Got this in the inbox today. Seems like people on the fringe aren't as safe from the government as they once were. Not to mention, like, campers....
UFO ROUNDUP
Volume 8, Number 24
July 2, 2003
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-Mail:
Website: http://www.ufoinfo.com/roundup/
ASHCROFT AT WAR
WITH UFOLOGY?
"FBI and other law enforcement officials raided a Rachel (Nevada) man's rented trailer home Thursday," June 19, 2003, "while he was out of state, searching for what he said were photographs and data stored in his computer about the classified military installation known as Area 51."
"'Area 51. That's what it's for,' said the man, Chuck Clark, when asked by telephone about the search warrant that he found on Friday," June 20, 2003, "on a table inside the trailer in the rural Lincoln County community 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Las Vegas."
"'They timed this very nicely while I was in Denver (Colorado) with a TV crew,' said Clark, 57, author of Area 51 and S-4 Handbook."
"Clark said he thinks the search warrant was triggered by his research into motion-detector sensors that are buried on public land along trails miles away from the restricted area around the classified installation near the dry lake bed of Groom Lake, 90 miles (144 kilometers) north of Las Vegas."
"Clark and other Area 51 buffs think the sensors are linked by radio signals to an interactive alarm network that alerts the installation's security personnel about possible intruders."
"'I dug them up, photographed them, recorded their GPS and put them back,' he said, referring to Global Positioning System coordinates."
"'I resent the fact they put them on public land. All I did was document them... to make an issue of putting them outside of restricted land,' Clark said. He described himself as a semi-retired photographer and writer who has spent 10 years researching Area 51."
"Clark said the search warrant was issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leavitt and that the agents who executed it left a four-page inventory of items siezed."
"An FBI spokesman in Las Vegas, Jim Stern, confirmed that a search warrant had been executed in Clark's residence Thursday."
"The FBI agents were accompanied by other law enforcement authorities who were part of a task force, but Stern declined to confirm the nature of the task force."
"There were no arrests, Stern said, noting, 'This is an ongoing investigation of Clark.'"
(Editor's Comment: Ongoing investigation!? What for? Clark has neither been arrested, charged, indicted by a grand jury, nor subpoenaed as a witness.)
"He said items were taken from Clark's residence but declined to give details about what prompted the investigation."
"He also would not comment on the scope of the search warrant or say what was siezed."
According to KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Nev., "FBI agents have confirmed that a search warrant was served Thursday night on the home of a self-described military watchdog in the tiny town of Rachel, near the mysterious Area 51 military base."
KLAS-TV "learned that the action was initiated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force." (JTTF)
Earlier in June, Clark had "accompanied the (KLAS-TV Eyewitness News) I-Team" to an entrance to Area 51 and "two sensors were located and base security wrote down the plate numbers of our vehicles. We returned five days ago (Tuesday, June 17, 2003) and drove to the rear entrance of Area 51."
"Two days later (Thursday, June 19, 2003) FBI agents, working with (U.S.) Air Force Intelligence and the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided Clark's home and seized photos, records and his computer."
"'They're paranoid about the location, and I don't see why?' asked Clark."
KLAS-TV "asked the BLM (Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior--J.T.) if it's legal for the military to put security devices on public land, but a (BLM) spokesman couldn't answer our question."
(See the Las Vegas Review-Journal for June 21, 2003, "Ongoing investigation: FBI raids home near Area 51." Also the KLAS-TV Eyewitness News broadcast for June 20, 2003. Many thanks to Loren Coleman and Robert Fischer for these news reports.)
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