[117519] in Cypherpunks
Waco and the justice department
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Sat Sep 4 19:58:30 1999
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 01:45:30 +0200 (CEST)
Message-Id: <199909042345.BAA19860@mail.replay.com>
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
A couple of points are being (intentionally?) skipped over in most
coverage of the Waco coverup.
First is the role of the ongoing wrongful death lawsuit. Surivors and
heirs of the Waco massacre are suing the government claiming that it
was responsible for the deaths. This case is scheduled to go to trial
in a few weeks. The revelations about incendiary devices apparently
came about as a result of discovery procedures relating to this lawsuit.
The actual source remains murky, but it may be due to deposition testimony
by law enforcement people involved in the Waco siege.
Second, and related, is the role of the Justice Department in covering
up this evidence. The media has tried to create this little morality
play in which good-guy Janet Reno of the Justice Department is having the
wool pulled over her eyes by bad-guy Louis Freeh and his subordinates in
the FBI. According to this scenario, the Justice Department is fighting
to get the truth out while the FBI is stonewalling and trying to protect
themselves.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it is the Justice
Department lawyers who have fought tooth and nail to keep Waco evidence
from coming out. They are engaged in defending the wrongful death
lawsuit, and they have been the ones all along spearheading the efforts
to keep a lid on the evidence and prevent it from being turned over
to the public, which would also make it available to the plaintiffs in
the lawsuit.
In fact the presiding judge has finally had enough and is demanding that
custody of the evidence be transferred to the Texas Rangers (the Texas
state police) instead of the Justice Department. Justice is fighting
this and just yesterday they attempted to physically prevent Rangers
from inspecting the evidence, on orders from Washington. Only when the
judge directly intervened did they back down and allow the inspection.
This is not the FBI, this is Janet Reno's Justice Department which is
doing everything it can to keep the evidence from being made available.
The notion that Reno wants to get to the truth while the FBI is throwing
up a smokescreen is simply bizarre. The media should ask Reno why
she is instructing her subordinates to prevent public access to the
Waco evidence if she is so devoted to getting at the truth. She has
the power herself to make the evidence available and allow everyone
to see for themself that there was no coverup, if that were the case.
She should not be allowed to escape responsibility for her coverup
efforts by claiming that the FBI is at fault.
