Ken Ford and how the patriot act is protecting him

February 13, 2006 — Click here to read a letter from the parents of wrongfully-convicted former NSA intern-analyst Kenneth Ford, the author of a signals intelligence report that questioned Iraqi nuclear WMD components, which ultimately brought down the wrath of the neo-con apparatus in the Bush administration.

This editor will be present at the March 1 sentencing at the US District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland in a show of support for Ken Ford and his parents. How many among the whistleblower community, civil and human rights communities, Congressional Black Caucus, antiwar movement, Democratic Party, and intelligence agency and military veterans will join me there to support an individual who faces up to 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for telling the truth about WMDs in Iraq?

Ken Ford Jr., was a uniformed member of the U.S. Secret Service who worked in the Clinton White House. He was trained to take a bullet for President Clinton or the First Lady. Will either President Clinton or Senator Clinton be present in Greenbelt in gratitude and in solidarity?

How many will stand idly by as this administration brings back virtual "lynching" of an innocent black man who was merely trying to do his job and was set up by a Federal prosecutor lickspittle for the White House who has a not-so-hidden neocon agenda?

February 13, 2006

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING CAN BE SUBSTANTIATED WITH AFFIDAVITS,

TELEPHONE RECORDS, BRIEFS AND TRANSCRIPTS

There was a travesty of justice that occurred on December 15, 2005 in Courtroom 4-C of the United States District Court For The District Of Maryland, in Greenbelt, Md., Kenneth Wayne Ford, Jr., an honest and honorable young African-American male,holding 3 degrees, 2 undergraduate and 1 graduate, was judged guilty, in a two-count indictment,

by a jury of by no means his peers. Ford faces up to 15 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. He is to be sentenced on March 1, 2006. The jury consisted of 4 black and 7 white females of varying ages and 1 over-30 white male. No one looked like him. There were 3 black males - 2 older, 1 younger and 1 older white female who turned out to be alternates. We have no idea of any jury member’s educational level. However, with all the evidence given, there is no honest way they could have returned guilty verdicts, leading us to believe they were tampered with. Not only that, but this case involves FBI crimes, prosecutorial misconduct and obstruction of justice. These cruel and unjust actions must be made known publicly.

Unless checked, every citizen is in danger of this kind of abuse.

The 1st count was under Federal Criminal Code 793 - Espionage. Special Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was not able to charge Libby with a Code 793. He carefully explained that in order to do that, he must be able to prove definite intent to harm the country. Perhaps he should have consulted with United States Assistant Prosecutor David I. Salem and Justice Dept. Branch Chief of Counterintelligence Maryclaire Rourke who, through being dishonest and by manipulating the law, was able to charge and prosecute Ford under the Espionage Act. Neither did they prove Ford had intent to harm the country nor didthey have any evidence of Ford doing any wrongdoing. They accused Ford of having thousands of sheets of highly classified NSA documents strewed-about and in boxes in his home. They had pictures of his home and pictures of some of the documents that were alledgely in his home. However, these pictures of the documents were not taken in his home, but at an FBI facility.

There was one picture taken in his home that showed a far-off shot of a box and beside the box was a folder, which Ford kept resumes in. The folder which you could hardly see in the picture, was pointed to as being classified. Indeed, in court, Prosecutors Salem and Rourke had put a white label on it saying "This Folder Contains Secret Documents". There was not one picture showing any classified documents in Ford’s home. During the rampaging of Ford’s home, there was prepared FBI Receipt For Property Seized / Form 597. This is an official listing of every thing seized from the home. Ironically, there was not one of the alleged thousands of sheets of classified papers that were supposedly taken from Ford’s home. How could they have missed thousands of sheets of classified papers when they did list 43 items including "torn note - garbage bag near garage".

As far as the classified papers are concerned, when Defense Attorney Hecht was allowed to view them, 11 months after the arrest, they were considerably more than was written about in Thompson’s arrest affidavit. (This is not the same as the search warrant affidavit.) They were, at that time, 100% more than what was listed on the FBI Form 597. Then, 9 months after that, Hecht and Ford were allowed to view the papers together. They had grown tremendously in the 9 months since Hecht had last seen them. At the commencement of the trial, 4 months later, Hecht and Ford reviewed the papers yet again. Once again they had multiplied. Hecht told the jury during his closing remarks, that the papers had grown while the trial was going on, since there were more papers in the courtroom at the end of the trial than when the trial started.

The prosecutors had no surveillance evidence, human-eye or electronic, of Ford removing documents from NSA. It seems that when Ford’s attorney, Spencer M. Hecht, produced a picture, shattering the prosecution’s allegation that the building Ford alledgedly removed papers from - the TEC at NSA - had no cameras, the story by the prosecution team changed to the cameras being inoperable that day. Remember, this is at NSA. In her opening statement and for half of the 9-1/2 days of testimony, Rourke described Ford as "backing his pick-up truck to the loading dock and loading these papers into the truck." This went on until half way through the trial, one of the government’s witnesses, Ford’s last supervisor, testified she saw Ford that day particular standing in the parking lot beside his cream-colored 4-door sedan, waiting for her to arrive. Our attorney ascertained that she knew the difference between a pick-up truck and a car. She did. At that point the prosecution’s "pick-up truck became a car".

There was no audio evidence, human-ear or electronic, of any wrongdoing by Ford. Prosecutor Salem portrayed NSA as trusting their employees and having no need to monitor them. (They only monitor innocent American citizens.) Defense attorney Hecht has a copy of a letter from NSA Security Personnel Robert L. McCaslin to Prosecutor Salem, which he received in 8/2005, a year after it’s date of 7/31/2004, stating Ford’s electronic equipment at work and at home was examined and is totally clean.

Prosecutor Salem pointed out that there was 1 of Ford’s fingerprints found on page 2 of a document - just 1 finger. This just so happens to be the document that was handed to Ford by McCaslin, then abuptly pulled back when Ford reached for it. Apparently, it was snatched back so quickly, that 1 of Ford’s finger’s touched it. Salem brought in a fingerprint expert who, in this day of CSI, offered unbelievable explanations as to why only 1 print could have been found. She offered explanations having to do with body temperature and atmospheric pressures. This all may be true in some instances, but one wonders, why, if Salem had thousands of sheets of classified papers, all coming from Ford’s home, why did he not offer lots of pages for fingerprint analysis, instead of just 1 document.

The "confession", blown-up to billboard size for presentation in the courtroom by Prosecutor Salem, was coerced from Ford after the FBI spent 7-1/2 hours in his home terrorizing him, not giving him any water or allowing him to use the bathroom. There were appoximately 25 FBI agents, in his home and tearing it apart. Special Agent Michael L. Thompson, agent in charge of this case, and NSA Security Personnel Robert McCaslin interrogated Ford.

McCaslin, in the role of the "bad cop" was the most aggressive one - yelling and even at times kicking Ford on his leg. Ford felt as if they wanted him to make a forceful move to justify killing him. Attorney Hecht was able to get testimony from Thompson, agent in charge of this case, that he not only told Ford what to write, but he (Thompson), wrote the 2nd part of it himself, before having Ford sign it.

The 2nd count was under Federal Criminal Code 1801 - Lying On A Federal Form. This stemmed from an application to a federal contractor, on which he told extensively - on the form and in a 1-1/2 page extension of the form about count 1. Upon reading it, one would ask themselves, what more could he have said.

Ford was clearly set-up. Defense Attorney Hecht skillfully uncovered lie, after lie, after lie.

Upon Hecht’s questioning, Thompson and McCaslin contradicted themselves from one hearing to the next. (Several hearings were held in the month’s prior to trial, in preparation for trial.) Each contradicted himself from question to question while in the trial. They both consistently contradicted each other. At one point, Hecht asked Thompson, "Agent, were you lying then or are you lying now?"

Through Hecht’s questioning, each and every government witness, without knowing it, cleared Ken of any wrongdoing. It was overwhelmingly clear that the defense won every single day of the 9-1/2 days of testimony. That is, up to the verdict.

(We are in the 3rd year of this nightmare. Ford was not indicted until 14 months after his arrest on January 11, 2004. He has not been able to work for these 3 years.

Salem, though he denies this, along with his pretrial officer, has gotten Ford fired from 2 jobs. We knew Salem and the FBI were monitoring Ford’s banking account and when he saw Ford was collecting unemployment insurance, Salem got that cut-off. His intent was to bankrupt Ford to make him plea. That was not going to happen, because Ford had not done anything wrong. Ford’s constitutional rights have been boldly violated by the FBI, NSA, the Justice Department and most of all by Prosecutor David I. Salem. It is as if Ford is not an American citizen. These people need to be prosecuted for their crimesagainst Ford.)

We did not begin to get a clear understanding of what happened to Ford until 19 months later, when Attorney Hecht received by fax, copies of affidavits requesting search warrants, written by Special Agents Michael L. Thompson and Frederick C. Marsh. These affidavits were presented to and sworn to be true to United States Federal Judge William C. Connolly. Judge Connolly issued search warrants on both January 10 and January 11, 2004 on Ford. Neither affidavit noted any probable cause - just espionage. Shortly thereafter, in a suppression hearing, Prosecutor Salem realized we had those affidavits. He promptly got them suppressed from trial.

In doing so, he was able to start the government’s case at the ringing of Ford’s doorbell, thus eliminating the need to show any probable cause. These affidavits read of intrigue worthy of a James Bond movie. Agents Thompson and Marsh have definitely missed their calling. They surely are needed in Hollywood to write fictional drama. These affidavits are total lies - completely made up and we can prove it.

The Marsh affidavit speaks of a woman named Tonya Tucker. She was in Ford’s life for a total of 9 weeks - 11/13/2003 thru 1/11/2004. As it turns out, she is the confidential informant of Thompson. He placed her into Ford’s life. Marsh, in his affidavit, writes extensively of this woman, who he depicts as a tipster, using a particular cell phone. We were able to subpoena these telephone records. which clearly and boldly show the events in the Thompson and Marsh affidavits are untrue. They are completely made up. We have since come to realize that the Thompson affidavit, which reads of intense spy drama involving going to Dulles airport and selling highly classified documents to foreign diplomat(s) was fouled when I, his mother, visited Ford at home and stayed for 4 hours. When one reads the Thompson affidavit, one will understand with this turn of events, a 2nd affidavit was needed. This was provided by the imagination of Marsh. What puzzles us is, why did a federal judge authorize search warrants to FBI partners, back to back, on consecutive days, involving the same subject person? The 1st search warrant, as well as the 2nd one, was good for 10 days.

We don’t know why these crimes against Ford have been perpetrated by the FBI and the United States Prosecutor’s Office. We don’t know it’s origin. Since his work went to the White House, we don’t know if it is because of a paper he submitted that is detrimental to the Bush administration. We don’t know if because he was on the fast track at NSA, and someone at NSA ultimately did not want to see him, a black man, in a high executive position. We don’t know if Ford simply came into the view of two racist cops, who had the power, through wiretapping to find out all about him and set him up accordingly. We don’t know. We don’t have to know. All we do know is that it happened. Ford was set-up representing and FBI crime. Because Salem and Rourke would have had to have known about the affidavits no later than January 12, 2004, their roles, right to the present, represent a cover-up. These 4 people, perhaps others also, are the ones who should be prosecuted and sent to jail. To illustrate this point, it was brought out in the trial that Prosecutor Salem traveled to Alabama to "confiscate" the computer allegedly belonging to Tonya Tucker. Unless the computer belonged to the government, why would a prosecutor do such a thing? Tucker unwittingly divulged to one of our sources that she was upset when Salem took her computer because "there are NSA papers on it." Salem, though he knows of our knowledge of his going to Alabama to get Tucker’s computer as Hecht brought this out in the trial, he does not know that we are aware of the papers. Where is the computer? Salem certainly did not tell the defense any of this. If this is not obstruction of justice, I don’t know what is. As a matter of fact, there are 5 versions of this whole alleged Ford incident. 1.) There is the Thompson search warrant affidavit version which differs from 2.) the Marsh search warrant affidavit version, which differs from 3.) the Thompson arrest warrant version, which differs from 4.) the Salem Opposition to Defendant’s Motion To Dismiss Indictment version, which definitively differs from 5.) the trial version. At this point, these unscrupulous people have destroyed Ford’s life. This is indeed a crime.

If anyone thinks this cannot happen to them - think again. Special Agent Thompson while in Ford’s home terrorizing him on January 11, 2004, said, "You know we have the Patriot Act. We can do what we want to do."

Kenneth W. Ford, Sr.

Gloria D. Ford