Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced Ninja Raids

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 2:12 AM 7/18/96, The Deviant wrote:

>I have several friends that this has happened to, and pretty much it goes
>like this... round 7:00 AM, when your just going to bed (well, some of us
>don't have jobs till nighttime.. thank god.), they knock down your doors
>and windows (yes, they do come through windows), and they take the
>equipment, disks, tv's, CD players (yes, i know somebody who had their CD
>player taken.  And a pile of CDs. Music ones even.), clock radios, pretty
>much everything electronic they can cary.  If you ever DO get any of it
>back, most likely it is not the same equipment, i.e. they coppied it all
>and kept the original.

I wonder when and how raids in the U.S. moved from the "Come out with your
hands up" verbal announcement (for the cases that needed more than a knock
on the door) to this blast-in-the-doors approach, where the raiders are
dressed in "tactical black" and are wearing black Nomex hoods and carrying
MP-5s and blast any "perp" who looks at them cross-eyed?

As people as diverse as Marine Colonel Jeff Cooper and Watergate felon G.
Gordon Liddy have noted, any black-clad "ninjas" entering a home at 4 a.m.
without clearly announcing themselves are asking for trouble. (Liddy got in
a lot of trouble for calling for "head shots" on rampaging BATFags.
Frankly, I'm not a good enough shot--especially in high-stress
situations--to make head shots with my H & K .45, so I can only hope to
make torso shots.)

It's a mark of what has gone wrong with this country that ordinary citizens
actually fear the midnight raids, the no-knock searches, the "threat
suppression" by ninjas.

(There are many cases where homeowners awoke to the sounds of crashing
doors and windows, reached for a nightstand gun, and were shot dead by the
"ninja" raiders. In some of these incidents, the raid was at the wrong
house, or the "suspicions" of drug or terror involvement were later shown
to be wrong. "Oops.")

Personally, I think all folks should be armed at all times in their homes.
Those who aren't are taking their chances. My personal choice is a Heckler
& Koch USP .45. loaded with Federal Golden Sabres, a hollowpoint round that
has a 92% one-shot stop rate, with adequate penetration through Kevlar
vests (typically worn by BATF raiders). I may die, but I hope I can take at
least two of them with me. (Interestingly, the same class of folks who want
to ban "military-grade crypto" are also seeking to ban Kevlar vest-piercing
rounds. Fortunately, though KTW ammo is no longer available to "marks" (=
civilians), .45 ACP +P does a pretty good job. Certain +P .357 Magnum
rounds are even better penetrators, but recoil and muzzle blast is pretty
severe with these loads.)

This may sound callous, even paranoid. I don't normally talk about such
things, but such raids are becoming increasingly common. (Check out the
case of the retired doctor in Malibu whose beachfront home was raided
without any warnings by the local cops. He reached for a gun and was
blasted with 9mm slugs. His wife survived. Turned out the County of L.A.
had hopes to seize his property in a drug "forfeiture" and sell it at great
profit. They suspected marijuana was being grown. No drugs, no plants, nada
was ever found. "Oops.")

(I expressed my views about being armed in a Usenet article last summer,
and received a "friendly phone call" from a Deputy Sheriff of Santa Cruz
County. (Someone who disliked my article faxed a copy of my article to the
Sheriff's Department.) When he asked me some questions to find out why I
was not trusting the police and "felt the need" to be armed, I got quite
forceful in my comments about the role of the Second Amendment. (I should
have just told him to fuck off, in retrospect. Anything volunteered to the
cops is usually a mistake.) He said he might "send a vehicle" out to my
ranch to "talk to me." I asked on what basis, on the basis of what criminal
charges? I also said I'd "be ready." He announced unctuously that my
"threat" had just been "logged" and would be considered in any future
criminal procedures. Needless to say, I got a lot more of my guns ready. So
far, a year later, they haven't raided me yet. Knock on wood. This country
has gone to the dogs.)

The fact is, the "War on Drugs" has tainted this country. Whatever one
thinks of drugs, the result of this War has been that cops are now
paramilatary in nature, that midnight raids have become much more common,
that both cops and citizens are now armed with more firepower than ever
before (I have more than 4000 rounds of ammo at my place, for my sniper
rifle, my (so-called) assault rifle, and my various handguns. Anyone inside
my house without an invitation is assumed to be a threat to me and will
face retaliation.)

Crypto is just another weapon to use to protect our liberty.

Sorry for the rant, but this recounting of pre-dawn raids on computer users
reminds me that the American political system will likely treat "rogue
computers users" the way it treats suspected drug dealers: break down the
doors, enter at dawn, kill anyone who moves, and let God sort out the
innocent.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."