What does one do when the government defames them? This New York Times piece explains why there is no legal remedy: Opinion-When Government Defames:
No judicial remedy exists when a federal official defames someone. This gap in the law isn’t a result of a conscious decision by Congress or federal judges to protect the government’s ability to defame you. It was created inadvertently. In an age when the political lie is being weaponized to increasing effect, it’s an oversight Congress should redress.
FBI recently admitted to me they have been on my phone since 2006, 6 years prior to my Appeal in court, and 16 years from today. And I only learned this a few months ago when I downloaded an app to see the “root” of my phone.
I am homeless for a reason. My phone gives me trouble. Whoever is on it interferes in my getting the balance of my food stamps, for example, or by making the dial disappear so I cannot press “1” to hear my balance in my bank account, and they disconnect calls I make and receive about jobs, apartment listings. On purpose. It’s fun for them, I think.
Then there were neighbors in various apartments I resided temporarily who harassed me, spoke badly about me to others when I did nothing wrong (people I never met, never knew) and to my landlords; and then - you won’t believe it but it’s true - the poisonings, air poisonings with carbon monoxide, one of which hospitalized me overnight. (If you wish to see my medical reports, just follow this newsletter.)
It was why I downloaded the app to see the root of my phone. I needed to know who or what was in my phone that was responsible for all these things happening to me (as tracked phones allow one to do), and then I saw the phone number at the root of my phone substantiating the presence of another, as fact, a number beginning with a Texas area code.
I called the FBI to tell them about it, thinking they did not know it, thinking they’d rescue me from what I thought were stalkers. “Hello? I just want you to know that I have the number of my stalker. I’ve been calling you for years, and I now have evidence, the number of the perpetrator to provide you.” It was then that the agent said, dull and matter of fact, “I know the number. It’s us. We’ve been on your phone since 2006.” (WTF?) Why? No answer. (Wow!) Disconnect.
No wonder I am isolated today from family and friends (it all coming back to me now, as I remember the “trolls” and the lies sent around about me on Facebook), and I have been chased out by police in 7 counties I resided, never understanding why the police hated me. I am blocked on social media (which is why I am writing here) and I am currently in a fight for my civil rights with a complaint of discrimination in housing (in yet another county) filed with U.S. Health and Human Services. (I have decided not to run anymore and to fight this one out, come hell or high water.)
Is all of this happening just because of the lawsuit I brought against the government in 2012? A FOIA request was all it was, and since that filing I have been on the government’s watchlist, which is what this is all about; or is it? Or is it because I called the FBI about the harassment of me, which they now admit was them? Or are they on my phone to track and trace who, or whom, is doing this to me?
Sixteen years is a long time, is it not? If it is not the government doing this to me, why hasn’t the FBI done anything about my “stalking” (a federal offense, is it not?) all over the country? Why are they on my phone if indeed it is not them orchestrating all this? Has to be them, right? If not, why not stop who is doing this?
History of How It All Began: Since I contacted the government in 1997 about my inability to get medical treatment for a burst appendix across state lines (when doctors KNEW what was wrong), and called the FBI about it; and because they told me it was a “quality of care issue” it did not handle, and because I disagreed with them about that, I am now on their “watch” 24/7. (Think about it. How can the government conclude physicians’ refusal to treat me as a “quality of care” issue if denial of care - across state lines - was predicated on a blacklisting of me by using my social security number? Ha! You kidding me?)
Then, because I called the government incessantly about the issue - in fear for my life if I did not get medical care - the FBI went to my employer and told them I made a “death threat” to a U.S. representative - but never spoke to me about it. [Did they defame me, or was it the corporation who lied?] Can you imagine that? How did I find out you ask? It was only upon suing my employer for discrimination that it was revealed by them in their response that the FBI met with them in the “Summer of 2003” to say I made a “death threat” to a U.S. representative. It was a lie!!
It is why I brought suit against the government in 2012. To clear my name like anyone would. I represented myself too because no lawyer would help me. Little did I understand, looking back now, how innocent I was, just plain naïve.
What was my FOIA request about? My case was about “getting the audiotape” from the FBI that I knew wasn’t there, since I knew I did not make a death threat, since I knew it to be a lie perpetuated by government. If they had a tape, show me it; if they did not, I could clear my name. (Lawyers I met with joked “SHOW ME THE TAPE”!)
If they did not defame me, I reasoned they would at least tell me. Why not? Why protect a corporation?
It was most certainly a lie, and I reasoned that even if I failed at my case, I could show through my filing the lies being perpetuated about me by government and, hopefully, get representation. I also reasoned that lawyers would see my electronic filing and see the “bigger picture,” I hoped (I was allowed to file electronically on PACER as a pro se litigant and I knew as a former legal secretary that lawyers pay attention to electronic filings by pro se litigants) they would rush to my aid. Never happened.
But it was not until “oral argument” before the Appeals Court that I got what I wanted - even though the decision did not mention it but briefly - that counsel for the government finally admitted it did not have any audio tape of me making a death threat to a U.S. representative. Whew!
My worries were over, or so I thought. Little did I know at the time that this was just the beginning.
As I mentioned, I am homeless now, since 2016, all because I wrote the truth in my documents. I will never again be allowed to work in my field, neither am I allowed to get housing. How do they do that? Answer: My phone. Now they admit it was “Them.” Them all along!
But why? Why would the government do this to me [I asked myself]? Why did they take down my blog? (Is this a sex/gender case I wonder? Are they mad because, as a woman, I revealed the purported “death threat” to be the lie that it is? Is this retaliation to show me I ought not mess with them?)
Why are police harassing me in every county I seek residence? Why is the FBI on my phone?
Those questions have obvious answers today, more than they had even 30 years ago when all this began. The terror I felt back then was not only that I was losing my life slowly with an infection raging in my body from a partially-treated burst appendix, but the realization I was hated - just hated - because I was sick, and, as I would later learn, hated for what I believed and how I looked.
Then, I read Sharyl Attkisson’s book “Stonewalled” (portions of it) and was astounded at the similarity of harassment she experienced and how identical it was to mine. I bring this up because what she describes as happening to her in her apartment after reporting on “Benghazi” happened EXACTLY the same to me in my apartment during litigation against the government - absent one detail: she was not poisoned with carbon monoxide and gasoline as I was (click link below “When the Government Defames You” for a description of some of the reports). I was stalked, harassed on my computer, and when police treated me with hostility in every county I resided, I did not want to believe it was my government pulling the puppet strings - at least at first.
My point is it is a history that follows me till this day - 30 years after filing my medical complaint to the DOJ in 1997 - and 16 years of FBI on my phone. Astounding! Mind-blowing!
I will not give up. I am just getting started. One thing I have learned over these many years, government has a way of making everything seem so convoluted if one speaks about it, unbelievable even, until one sees the evidence. Then they try to make it almost impossible to connect the dots so one can paint the bigger picture, which is what I hope to do here in my newsletter.
What do they want? Follow me as I present the evidence, the absolute absurdity of all of this, for how long can one go on without housing or a job? Here is how it all began: When the Government Defames You. [click this link]
I have no legal remedy. I live with no way out. I am not listened to, and I doubt that even if I had enough evidence (which I do) to reopen my case, it wouldn’t matter. However, The New York Times piece mentioned above offers a solution that if enacted would protect people from government defamation when it writes:
Limiting the remedy to federal officials would address Chief Justice Rehnquist’s worry about a flood of minor lawsuits against local and state officials. Further, public officials would not be chilled from anything other than reckless and false statements. For one thing, it would typically be hard for a plaintiff to show that an official should have known a statement was false. Only outright fabrication with no plausible basis in fact would meet this test.
In addition, the remedy if a plaintiff were to win would not be damages. No official would personally pay out of pocket. Rather, the court would issue a declaratory judgment finding the statement false and defamatory. Where the shaming effect of this finding seemed insufficient, a court would have discretion to order an apology.
President Trump has talked about opening up libel law, though I doubt that this is what he had in mind. Nonetheless, legislators who want to keep our national political life civil and stable would do well to think about libel reform — for government speech.
This is ctaggart’s Newsletter, a newsletter about When the Government Defames You.