7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Aaron Worthing <edmd5.20.10@gmail.com>

Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Aaron Worthing <edmd5.20.10@gmail.com> To: apareene@salon.com Mr. Pereene, Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 4:25 PM

Let me start by offering a partial apology. While I do continue to fault your decision not to contact anyone on the other side of the story, you would not be the first or the last person to be taken in by Brett Kimberlin and thus I shouldnt have called you out so much on Twitter this morning. I should have started by doing what I am doing now, contacting you privately and offering corrections. That is the more civilized way to handle things.

Let me start with something big. This is not so much a matter of correcting you, because this is too subjective to be a matter of correction, but I think it is important to say it. I do not think this is truly a right/left issue. Seriously, is there any party in favor of attempting to frame a person for a crime just because they said something you dont like? I think McCain said something like this: Sociopath is not a party designation. Of course Brett Kimberlin has glommed on to various liberal funders and causes, but his truest devotion is to himself. You will find no shortage of people on the right who will argue that Kimberlin typifies all that is wrong with the left these days, but I am not one of them. I think the worst you can say is that people like George Soros, Teresa Heinz-Kerry and Barbara Streisand were all too quick to believe in a story of redemption that is ultimately false, but that doesnt make them bad peoplejust inappropriately optimistic about human nature.

Lets go through this bit-by-bit:

Meanwhile, some prominent bloggers were the victims of terrifying (and potentially dangerous) false 911 calls, which most of the bloggers claim without a shred of evidence to be related, somehow, to their brave decisions to blog about Kimberlin.

Well, actually each of the people who have either written critical pieces about Kimberlin, or have been accused of doing so (including Mike Stack). And indeed in my case, the swatting occurred on the same day as when I won a legal victory against Brett Kimberlin. Now I want to say that carefully. First, I do not believe that Kimberlin has personally swatted anyone; I have listened to the prior three voices and they dont sound like him. I am presently waiting to hear my own swatting call, but frankly when I do, I am likely to be asked not to discuss it. As for the possibility of him having someone else do this, at this point I dont have a shred of evidence implicating Kimberlin in that manner. But it is plain as day that this is a person who does it motivated by love of Kimberlin or hatred of his enemies. That is the Occams razor answer.

Next:

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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Walkers post is mainly a lengthy (oh god, so lengthy) account of two people repeatedly filing motions at each other

This sounds like we are equivalent in this. The fact is Kimberlin started this legal battle.

Kimberlin then subpoenaed Comcast and Google to get Walkers real name and tried to compel Walker to testify, in what Walker says was an attempt to get him to stop blogging about Kimberlin and his past.

Thats not accurate. His prima facie motivation was dumber and crazier than that. He was trying to get revenge for the very slight legal help I provided to Seth Allen. Prior to his attempt to out me, this is the sum total of what I had written about him in any blog post:

Brynaert is almost certainly referring to this case, involving the alleged defamation of Brett Kimberlin, the convicted terrorist known as the Speedway Bomber. I suppose next he will assert that I have defamed bin Laden. Seriously, defamation is a cause of action for damage to reputation; does Kimberlin even have a public reputation capable of being damaged?

You can read that, here: http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2011/12/thuggery-fail-brynaert-tries.html

He also professes a belief that there is some kind of massive conspiracy against him of which I am a part. Who knows if he really believes that, though, although I guess it is slightly less insane than going after me for briefly representing Seth.

I also think that your characterization of Seth short-hands the issue. Troll or not, he had a right to freedom of speech that Kimberlin has walked all over.

According to Kimberlin, he was merely seeking Walkers real name because he thought Walker had threatened his life, or had incited others to violence against him.

Did Kimberlin say that to you when you interviewed him? Or did you gleam that from the documents? I have never heard him previously claim that in regards to anything I wrote prior to May, well after those subpoenas were dismissed. The accusation that I had threatened his life or incited others to do so was first voiced by him in connection with the latest peace order, which he filed for on May 19. And I suspect reading later that you didnt realize there were more than one. I will point that out when it becomes relevant.

And I would appreciate it if you noted that there was absolutely no evidence of threats or incitement. Indeed, the lower court judge only found incitement by accepting Kimberlins argument that merely saying someone has engaged in reprehensible conduct is incitement. So by Kimberlins theory, if you report accurately on the Enron scandal, you are inciting violence against Jeffery Skilling and Ken Lay. And for that matter, if you are the parents of Trayvon Martin and you protest your belief that George Zimmerman unlawfully murdered your son, then you are also inciting violence. It shouldnt surprise you to learn that this is not the law.
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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

In any case, any claim that he was seeking my information for any proper purpose has to be squared with his testimony to the contrary. In his testimony on May 29 it was all about my Everyone Draw Mohammed website:

THE WITNESS [Kimberlin]: He's a publisher of a blog called, "Everyone Draw Muhammad." There is

THE COURT: Everyone Draws Muhammad?

THE WITNESS: There are 800 depictions of the Prophet Muhammad on that blog in very insulting and vile depictions. He's asking people to defile and defame the Prophet Muhammad. And--

BY MR. WALKER: With what words did I have (unintelligible) to defame him?

A He asked me a question.

THE COURT: Hang on a second.

THE WITNESS: Okay. As part of my work on human rights and supporting Muslim artists and activists overseas, I thought that this was wrong, The State Department has said that it's wrong for him to do this, The Government of Pakistan has banned his blog, Osama Bin Laden used his blog to recruit suicide bombers to kill Americans, I felt this was wrong, And so I filed a motion in this case, in front of Judge Jordan, on this contempt--

You can read that, here: http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2012/07/story-i-couldnt-tell-part-v-may-29.html

Not that I believe that explanation from him, either. But it is plain that he did not have an interest in my testimony, as he claimed in his subpoenas, given the fact that I was there on the day he claimed he needed my testimony and he never called me to testify.

And this is wrong:

But a peace order still forbade Walker from threatening, harassing or personally contacting Kimberlin, and a confused old judge who didnt understand the Internet found that Walkers blog posts about
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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Kimberlin constituted a violation of that order.

This is where it became really obvious that you missed that Kimberlin has filed two peace orders.

The first peace order he filed against me was on January 9, the same day as the infamous iPad incident. It was based on his false allegation of assault and the claim that I was harassing him by writing about him. When I had a chance to challenge it in court, the court found no assault occurred but amazingly writing about him to others constituted harassment. Then we appealed it to the Circuit Court, and the court dismissed it.

Then after I filed my massive post on his attempt to frame me, two days later he filed for a new peace order. Then the confused old judge comes in and all of that. He found that writing it constituted harassment on the theory I just discussed, that somehow saying that a person has engaged in reprehensible conduct is harassment. And this is just my subjective opinion, but I dont think the judge had a relevant misunderstanding of the internet. I think he understood well enough to apply the law correctly, if he only followed the law. Instead he refused to follow binding Supreme Court precedent, by name.

Walker was briefly arrested for the violation; he was quickly released, but barred from blogging further about Kimberlin.

This is a little un-nuanced. I was arrested for violating the temporary peace order (like a temporary restraining order), but the primary claim is that not that writing about Kimberlin to a general audience violated it. Instead Kimberlin falsely accused me of making threats against him, which if true would be a serious violation of the peace order. But in fact I didnt threaten him and when his claim was tested in court, he unsurprisingly had no evidence that I threatened him.

And thankfully, a smarter judge recognized that, and the peace order was thrown out. Walker then filed to have Kimberlin charged with perjury over his assault claims.

If I am right, if you didnt realize that the man filed two peace orders against me, then this would be another victim of that misunderstanding. I filed those charges after the first peace order was dismissed. Actually what really precipitated that was I finally got the video proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Kimberlin lied about the incident. This is something you gloss over in your post. Kimberlin today merely claims I struck him once at the moment I took the iPad, but that was not the story he told for months before the video surveillance surfaced. Before then, he claimedunder oaththat I had decked him, that I struck him repeatedly, that I wrestled with him, that I had to be separated from him by courthouse security, that I kept coming at him over and over again. The video doesnt absolutely prove I never struck him at allI recognize its limitationsbut it does absolutely prove that almost everything he said about that incident is a fairy tale. And I submit at that point, when you have to choose between one guy who has been proven a liar by the video evidence, and one who has always told a story consistent with the video evidence, you have to go with the second guy. Of course I am biased, but I think the logic is sound.

And this is I think unintentionally misleading:

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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Kimberlin claims that Walker has now filed a suit against him in Virginia seeking a permanent injunction against Kimberlin that would bar him from ever mentioning Walkers name, which would be a neat bit of irony

Actually it was filed in late January, and it merely asked to enjoin him from outing me, as I was not yet outted. Needless to say that part of it has been mooted by subsequent events. I will be happy to share a copy of the complaint if you would like, but I suspect you have had your fill of legal filings in this case.

The other side of all of this is that its a proxy battle between the left-wing electoral fraud movement, represented by Kimberlins Velvet Revolution, and the right-wing voter fraud movement, represented by James OKeefes Project Veritas.

Well, except for the fact that I have absolutely no connection to OKeefe, beyond the fact that I wrote a few pieces, for free, for Breitbarts website and OKeefe broke some of his famous stories there as well. I have literally never even communicated with him, or see him in real life. Zero contact. I included him in some tweets but he never replied.

The impetus, in this telling, for the original Breitbart post was some explosive material Kimberlins group had wrangled, via subpoena, from James OKeefes group.

Did he offer any evidence to prove this? I mean Mandy wrote that original post in October, 2010 so where is it?

And I considered this line to be bizarre:

Heres the story from the site Breitbart Unmasked, which is written by an unknown blogger, but which essentially supports Kimberlins version of events:

Breitbart unmasked is either Brett Kimberlin or a close confederate of his. Ask David Hogbergits author knows facts that are only possessed by Kimberlin himself. McCain himself can verify the same thing. But in any case it is strange for you to support the word of a serial liar, by citing an anonymous blog which claims anonymous sources. Even when I stopped being anonymous, I recognized that I needed to back up what I claimed in original reporting with documentation, because otherwise I am just a guy writing on the internet. As of this day I have offered to work with anyone to obtain copies of every single document I cited and the video evidence I provided. You can check my work, and verify most of my claims; you cant say the same thing for anything Breitbart Unmasked has said.

And this is also strange:

Similarly, while Walker says hes lost his job because of his bosses fear of Kimberlin and his criminal past, Kimberlin says Walker lost his job because when his real name was revealed (in court, by
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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Kimberlin), Walker was forced to reveal to his bosses that he was behind a website devoted to cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad. I never contacted his work or anything, Kimberlin says.

First, it was not just me who was fired, but my wife, too. Second, if he has never contacted my work, then how can he pretend to know why I was fired?

I would also note that you failed to note that he specifically told law enforcement that his conduct endangered my wife and I. I think that is an important fact, so his malicious intent becomes obvious.

And it was not a website devoted to mocking Mohammed. It was a free-speech, anti-terrorist website devoted to protecting the right to depict Mohammed. When Revolution Islam threatened to murder the creators of South Park for depictingnot mocking MohammedI and several hundred thousand people decided to commit the same offense by depicting Mohammed as well. At my site it was never a requirement that you mock or degrade Mohammed, merely that you depict Mohammed and indeed many submissions were utterly inoffensive, except for the mere fact that they were depicting Mohammed. Not that everyone stuck to thatI ran a pretty free forumbut it was not a site dedicated to mocking Mohammed.

And that feeds into my next point:

In the other version, theyre victims of Kimberlins exposure of their own extremist beliefs and writings.

I think this is a victim of Kimberlins false claim that the site was dedicated to mocking mohammeedindeed I am willing to bet that he claimed that it was an anti-muslim hate site. But once you know the truth, it is not extremist at all. Its protecting our God-given right to speak about, and mock, religious figures without fear of vigilante violence. Nothing could be more mainstream.

I think with the facts better understood, this line might be rethought:

To my mind, theyre both victims of their decisions to join a war against a target willing to fight back on slightly unconventional terms.

My joining a war involved a little bit of free legal advice to a man being sued and then resisting as he tried to punish me for that sin.

And unconventional is a soft-peddling term. Framing a person for assault is not merely unconventionalits criminal. Trying to get a man killed for saying things you dont like is not just unconventional, but evil.

And this passage here has an implication that is wrong:

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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

The SWAT-ing accusations seem particularly irresponsible, as their connection to Kimberlin is incredibly flimsy.

That suggests that I or Patrick have accused Kimberlin of being involved in the swatting. Neither of us have.

Patterico accused two Kimberlin associates of being responsible, though he doesnt even have evidence that theyre associates.

First, Patrick didnt accuse anyone, although it is reasonable to say he heavily implied that Ron Brynaert is the swatter (speaking of the first 3 swattings).

Second, as for the association on April 11, 2012, in court testimony, Kimberlin described Rauhauser as his associate. As for Brynaert, I have posted the evidence of their association on my website.

I will close with this. You see him toward the end try to dress this up with his grand conspiracy theories. Breitbart, with the Chamber of Commerce, HBGary and the Freemasons (joking on the last part), have all conspired to get him. But has he offered one shred of proof of this?

And as for his veracity, there is one thing you have to know about Brett Kimberlin. He is such a shameless liar, he claimed he had no idea he was called the Speedway Bomber before May 29. I take apart that claimand show him referring to himself by that titlehere: http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2012/07/story-i-couldnt-tell-partv-may-29.html

To be very blunt, nothing he says is to be believed without independent verification. He lies even about things that really dont even matter very much. He is truly compulsive about this.

No, he dresses this up as left v. right as his camouflage, so you dont figure out what is really going on. But start with what we know. You know I didnt strike him even once. So you also know he committed multiple counts of perjury against me. And when he produced those medical records and photographs...? Well, we might speculate that this convicted document forger forged some new documents, but all we can say for sure is that one way or the other they are not what they purport to beevidence that Aaron Walker struck Brett Kimberlin. You know necessarily that he tried to frame me for a crime I didnt commit. So then you know who is getting it right: my side.

Finally, contrary to what you seem to think, I dont think I am the most important person ever. But I do think he was trying to set a dangerous precedent. If merely reporting on reprehensible conduct is incitement that can justify a prior restraint on speech, then that is the end of journalism.

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7/17/12

Gmail - Your article on Brett Kimberlin (this is Aaron Walker)

Anyway, if you would like to discuss this further, you an email me or we can even talk on the phone. I dont mind tough questions. As I say, all reasonable questions will be answered.

Aaron "Worthing" Walker

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