Steven Haack
Legal Defense Fund
Because freedom isn't free
This could happen to anyone
Imagine opening your front door and being stormed by an army of Federal Agents and local police officers. Imagine the humiliation of being dragged out of your house in handcuffs in your underwear in front of your neighbors to be questioned and insulted about crimes you did not commit. Imagine having your child taken from you for months and placed in a foster home. Finally, imagine losing your job, the only source of income that you had to pay for your defense against carefully-calculated malicious accusations. Couldn't happen to you? Think again.
We could not have known it then but our nightmare began back in 2006 when a childhood friend came to visit my family from Canada, even though we had not conversed for more than 16 years, and it was the first time we had personally met in over 18 years. During our visit, I quickly realized that my friend (I'll call him Jeff) had changed in some ways but retained some of the habits that had caused the riff in our relationship in 1989. He had kept using the drugs that he convinced me he had stopped, but over time had developed a keen hatred for the United States (a country we both loved as children), and developed some fairly radical opinions regarding animal rights. We had some debates over these and other issues but tried to rekindle our friendship by focusing on what we continued to have in common – our love of music. When Jeff left, we continued to occasionally talk on the phone with each other. Little did I know that even as we communicated, Jeff was plotting against me and my family.
November 24th, 2009, started like any other Tuesday. After awakening, my wife and I prepared our six-year-old daughter for school. I remember quite vividly that it was a beautiful Central California morning with sunny blue skies. We both immigrated to the United States, she from the Philippines and I from Canada. We came to the United States to live the 'American Dream'. We obeyed the law, we worked hard, paid our taxes and did our best to raise a responsible, law-abiding child. But this day would turn our pursuit of the American dream into a nightmare.
After dropping our child off at school and kissing her good-bye, we returned home and went back to sleep (I had worked a night shift and it was my day off). We were suddenly awakened by a loud pounding on the front door. When I opened my front door I was horrified to find very aggressive agents from the FBI, the Secret Service, the ATF and the Tulare Police Department on my front porch.
As my wife and I were questioned, half-naked in our front yard, agents tore through our house turning everything upside down. Obviously we were both very confused but as the questioning continued it became obvious what this was about...we were being accused of plotting to assassinate elected members of the federal government.
On what basis was such a massive mobilization of state power brought to bear on me and my family? The rantings of my Canadian 'friend', Jeff, who (I later discovered) has been regularly treated for mental illness. On the basis of his testimony alone, not one of these Federal Agencies saw fit to conduct an investigation or surveillance before storming into our home and shredding our lives to pieces. We have also since discovered that the Canadian authorities who took Jeff's report had noticed that Jeff had been using marijuana and possibly other narcotics at the time he made the allegations. Yet the US authorities pressed aggressively onward. Too amazing to believe? I, like you, would not have believed such a thing was possible in the US before this happened to me.
We need your help
There are many details of this incident, including the charges I am now facing, that I would love to explain but cannot divulge for legal reasons. I am now in the process of raising funds for my defense. Please help.