The Groom Lake Desert Rat: Issue 21
Issue #21. January 25, 1995
In this issue...
- Fun With Law
- Legal Fund Grows
- Case Of The Kidnapped Trespassers
- New Product: Vehicle Pass
- Freebie: Nellis Range Chart
- Cellular Interference
- Triangular Aircraft Sighting
- Picnic Report
- Intel Bitties
Fun With Law
Judge Holton Bows Out Of Campbell Trial
The saying goes: "He who defends himself in court has a fool for a client." Maybe so, but Glenn Campbell is a happy fool as circumstances seem to turn his way in his long-running obstruction case. Campbell was arrested for pushing down the car door locks during the warrantless seizure of KNBC's video tape on July 19. In the latest turn of events, Justice of the Peace Nola Holton abruptly excused herself from the case, without explanation and only one day before the Jan. 18 pre-trial hearing. The case has been transferred to a Justice of the Peace in Ely, Nevada, Ronald Niman. This means Campbell now has both his own Special Prosecutor AND a Special Judge. Since Niman apparently had no time in his schedule for the Jan. 18 hearing, it and the trial have again been postponed. The pre-trial hearing will now be held on the previously scheduled trial date, Feb. 8 at 10 am, so visitors who had made arrangements to attend the trial can still attend the hearing. No new trial date has been set.
Although Campbell expressed dismay that the Court canceled the hearing and reassigned jurists without notice to him, he says he is pleased with the change of judges. "Holton is too close to the police," Campbell said. "A new judge may bring some perspective to this case." Campbell says he asked his Special Prosecutor, Steve Dobrescu, his opinion of Judge Niman, and Dobrescu evaluated Niman as one of the most competent J.P.'s he had practiced before. "That's good enough for me," said Campbell. "Whatever pleases my Special Prosecutor pleases me."
Although their relationship has been cordial, Campbell and Dobrescu have had their differences. For example, they have disagreed on whether or not a jury trial is warranted in this misdemeanor case. In a recent exchange of motions, Dobrescu says no, and Campbell says yes. "Steve's skating on thin ice on this one," says Campbell. "I can see the cracks forming around his blades." Still no response has been issued by Dobrescu on Campbell's new 13-page Motion for Discovery, which asks, among other things, for the names of the Cammo Dudes who reported the incident for which the Sheriff's deputy was called to the scene of the arrest [See DR#12].
Unlike the motions reported in [DR#19], Campbell's latest were printed on numbered paper with the proper header format and fully annotated "Points and Authorities" at the end. "I've outgrown my training wheels," says Campbell. "I can fly! I can fly!"
Fundamentals Of Legal Research
Psychospy has been trying to assist the pea-brained defendant wherever possible. We've spent many days at the Clark County Law Library trying to understand the law and how it works. We started from zero to build a good understanding of the philosophy of law and the basic techniques of legal research. We suffer no lack of legal advice if we need it. We are grateful to our sleazebag lawyer friends AP, SH, JT, TL, FH, SD, RS, RO and LJ for the words of wisdom that got us started, but most of what we have accomplished we did ourselves. The field of law is not as intimidating as it seems; it is easily accessible to anyone with initiative and access to the law books.
The law is, above all, a logical enterprise where everything is written down and all the rules and procedures are easily decoded if you know a few simple rules about where to look. What the lawyers have given us are some entry points into the world of legal knowledge. They have dropped us some hints, and we have tracked them down. Usually, their advice is no more than a sentence or two. One source, who we shall call "The Angel," imparted her greatest wisdom to us in only a single word whispered from the shadows.
"Shepardize."
To understand what she meant, we had to delve into the mysteries of the Clark County Law Library. On the surface, a law library is an intimidating place. Row after row of musty, anonymous volumes line the walls. One can walk down a corridor in the stacks and not see a single difference in the hundreds of books on either side except for the volume number printed on the spine. These endless books are a database of laws and legal cases. Somewhere among those millions of pages are the gems of information that might be relevant to an obstruction case; the question is how to find them.
Fortunately, most legal volumes are indexed by a very simple method, called the "key system." In any legal document or treatise, if you see a reference to a certain case, like Rowe vs. Wade or Psychospy vs. Cammo Dudes, it is always followed by a code, like 418 US 512. The code may look intimidating, but finding the text of the case couldn't be easier: "418 US 512" means go to Volume 418 of the "U.S. Supreme Court Reports" and turn to page 512. All cases are coded in this way, and one case will probably make reference to still others, along with their codes, which you can look up in the same manner.
All you need is a starting point, and in criminal cases this is provided whenever you are issued a traffic ticket or arraigned for an alleged offense. If you are skateboarding on the sidewalk and a police officer gives you a citation for it, the ticket will specify the number of the statute you allegedly violated--let's say NRS 123.45. You can go to your public library or city hall and ask to see the statutes. In the case of state laws, this is a set of volumes about the size of an encyclopedia. "NRS" in this case means Nevada Revised Statutes, but every state and local jurisdiction has its own set of printed laws, as does the U.S. Government. Fundamental to democracy is the fact that the printed laws are easily accessible to anyone who wants to see them.
Laws or statutes are usually written in relatively simple language. Looking up NRS 123.45, you might find that it says, "Any person found skating on the sidewalk after due notice shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." Trouble is, you weren't "skating" on the sidewalk; you were "skateboarding." Every word is significant in the law. The law is an explicit written description of what you must and cannot do. If you did not violate the letter of the law, then you are not guilty, simple as that.
Still, the difference between "skating" and "skateboarding" is ambiguous. It is matter of definition, and people are going to have different interpretations about whether they are substantially the same thing. That's when you have to go to "case law." Because the world is a complex place, every statute is bound to face questions of application sooner or later. These gray areas are resolved by the previous ruling of appeals courts in actual cases. Perhaps in the case Nevada vs. Gator (101 Nev 431) an appeals court determined that skateboarding and skating were different activities and therefore overturned Gator's conviction under NRS 123.45. If you could locate this ruling, you could show it to the judge, and unless valid opposing cases could be presented by the prosecutor, the judge would be bound by the Gator ruling and would have to let you go. The only challenge is, how do you find the Gator case among those hundreds of anonymous volumes in the law library?
You Shepardize!
In the law library, there is a compact series of books called "Shepard's Citations." In "Shepard's Nevada Citations", you can look up any Nevada statute, and it will give you the code numbers for the all the rulings that have made reference to that statute. Nevada vs. Gator will be listed under NRS 123.45, as will any later cases in which higher courts overturned or affirmed that ruling. There are also Shepard's Citations for cases themselves in which you can look up the code for Nevada vs. Gator and find references to all later rulings that are somehow related.
The first key to a successful court case is to Shepardize the hell out of everything. First, you use Shepard's Citations to find every case that might have any bearing on the current one. Then you study the steps of the trial as defined in the state statutes and Shepardize the hell out of them, too. When in doubt, Shepardize, then Shepardize the results of what you just Shepardized, and don't stop Shepardizing until they shut off the lights and pry the Shepard's Citations from your cold, clammy hands. What you'll have in the end, after studying all these related cases, is a good idea of what motions and strategies the opposition is likely to use and how you can counter them before they even take place.
Trial Strategy
In a trial, the verdict is returned by either a jury or a judge, but there is a lot of legal maneuvering that goes on before the case is even presented. We've all seen it on television in the O.J. Simpson case: months of courtroom drama before the trial even begins. The pre-trial phase is the arbitrated negotiation in which the parties determine the rules of the game like what arguments and evidence will be admissible, who the jurors will be and what instructions will be given to the jury before deliberation. The judge's ruling on these matters depends primarily on case law. Each side tells the judge what they want, and then presents appellate cases to support it. The opposition then might present an opposing argument and its own set of supporting cases, and the judge must make a reasoned choice between them. The pressure is on the judge to make the right decision, because if he doesn't the case could be overturned by a higher court on appeal.
In the Campbell case, the Defense has submitted one primary pre- trial motion (not including those previously rejected--See [DR#19]), and the "State" (which is the actually the county, represented by the Special Prosecutor) has also submitted one. Campbell's motion is a request for discovery materials: information from the State that he says is essential to preparing his defense. For example, the defense wants copies of the video tapes seized from the KNBC crew, because these record the events leading up to the arrest.
After a previous discovery request, the District Attorney did produce, after his customary month of delay, a copy of the single video tape that was returned by the Air Force to the KNBC crew. However, the tape delivered to the Defense contained only the video, no audio, mostly showing the seat of a car. We later learned that the audio was in fact potentially vital to Campbell's defense, because when the camera was sitting on the seat of the car it was recording the sounds of the arrest. Did the District Attorney deliberately provide only the video portion to Campbell, knowing that the audio provided exculpatory evidence? Personally, we have copied hundreds of video tapes (not admitting to piracy), yet have never failed to copy the audio along with the video. We cannot prove bad faith on the part of the District Attorney, but from our prior experience with him and knowledge of some of his actions elsewhere, we wouldn't discount it.
In our two years in Rachel we have been very patient with the local District Attorney and Sheriff. We have done our best to explain our political position to them and give them warning of upcoming events. We have never cried "Conspiracy!" like many visitors are quick to do. We form our opinions only slowly, always giving others the benefit of the doubt, but sooner or later we have to acknowledge the obvious: These are not nice people.
The motion submitted by our Special Prosecutor, who is a nice person, sought to have the Court overturn its decision to grant a jury trial. The stakes are high. The State is worried that if a jury trial is granted here, then everyone accused with a crime relating to Groom Lake will also opt for a jury trial, freaking out the J.P., provoking the ire of county residents who must serve on the jury and drawing the unfavorable attention of the outside world. The Defense counters that jury trials are the only assurance of a fair process in this remote location where the J.P. is close to the police and there aren't any lawyers for miles.
The prosecution's motion was not unexpected. In fact, a nearly identical argument was made about a week before, when Justice Holton issued an order denying a jury trial to the two accused trespassers--the ones who say they were captured by the Cammo Dudes on public land and then marched across the border. Both Holton and Dobrescu based their arguments on the case Nevada vs. Smith (99 Nev 806), which appears at casual reading to disallow the right to a jury trial in "petty" cases where the maximum possible sentence is six months or less. However, a careful word- by-word reading of both the case and the statute, which we had done in our "Shepardizing" phase, reveals that the Smith case applies only to a previous version of the jury trial statute, not the current revised one. "Bet the D.A.'s gonna fall for that one," we said to ourselves.
Sure enough, it happened. Holton issued her order, followed shortly thereafter by Dobrescu's motion. The close timing and nearly identical flawed reasoning leads the observer to an almost inescapable conclusion: that there was secret communication between the State and the Court on this issue. This is known as "ex-parte communication" and it is a big no-no in legal proceedings. Except for certain limited situations like arranging schedules, the judge is not supposed to discuss a case with either party outside of the hearing of the other. In this case, it seems that the flawed Nevada vs. Smith argument originated with the D.A.'s office and was passed to the J.P., then the J.P. issued her ruling without further research and without informing the defendants that the communication had taken place. This appears, in essence, to be a single-sided motion filed and ruled upon in secret. Other evidence that we cannot now reveal supports the ex- parte contention, making the "Kidnapped Trespassers" case a lot more interesting.
In the Campbell case, however, the motion was not improper in its origin, merely flawed in its logic. Campbell fired off a response to the Court noting the change in the law. In NRS 175.011 authorizing jury trials, the wording in effect at the time of the original Smith case was....
"In a justice's court a case shall be tried by jury only if the defendant so demands in writing not less that 5 days prior to trial."
In the Smith case, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the word "shall" was procedural and did not convey a right. However, in 1983, the law was amended to...
"In a justice's court a case must be tried by jury only if the defendant so demands in writing not less that 30 days before trial."
Dobrescu responded to Campbell's response with another motion, this time based on the wafer-thin argument that "shall" meant exactly the same thing as "must," leading to the implausible implication that the legislature changed the wording for no reason whatsoever. (Dobrescu also cited a case State vs. District Court (104 Nev 91), which we had also researched previously. It was an ambiguous ruling, issued without explanation, concerning the constitutional right to jury trials in DUI cases.) Nevada, like Alaska and other states with a libertarian bent, has traditionally taken a strong stand on the right of jury trials, perceiving them as an essential protection of the citizen against the encroachment of government power.
In any older or more populous state, there would be reams of case law clarifying the issue, but this is Nevada, an empty backwater until only a few decades ago, where much of the law hasn't had a chance to mature. California is a state with "real law," as one of our sleazebag associates puts it; Nevada has only "baby law." This makes Nevada an ideal kindergarten in which to learn the law and where we might even participate in defining it. Feb. 8 may be only a pre-trial hearing, but it is also the chance for student lawyer Campbell, on his very first case, to present a legal argument that may affect Nevada law for years to come. State vs. Campbell (? Nev ?) could be the case that clearly determines whether or not there is a statutory right to a jury trial in misdemeanor cases in Nevada justice courts.
Realistically, though, the jury trial issue is only an entertaining diversion that probably won't go anyplace because the obstruction charges can't be sustained. We have found the citations which show explicitly what common sense already dictates: "The existence of a valid process is a necessity in order to sustain a conviction for resisting an officer in the execution of his duties." (10 ALR3d 1146) Combining this with the constitutional and statutory guarantee that the defendant is "innocent until proven guilty," the State must prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that its seizure of the KNBC video tapes without a warrant was legal and proper. The D.A. might be able to convince the captive Nola Holton of this but probably not any other judge or jury.
Nevada vs. Smith was the turning point for Campbell. The greatest "high" in law is to accurately predict what the opposition will do and be ready with a countermove before they make theirs. Suddenly, the law is fun! To beat these local authorities at their own game, all we have to do is conduct careful legal research, actively prepare for all scenarios, then sit back and watch the State impale itself on its own weak case.
Law And Morality
Aside from Shepard's Citations, the most powerful tool a lawyer can have is a strong internal sense of right and wrong. This may seem surprising in a society that often regards lawyers as the lowest scum on the earth, but the lawyers that represent this underside are also the ones that lose more often than win. The law is, at base, a codification of social ethics. Anyone can memorize written rules and learn to find ways around them, but that doesn't mean they have learned the motivation behind the rules or can make decisions about rules they have not yet memorized. A lawyer with a strong sense of the spirit of the law can predict the statutes before he reads them and know that case law probably exists to support his position even before Shepardizing.
The best advantage you can have in any legal proceeding is to be on the side that is morally right. Then you are likely to find a rich trove of case law in your favor. Over time, case law evolves to support a position which is thoughtful and rational and adheres to the rules of courtesy and fairness we learned as children. The lawyer on the side that is morally wrong can still score points by exploiting legal technicalities and temporary inequities in the law, but these tools are generally weak and isolated, and if they collapse there is usually little else to fall back on.
The advantage is also psychological: Lawyers for the side that is right are more likely to be fired up by their work, devoting their full personal passion to it and conducting more thorough research. Lawyers for the side that is morally questionable tend to do little more than go through the motions because they are being paid to. Their research is superficial and tends to focus on the few technicalities they think might get them off the hook. They do not feel comfortable digging any deeper because they suspect that what they will find can only damage their case.
The position of the D.A. and Sheriff in defending an anonymous federal authority is morally wrong and thus legally vulnerable. Here is a publicly accountable police force choosing to represent a secret, non-accountable federal entity that refuses to stand up itself. There are more than enough federal laws to handle trespassers, espionage and any other problems the Groom Lake authorities might have with civilians, but no federal law enforcement agency--like the FBI or Federal Marshall's Service-- would touch this place with a ten-foot pole. They know the inconsistencies of a non-existent base won't hold up in federal court, and no agency wants to be the public fall guy for the Air Force's bad decisions. Only these local patsies are dumb enough to do the Air Force's bidding.
The county is like a wife who is beaten up regularly by her brutish husband yet who continues to rush to his defense for whatever mess he has gotten himself into. The military has cheated the county out of millions of dollars of taxes over the years, dumped hazardous fumes into the local air, doused residents with deadly radiation and returned only trivial economic benefits to the community. Yet, for a tiny fee and junior membership in the secrets club, the Sheriff and D.A. seem willing to sacrifice any amount of personal and professional dignity to defend the invisible military. It takes simple rewards to satisfy small minds.
The local authorities seem to like to be beaten up. Placing themselves between the secret base and the public as the only targetable entity in sight, they have volunteered themselves as the Air Force's lightning rod. After our own trumped-up obstruction case, our desire to protect these local officials is nil. Now that we have mastered the basics of criminal law, an exciting new horizon awaits: civil law. There are so many people we've been meaning to sue, but life is short and you never seem to have the time to do everything you want. On the other hand, if we don't sue, we'll continue to be like that Rodney Dangerfield character that doesn't get any respect.
Legal Fund Grows
We wish to thank the following recent donors to our Area 51 legal fund:
$400 from Trader@cup.portal.com
$200 from "EA"
$110 from "The Swiss Mountain Bat"
$50 from "NH"
$25 from "SA"
$30 from "RG"
$15 from "AC"
(We also wish to thank Trader for the numbered legal paper which we have used so liberally.)
Here are our policies regarding this fund...
Donations will be kept in a separate, non-interest-bearing account. For tactical reasons, we will not publish the balance in the account nor will we publish all donations, but we will provide an accounting of how the money has been spent to any donor upon request.
Funds in the account will be used to support legal pursuits relating to Area 51. These items may include fines, filing fees, computer research costs, copying costs, travel and lodging for witnesses and other ancillary costs for legal action. Since the hiring of real lawyers at their going rate would eat up the fund in no time, we will rely on whatever self-help and pro bono advice we can put together. (This might mean we'll have to stop calling our lawyer friends "sleazebags.")
All disbursements from the fund are at the discretion of the fund manager, Glenn Campbell. If you do not trust Mr. Campbell, then do not send money. The fund will NOT be used for any expense related to Campbell's current obstruction case, however. We cannot say now what our future cases will be, but they may include both criminal and civil matters. We make no public offers and do not promise to help every tourist who crosses the line, but if anyone is charged with a crime near the border who we feel is not guilty, we will provide assistance however we can.
Case Of The Kidnapped Trespassers
The case of the two accused trespassers who say they were captured on public land and taken inside the line by the Cammo Dudes is still scheduled for trial on Feb. 15. This date cannot be postponed, because the defendants have not waived their right to a trial within 60 days.
The status of their request for a jury trial is unresolved. Although Judge Holton has denied their request based on the flawed Nevada vs. Smith case, the defendants have resubmitted their request, noting the court's mistakes. It will be interesting to see how the court responds.
The defendants also submitted a written discovery request to the District Attorney asking for the pre-trial information they are entitled to. Although the request was submitted over a month ago, the D.A., in his usual form, has not responded, forcing the defendants to submit a formal discovery motion--on numbered paper no less. The Court and D.A. will no doubt find additional excuses for ignoring the request, but that's what we have come to expect. If no justice can be found here, the job of the Defense is to prepare the case for appeal.
For those who doubt that the Cammo Dudes would capture citizens on public land, we have another witness who claims otherwise. On Jan. 2 at about 1:00 pm, visitor Bruce Hedquist of Yucaipa, CA, drove down the Groom Lake Road from Highway 375. When he reached the Restricted Area signs, he heeded the warning and immediately turned around. Unfortunately, he did so just after the signs--no more than 20 feet inside the border he says. Shortly thereafter, one of the anonymous Cammo Dude patrols pulled him over. The Dudes demanded ID, threatened Hedquist with arrest and held him outside his vehicle for 15 to 20 minutes--all on public land where the Air Force is not supposed to have any jurisdiction. Although Hedquist was eventually released, he says that he thought the Dudes would have transported him back inside the line if they did not have the car to worry about.
With this kind of evidence, as well as that of other incidents we have collected [See Texans in DR#9], the defendants seem to have a strong case. It is not trespassing if the Dudes kidnap you! Still, we can't make any predictions about how the case will turn out because this is Lincoln County, with a law unto itself.
New Product: Vehicle Pass
For visitors who would like to enter the base without any of these hassles, the Area 51 Research Center now offers a new product that may help. It is the GROOM LAKE/AREA 51 MILITARY VEHICLE PASS. Unlike the "Area 51 Visitors Permit" with a flying saucer on it, this 4"x5" self-stick decal looks official and just might get you in. Issued by the non-existent "USAF Office of Strategic Investigations" and citing imaginary Air Force regulations, this decal contains all the intimidating fine print the military would want. "This vehicle subject to search and seizure per USAF," it says, which is apparently true even outside the military border.
This military vehicle pass, printed in red and black ink on a white background, was designed for the Research Center by Laseright Services. It is available exclusively from us for $2.50 each, plus $1 postage per order sent anywhere in the world.
Freebie: Nellis Range Chart
In response to numerous requests, the Research Center has long been trying to obtain the Air Force's official Nellis Range Air Chart for sale to interested aviation watchers. This big map, used by military pilots on exercise, is unclassified and shows no airstrip or facilities at Groom Lake. Still, it does provide a lot of useful information on the Nellis Complex, and it makes a very colorful and attractive wall display (40" x 56").
We have made repeated requests to the Defense Mapping Agency to purchase copies of the map, but it is apparently not for sale, so the only reliable way to get it is to file a Freedom of Information request. This is easy to do, and we encourage anyone who wants the free Nellis Chart to drop the DMA a letter. The letter should go like this...
Information and Privacy Office
Defense Mapping Agency
8613 Lee Highway
Fairfax, VA 22031-2137Dear DMA:
Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 USC 552, I hereby request the following document: Nellis AFB Range Chart, stock number NRCXX01.
[Your signature and address]
Cellular Interference
The Cammo Dudes were thick as molasses as Dan Montoya of Las Vegas maneuvered his "Bigfoot" four wheel drive 4-Runner with 4-foot tires to the top of Freedom Ridge in the late afternoon of Jan. 2. He was so impressed with the view and with the attention he was receiving from the security force that he picked up his cellular phone and called a friend in Vegas. Cellular One, it seems, provides service the top of Freedom Ridge, probably through a transmitter on Angel Peak about 80 miles south.
The friend was out, so Montoya talked to the answering machine. "You won't believe where we are right now," he said. "We're up on top of the ridge looking at the base and we've got about six Cammo Dudes checking us out, watching everything we do."
A sinister voice then cut in on the line: "That's right, we're watching everything you do."
Montoya says he "freaked" and hung up the phone. However, the exchange was recorded on the friend's answering machine.
From this incident, we can conclude that the Dudes have the ability to home in on and intercept any radio transmission in the area and return fire on the same frequency. We can also conclude that the Dudes are pretty dumb. This is a blatantly illegal act and a direct tip-off of their abilities. Now visitors will know that all radio traffic is vulnerable in this area and will take the obvious precautions.
[Reader says it is possible]
Triangular Aircraft Sighting
An experienced aviation watcher says that he and his companions saw an unacknowledged delta winged aircraft about 35 miles east of Groom on Nov. 23. This was a triangular craft with rounded corners, as has been described in the press as the "TR-3A."
The witness works for a major aircraft developer in California and says that he knows aircraft well. He says the sighting took place around 7 or 8 in the evening (long after dark) as he and several companions were traveling north on US-93 for a visit to the Tikaboo Valley. South of Alamo, they stopped to watch some orange flares being dropped by jets on maneuver. These flares, intended to distract heat-seeking missiles, are a common sight in the area, but the jets themselves were not. The witness was drawn by the unusual lighting of the jets: Four had only a single red strobe on the bottom about midway down the fuselage. About four others had only three steady lights: red lights in the front and rear and a white light at mid-fuselage.
The witness says that the moon had just risen, so he was able to see the outline of the aircraft from below, using low-power binoculars and looking almost directly upward from their location near the Pahranagat Lakes. The planes with the single red strobes he recognized as F-117A Stealth fighters. The other four aircraft had a distinctive triangular shape with rounded corners. Both the witness and his companion, also an aviation worker, insist that these aircraft were not B-2s, the only acknowledged craft in the U.S. arsenal that resembles that shape.
Picnic Report
In spite of threatening weather, the Second Annual Could-Be- Closed-Any-Day-Now Freedom Ridge Picnic went off without a hitch this past Saturday (1/21). There were 60 people in attendance, not including Cammo Dudes, and although the skies were overcast, they cleared up enough for a good look at the base. Like Madonna and Schwarzenegger, Psychospy has major media attending all our affairs--weddings, bar mitzvahs, picnics, etc.--and this time it was CNN that covered the event. Their story, focusing on the hazardous waste suit, will run sometime in mid- to late-February on Network Earth (TBS, Sundays 11pm ET) and "Earth Matters (CNN, Sundays 2:30 pm ET, and on CNN Intl.). (We will post the dates on the alt.conspiracy.area51 newsgroup when known.)
At a briefing before the hike, we introduced the CNN crew to the hikers, expressing our regrets that Ted Turner himself could not be present. We informed the participants that they did not have to be seen on television if they did not want to. We explained to them a technique we had learned for controlling the editing process: Simply raising the middle finger of either hand in view of the camera is sufficient to assure that the shot will not be used.
The picnic was marred only by a Wiener Crisis, which has caused us the deepest embarrassment. There were sixty people on the ridge and sixty hot dogs available for roasting over the fire, SO THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH HOT DOGS FOR EVERYONE, but there wasn't. This means that somebody took more than one wiener without even considering the consequences. It may seem trivial, but the watchers have an image to protect. Especially when we have a major network present, it is important to convey to the world that we are not a bunch of wiener grabbing opportunists. Ethics are very important in this battle for government accountability, and the Wiener Crisis is something that our enemies are bound to use against us.
Watch the correspondent on the CNN report. He's got a wiener in his hand--but is it one dog or two?
[Picnic promo]
Intel Bitties
A CAMERA WAS LEFT BEHIND at Freedom Ridge following the Jan. 21 picnic. (Heaven forbid, photography on Freedom Ridge?!) Any participant who lost one should contact our Lost and Found Dept.
THE JANET 737 FLIGHT NUMBERS appear to have changed. This will necessitate a re-analysis of flight patterns. Scanner buffs visiting Las Vegas are encouraged to monitor the FAA and AF frequencies to assemble a new schedule. [See DR#15 for freqs.] We are still looking for conclusive evidence of scheduled flights to Groom from places other than McCarran Airport.
OUR ADOPTED INTERNET NEWSGROUP is alt.conspiracy.area51. This is the place for discussion of related topics, both earthly and extraterrestrial. We will also post notice of breaking events here, including press alerts and notable sighting reports.
PERMISSION IS HEREBY GRANTED for readers to continue copying and reposting any back issues of the Desert Rat until Dec. 31, 1995, otherwise under the restrictions as printed in each newsletter.
Circulation: 2068 copies direct to subscribers, plus unknown postings and redistributions.
