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The Man is trying to scare me...


ivan

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i read you matt, i was just looking to see if it was even an option.

 

i love the irony of running afoul of the law in the very act of trying to spend time in a wild, lawless place

 

maybe leon czolgosz was right?

 

i doubt it...

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News Headlines 4/20/05

 

A man the authorities are calling "Ivan" was arrested today in his vancouver, WA home. Fed agents with a warrant for his arrest busted down his door to find the fee-fighting delinquent toking away on his 3 ft bong. "Ivan" was purportedly heard exclaiming something about it being four and twenty something.

 

President Bush has said that these wilderness fee-fighters are al-queda's newest arm. The fee-fighters, according to homeland security agents, are threatening the morals of the country. They have said if these people continue to not pay fees social security will collapse, oil prices will skyrocket, and Christian right wingers could lose their chokehold on the country.

 

In efforts to stymy these individuals they have been cracking down on individuals like "Ivan." He will be serving 5 years in a minimum security prison in guantanamo bay and will be forced to watch the martha stewart channel at least 3 hours a day followed by questioning of the wherabouts of Osama Bin Laden. He is still awaiting a second trial addressing confiscation of the bale of marijuana found at his premise.

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the other 11 miles were either put in by a power compnay for their own profit on public land or were totally overgrown trail so thick w/ brush i pulled a half dozen ticks of me on the way home.

 

hey, my americorps team built that trail! that was Augspurger Mtn.?

sorry it's so overgrown ivan, we finished it 9 years ago and haven't done any cleanup since.

grin.gif

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i'm surprised at neither but nonetheless indignant at both.

 

still trying to figure out what kind of pass it was that i needed so i can work your sorcerous ways, lord williams smile.gif

 

anyone know what it was that i needed? nw forest pass? i've no real desire to drive back out there to find out...

 

Eric, your game of ignorance is not accepted. All of us know the the game here. We ante up for this shit just like all the other shit we empty our pockets for. (dues, taxes, licenses, fees, registrations) Either pay the man, fight city hall with sound reasons or shut the fuck up.

bigdrink.gif

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Breakin the law, breakin the law, breakin the law. Hmmm was it worth not paying the fee? the reason the penalty is so stiff is due to people like u who avoid paying the fee in the first place. we could argue all night about where the money is going, but does it matter. i bet you dont pay the parking meters either. hoping that u won't get caught. well, u gambled and lost on this one. pay the piper. he is owed his dues. just show up to court and pay the fine. and next time..pay the fee! the we wont have to listen to u complain about...breakin the law...breakin the law............

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fuck the piper and fuck you. i haven't complained about shit till now when i complain about comquat-fuck-nutz like yourself. i was looking to get info on options, not peanut-gallery comments from sell-out bitches. it wasn't that i was hoping i wouldn't get caught, it was me not giving a shit about getting caught. having been caught, i'm sorting out just how bad that can be. the piper isn't owed shit, though w/ a cannon-sized dick up my ass of course he can take whatever he wants...i'm glad you're so agreeable with that.

 

hmmm, i think i need some coffee this morning...

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Ivan, I think that your solution is simpler than the above in your case. Have your wife send a letter stateing that she was not driving the vehicle and has no culpability. I know it sounds too simple, but I'll bet it will work; especially if she has some record of where she was at the time, even a credit card reciept, a phone record or a time sheet from work. She really doesn't have to say who was driving the car.

 

The above being said, I think that the risk/reward ratio is reasonable by using RB dubbya's method if you are not a government employee. Oops, I guess you are. You chose to work for big brother...and I chose to start a business that requires me to pay significant ($25k/year) excise taxes that go into the federal coffers...almost all of us have our hypocracies in this good 'ol USA.

 

 

Good luck

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Realize that if you send in a pass that wasn't yours and pass it off as yours that you may be committing a number of crimes, some of them felonies. Depending on the details of how you do it, the potential crimes include obstruction, forgery, perjury and others (these are the correct crime names under state law, Federal statutes are likely a bit different). The federal system is known for having more significant penalties (jail and/or fines). Additionally, forgery and perjury (and some other potential crimes) are considered crimes of dishonesty, which may adversely impact future employment possibilities.

 

You may want to take a step back and think about whether it's worth it. Civil disobedience is one thing. Lying to get out of a fine that you knew you were required to pay is unlikely to be viewed as civil disobedience by a judge.

 

They have bigger fish to fry than some yahoo making a photocopy of a forest pass. Instead, just volunteer two days per year with the Washington Trail Association and get a free annual pass. You'd be amazed at how much work goes into creating and maintaining the very trails we all enjoy. www.wta.org

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alright, so the story continues... i took the advice to play nice, buy an annual pass, and communicate w/ The Man prior to my court date to try to settle the whole thing amicably. i wrote a letter last week to the physical address of the court, addressed to the only human being's name i could find on the summons (Mag. G Klewano - i assume is the magistrate?). there was no phone # or i would have tried that first. the summons did at least have the address of the court.

 

anyway, y-day i recieved my nice letter back in the mail, stamped "not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward." i double checked the address and it was correct, so what the hell is going on? can i not send letters to the court? is there some secret address i should know about? i tried looking up the phone number on google and in the phone book and found nothing - am i not actually supposed to be able to communicate w/ anyone in the judicial system w/o making a physical appearance at the court house? i have a week now before the court date and i don't see what i can do other than just fucking show up now...

 

what next?

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Call the Forest Service and ask to talk to a Law Enforcement officer or to someone about the NW Forest Pass. Start with the Gifford Pinchot NF or maybe the Mt. Hood. Explain predicament, repeat as necessary until someone can point you in the right direction. Good luck.

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If the envelope wasn't even opened, then the court or post office probably considers it an addressing error. You should check their web site for information on how to contact them (not sure where dog mountain is, but here's a web site for the Dist. Court for the Eastern District of Washington: http://www.waed.uscourts.gov/. You should be able to find similar sites for the court you need to contact. Call them first and find out how they want you to address the letter and to whom.)

 

Understand that parties to an action (that's you) are not allowed to communicate with the court without including the other side. Policies vary with regard to how this is enforced relating to mundane scheduling matters. Since you may be asking to have the matter go away, it is unlikely to be considered a mundane scheduling matter, but rather a substantive commuication requiring the inclusion of the other side.

 

You indicated in your first post that the notice mentioned arrest if you failed to show. As such this is most likely considered a criminal matter. You may wish to contact the U.S. Attorney's office for that district instead of the court. It's likely that they are "the other side" and you may be able to reach an agreement with or get information from them. This website contains the contact info for various US. Attorney's Offices: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/offices/.

 

 

Necessary disclaimer so I don't get in trouble: I am not your attorney, I am not providing legal advice, I am not competent to practice law in the federal system. The best advice I can give you is to go find a lawyer who is admitted to practice in front of the court that you need to appear at and ask him to represent you. He will have an ethical duty to keep your interests paramount. While I like to be helpful, I have no such duty.

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So when this thread came up I emailed the district which you were in to get a clarification on the matter (basically asking if this was a change in enforcement policy). Here is the reply I received as well as some contact information which might get you to the people you need to talk to:

 

 

When a person receives a citation there are two things that can happen.

One, they can choose to pay the collateral bail (in this case it's $30) and the matter ends. Or two, they don't choose to pay the collateral bail and the Courts assume they are contesting the ticket. This happens no matter what correspondence is included when the ticket is sent in. The citation is supposed to be sent to the Central Violations Bureau within 21 days of receipt. If it is not sent in, the Courts automatically set a court date. A court date is set for an initial appearance at which time the person either pleads not guilty and asks for a court date or pleads guilty and it is handled on that date. I'm assuming your friend is in the latter. You can have him/her call if they have questions about the process, but I don't adjudicate the merits of the charges since that is what the US Magistrate does. Let me know if I can help. . .

 

This is the same process as is used in all of Western WA and has not changed since I have been around. Sometimes our "centralized" process makes it a little confusing since we don't set the Court Docket locally and the defendants can even be notified before we are.

 

Christine Lynch, Patrol Captain

 

SW WA Zone, Gifford Pinchot NF

360-891-5132 Office / 360-891-5130 FAX

360-751-2943 Cell

clynch@fs.fed.us

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Ivan -

 

Sorry I didn't see this earlier or I would've said something. Feel free to drop me a line next time something like this happens.

 

1st - Use Scott Silver's information. It works. The Omnibus Bill changed, so make sure Scott updated the information, because the arguments have changed in response.

 

2nd - Are you in the Western or Easatern District of Washington? It should say on the summons. The bounday runs right through the Gorge, so I'm not sure. Once you figure it out, punch it into Google and the court page will be easy to find. The address should be on there. Call the court and ask for procedure - they will tell you.

 

3rd - I have no idea who Mag. Klewano is. I checked both courts, and they don't have him/her listed.

 

4th - Did they send the summons to you or your wife? If its your wife, make sure you bring her with you, and TG's advice is excellent. I believe you can also make an argument that you were in the woods for professional/religious purposes and not recreation, although I don't know how that applies to your case.

 

If you've got other ??s, PM me. Trying to find Powerpoint presentation we had on this issue - will try to send to you if I find it, but lots will have changed b/c of the Omnibus bill.

 

As an aside, for those who travel alot, spend time in Rainier, Smith, Yos, Beacon, etc etc, you can get a Golden Eagle with an OR/WA state park pass added on that costs $80-ish/year and covers you for everything. We used it this summer while traveling (Estes, NCascades, NF Forest Pass, Denali, Acadia, etc etc), in Red Rocks last week, all the time everywhere - well worth the money.

 

bigdrink.gif

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Check that, the Eastern Dist. of Washington starts at Klickitat County, which I believe covers Dog Mountain.

The legal intern at the spokane us attorney's office, eastern district, had no idea what this was all about and didn't think they even had jurisdiction. maybe dog's in the west?

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Conclusion:

the wife and i went merrily to the lbj federal building in d-town vancouver y-day. while i signed in w/ the clerk, jen went to find a bathroom to take a leak, nearly running over the 80 year old judge on the way back. by the time she returned, justice had already been served. the prosecutor, looking somewhat sheepish, found me in the back bench:

"linthwaite?"

"yeah"

"do you HAVE a pass?"

"yeah" - offering it

"hmmm...this was purchased after the ticket, but i guess that's good enough. you can can go."

 

how frustrating - i get everything i want, 'cept the chance to bitch about it! well, i guess i should just keep my mouth shut and enjoy the rest of the day off from school (managed to get all my grades done!)

 

final cost to taxpayers: $300 for 2 substitute teachers

 

now i have to wait a whole year for my annual pass to run out before i can hop on the merry-go-round again!

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