to get hundreds of copies to every block.

I was recommended for medium on 12 September. I had to get to Marion for programs to get a parole in 2016. I’ll have 25 years in.

According to Shawn Marshall, it was about that time he was called to Security Threat Group (STG) office. Marshall was in 3A with me. Marshall says he was given 12 Monkey Manuals to plant in my cell. He didn’t do it. When STG searched my cell for nearly 2 hours on 19 September, all they found was a rough draft of my Jpay article and my typewriter. I was one of 3 prisoners searched that day, I later learned. I had NO 12 Monkeys materials but I was removed from population and placed in a torture cell on torture cell row where two men have since died.

Les Dillon, in 1B, was found with a mountain of 12 Monkeys materials. He was left in population. Does that sound like a 12 Monkey investigation?

I was held incommunicado in conditions the CIA Kubark manual calls “the simple torture situation,” I left there sleep-deprived and hallucinating. In the last 230-some days, decades-long procedures for segregation changed to make conditions intolerable, in at least 13 ways, while I’ve lost over 50 pounds. In slow starvation.

The investigation ended 10 October, 2012 and I went to RIB 24 October, charged with rules 15, 17, and 56, based on my ideology and published work. Jpay, anarchism. Ms Hunsinger testified that I engaged in none of the 12 Monkeys promoted activities, I played no role in their materials, and I engaged in no criminal activity. I was found guilty and slated for supermax as a CREATOR of the Army of the 12 Monkeys. I was days away from transfer.

My attorney presented proof of my innocence, including the domains where 12 Monkeys materials are on the internet- where I can’t put them, evidence Ms Hunsinger conceded. He proved Ms Hunsinger misrepresented my writings. SeanSwain.org amassed a groundswell of support from Justice Watch to Amnesty International; National Religious Campaign Against Torture to claims before the OAS that may set a precedent in international law. I’m recognized as a political prisoner and as a prisoner of conscience, and I’ve now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The DRC hates SeanSwain.org.

On passover, the day that the god of Abraham, Itzak, and Yisrael liberated slaves from Egypt, I learned this injustice was reversed. Unfortunately, a new injustice is renewed with all the legal deficiencies I raised already. Those claims notwithstanding, the new conduct report cites 8 instances of conduct I will address briefly [Sean re-iterates the arguments found here].

So, to recap, here are eight reasons you’re supposed to give the parole board justification to make me die in prison as a terrorist rather than going to medium to get programs and get a parole before my elderly parents die:

1. Dillon wrote a story investigators misrepresent in 7 ways.
2. Dzelajilija wrote a letter that doesn’t implicate me in anything.
3. Marshall believed Ms Hunsinger just like everyone else does so he sent me a coded message.
4. I discovered web addresses that destroyed the first flimsy case they brought.
5. I don’t have 12 Monkey manuals on a site I don’t own.
6. I insulted the 12 Monkeys by suggesting a friend should profiteer and sell t-shirts.
7. Other people own a site that doesn’t feature an idea I proposed, that doesn’t work like investigators describe it.
8. One of Ms Hunsinger’s personalities doesn’t know the other one already exonerated me of disseminating 12 Monkey materials on the compound.

PSALM 118:10-12.
His word does not return to him void.

Further analysis of BLAST!Blog accusations (#7) sent in a second letter, mailed May 19th…

This is BLAST!Blog in a nutshell: I proposed a feature at SeanSwain.org which is mastered outside the US on a server OUTSIDE the US. What I wrote was a proposal. It was titled: Proposal. As I have no internet access, I CANNOT post anything anywhere nor create a feature on a site. Also, I don’t own seanswain.org. Really, I don’t even know who does.
So, before we go into the CONTENT of my BLAST!Blog proposal, let’s be clear about the process. I was ONLY writing a proposal and sending it to others who may or may not implement the proposed idea. This means what we’re dealing with in the prison disciplinary process is NOT whether or not BLAST!Blog would be a threat to security. No. What we’re dealing with is the question of whether it constitutes a threat to security if I communicate an idea for a website to my friends and my counsel in the free world. We’re ONLY dealing with MY SPEECH, my transmission of a proposed idea. When my mail left here and went to point B, did that endanger the security of the institution?
Again, before we get to CONTENT of BLAST!Blog, whatever it is, it’s the argument of fascists that I can put words on paper and if they arrive in the free world, the ODRC might fall apart. NOT if you ACT on those words. Just if YOU read them.
Yes. I have magic powers.
They can’t argue anything else. If they argue that it’s not what I wrote, but that it’s IF you act on it, then they have switched the focus- it would become YOUR conduct that is a potential threat. They can’t punish me for that. So, legally speaking, they are locked in on an arugement that MY COMMUNICATION OF WORDS ON PAPER- in the form of the BLAST!Blog proposal- THREATENED SECURITY.
Now, the CONTENT of what I wrote.
BLAST!Blog, as I proposed it, would be a feature. It would have a disclaimer against violence, property damage and harrassment. A disclaimer written and/or approved by counsel. After the disclaimer, mandated-acknowledgement disclaimer, you go to BLAST!Blog proper. BLAST!Blog would have a listing of fascists and their crimes against humanity. It would have their names- just like the DRC website. It would have their photo, just like the DRC website. It would have a description of their crimes, just like the DRC website has for 50,000 convicted felons.
By the BLAST!Blog proposal, THAT IS ALL THE INFORMATION THAT SEANSWAIN.ORG WOULD POST. Nothing more. Neither BLAST!Blog, nor seanswain.org would post ANY personal information of anyone. Period.
Hunsinger alleges that BLAST!Blog would feature home addresses, phone #s, etc of DRC employees to promote harassment, violence and property damage. Again, she MADE THAT UP. See a pattern? Where evidence does not exist, she invents it.
Now, BLAST!Blog would also feature message boards. Visitors would post comments on them. Legally, seanswain.org IS NOT responsible for the contents of anonymous visitor postings. No telling what might be posted. No telling if anything would be posted.
So the legal question is, is the content of my BLAST!Blog proposal, a proposal to create a feature that has no more information than the DRC website, with a disclaimer against violence, so fucking dangerous that MY WRITING IT and my TRANSMISSION OF IT TO FREE WORLD PEOPLE constitutes a threat to the safety and security of the DRC?
Get the fuck out of here.
For legal purposes, let’s compare. Another case. Oregon- I think. People posted a page at freepress (?) and on the page they featured HOME ADDRESSES of scumbag cops. As far as I know, no disclaimer. The federal court said their postings were PROTECTED FREE SPEECH. Now, let’s consider. In Oregon, we’re dealing with cops, not guards. We’re dealing with cops in the community among people who can visit the site. Prisoners can’t visit a site. In Oregon, we’re not dealing with a messageboard, but direct posting of home addresses. In Oregon, we’re not dealing with- as far as I know- a mandatory-acknowledgement disclaimer. So, in Oregon, the SPEECH under review by the court was, in every respect, more serious and more dangerous than anything I proposed. Also in that case, they didn’t propose doing it; they did it.
Okay, so I’m going to MAX for suggesting that you engage in PROTECTED SPEECH???
How could it be that SUGGESTING that you engage in PROTECTED SPEECH would constitute a threat to the prison’s security???
I don’t care what these fuckweasels say, but there no conceivable way anybody can legally argue that merely suggesting you do something the federal courts say you have a right to do could be a danger to prison security.
Now, check it out. Blackjack wrote a letter telling people NOT to create a website. That’s a security threat. He’s going to MAX. I wrote a letter telling people TO build a site. That’s a security threat. I’m going to MAX. So, if you say DO it, you go to max; if you say NOT to do it, you got to MAX. So, if you mention the internet, you’re a security threat???
Speaking of security threat- you recall these are the same shitheads who said Walden is a treat to security, right? We’re talking about credibility here. They have none.
Also, in the first conduct report, remember my writings were “advocating property damage and violence.” Then in my 5B Placement, no less than 4 times they assert that I advocate “property damage and violence.” Then, in a kite that conceivably says NOTHING threatening, they allege that I “threaten bodily harm”- violence. Now, the re-tread case, they again allege that I promote “property damage and potential violence.”
Property damage property damage property damage, violence violence violence. It matters not what I write or what I say, it’s advocacy of property damage and violence. Provably, that’s got nothing to do with reality. It has to do with their psychopathology. They are provably delusional. Violence violence violence property damage property damage property damage.
You do realize, in 22+ years locked up, I’ve had ZERO fights. No violence in 22+ years. I took a vow of non-violence in 1995. I was recognized personally- not making this up- by ROSA PARKS for my dedication to nonviolence. SHE nominated my placement on the Wall of Tolerance- she PERSONALLY NOMINATED ME- for my work toward a peaceful, nonviolent world.
No fights. 22+ years. In prison.
Violence violence violence. Property damage property damage property damage. Really??
I’ve been terrorized. I’m in the custody of terrorists who say a man who took and kept a vow of nonviolence is violent. I was tortured. Starved. Subjected to purposeless, mindless trauma.