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- Greetings Friends and Family,
Latest update in the fight for freedom from the number of the
beast
United States Military Pay Case
On January, 13th, after many hundreds of man-hours of work in Dec.
and Jan., we submitted our motion for summary judgment on the 2nd and 3rd
causes of action, in the nine-count case, in the United States Court of
Federal Claims, 99-583-C. Read the Background.
Virginia Driving Case
In our last criminal conviction, the judge said, “We just not going
to go there” when Herb introduced our constitutional claim in a motion
for dismissal. In the mean time, we pressed the DMV commissioner
as far as we could, prompting an attorney general opinion that the commissioner
has no authority to waive the requirement for driver’s license applicants
to put an SSN on the application. We have stalled a bit on it for
two reasons.
The first reason – Herb has worked many hundreds of hours, if not over a thousand, on the federal case without getting paid. I told him that I could not ask him to do more work on the driving issue unless we are willing to pay him.
The second reason – Herb has been working to the full extent of his physical ability on the federal case and other cases and has not had the time resources necessary to prepare a winning brief.
I called Herb this morning, at 7:06 a.m., and asked him about is schedule over the next six months. Herb told me that his schedule is clearing up a bit and that we ought to press on with the driver’s license issue within the next three months.
Here is what I am contemplating
Virginia is a good place to weigh in an argument over this issue of
making criminals out of us who cannot confess the number of the beast due
to Biblical mandate. This issue needs to be dealt with in every state
though. In Texas, there are teenagers who want to drive without going
to jail and crop dusters who want to continue their livelihood. In
Illinois, there is a courageous young man who is fighting hard to overcome
the government obstacle but is being beaten down. In Rhea county
Tennessee, there is a woman taking on the beast all alone. Moses
needed someone along his side to hold up his arms and so do each of us.
I will use myself and my family to get the job done in Virginia, but this
same battle, and same argument, needs to be simultaneously taken to each
state.
In need to know who is willing to have their name on a case, such as “John Smith v. Commissioner, Arkansas Department of Motor Vehicles.” Who is willing to let a ‘lawyer’ argue the case in a court room? Who is willing to do the difficult work necessary to do the legal research and other paralegal administration necessary to get the job accomplished as it is peculiar to their state? Who beside Herb Titus can we get to take the same argument to another state? If someone wants to take their case by themselves, are they willing to accept an amicus brief from our organization?
Larry Becraft told me he was willing to help. There may be other qualified lawyers who have not sold their souls, who are faithful to the truth of law and to our Savior and Lord Jesus. The work required is intense. We need to be able to pay our workers who are worthy of their wages.
I hear a lot of dialogue, but not a lot of resolve. I cannot proceed, Herb cannot proceed, if we cannot agree together to take decisive action. It is time for resolution.
Background, in 1996, while a Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy, I requested a religious accommodation. Rather than process my request, the Navy began artfully whisking me away out of the service, carefully making sure none of my due process or other rights were honored, and carefully making sure that there was no record of what was really going on. My request was for the Chief of Naval Personnel to assign a “Navy generated service number” in lieu of using a SSN for the purpose of the Military Personnel Identification Number (MPIN) assigned to my records.
Since then, after trying administrative redress, I filed suit in the Court of Federal Claims, Pro Se. I was then rapidly being whisked off the judge’s docket when I finally got hold of Herb Titus. Herb had us dismiss the case and re-file it with a properly constructed complaint.
None-the-less, our case was flippantly dismissed. However, that brought the case under the scrutiny of the Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit. There, one of the judges was an ex-JAG. During the hearing, it was clear that two of the three judges could see right through the government’s smoke screen. The ex-JAG, Judge Archer, delivered an opinion in our favor that may have an impact on other people’s cases to come. They ruled that the use of an SSN as an MPIN, though a mandate from the Secretary of the Navy, is not exempt from the Secretary of the Navy’s own religious accommodation policy. They also ruled that E.O. 9397, often cited by the government as their authority to demand an SSN, is not a mandate that precludes the Navy from making individual exceptions for religious accommodation.
The Court vacated the dismissal and remanded the case to the Court of Claims. The Appeals Court mandated that the voluntariness issue be tried. If we prevailed, the Navy had a chance to prove that it all would have happened just the same way if they had actually obeyed their own rules. When we came to the court for a hearing on how to proceed, the Court of Claims judge Futey introduced a curve ball. He made a sua sponte motion for dismissal saying I did not have a right to continue service, since there was no right to continue service, there was no right to pay, thus there is no jurisdiction. However, in October 2003, he ruled in our favor saying that the facts showed that I did have a right to service beyond the date that I was discharged, to at least January of 1999. That was a very important ruling.
That left us to present facts that I could meet the three prong test of voluntariness that the court was relying upon. In November, 2003, the Judge stated that, on the basis of the record, he agreed that I had met all three burdens of proof. Now the Navy had a chance to prove that their failure to follow their own rules did not matter. The judge said that he agreed with the Appeals Court that they would lose that argument on the basis of what was in the record. Thus, the Navy introduced a strange proposal. They proposed that they now interview the principals and see if they will tell us that they would have taken the same actions back in 1996-1997 if they had actually followed the rules. We objected to the preposterous prejudicial proposal. Yet, that is what we have spent the last year having to work through.
After many hundreds of man-hours in December and January, we submitted our reply to the Navy’s motion for dismissal and we submitted a cross-motion for summary judgment on the same thing we moved for back in 2000 when the case was flippantly dismissed.
On the basis of the facts and law, things look pretty good. Now let us see if we can have the law prevail.