- Hello.
-
- My name is Bob Schultz, acta@capital.net.
-
- I chair the We The People organization which sponsored
the Citizens' Summit To End The Illegal Operations Of The IRS, which was
held at the National Press Club last Saturday.
-
- I am sending this message to you, and to hundreds of
other interested Citizens, who have asked why C-SPAN didn't broadcast
the Summit. I don't know why C-SPAN failed to broadcast the event. What
I can tell you are the facts as I know them.
-
- The following is a copy of an article I posted on our
web site this evening. See www.givemeliberty.org. If you are interested
in the issue of the constitutionality of the income and social taxes and
legality of the operations of the IRS, and what you and we can do about
it, you may want to visit our web site. We especially encourage you to
read and sign the Remonstrance and to follow the developments relating
to the April 13, 2000 event.
-
- After you have read the piece that follows, and reviewed
our web site, if you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate
to contact me.
-
- Stay well and stay vigilant!
-
- C-SPAN: WHAT HAPPENED?
-
- We The People's July Symposium on the Legality Of The
Income and Social Security Taxes, held at the National Press Club in
Washingtion DC, was broadcast live on C-SPAN 2, and rebroadcast several
times.
-
- C-SPAN was contacted, thoroughly informed and enlisted
to broadcast the Citizens' Summit To End The IllegalOperations Of the
IRS, which was held on Saturday, November 13, 1999, but C-SPAN was a "no-show."
It not only failed to broadcast the event live, as it did in July, but
it also failed to tape the event for later broadcast.
-
- What was the public's reaction to this? Beginning as
early as Saturday, November 13th, and continuing through Monday, November
15, 1999, C-SPAN received a flood of e-mails, faxes, and phone calls from
people all across the country, asking why the Citizens' Summit was not
being broadcast, or had not been broadcast, by C-SPAN. On Monday, November
15, 1999, C-SPAN started to respond to the people's inquiries with a standard
message which read: "C-SPAN never said that we would cover the event.
Our editorial board did not even consider it because they had no information
about it. Apparantly there is a misleading e-mail message making the rounds
that claims we were scheduled to cover the event. I am sorry to inform
you that this was never true, and that the IRS Symposium at the National
Press Club will not air on C-SPAN or C-SPAN 2."
-
- Upon learning of C-SPAN'S response, we immediately telephoned
C-SPAN and spoke to "Marsha" and then "Justin," both
from C-SPAN's "Viewer Services." We told them that they should
not be telling people that C-SPAN had "no information" about
the meeting, because it was not true, and people at C-SPAN knew that it
was not true. We informed Marsha and Justin that we could easily show
that C-SPAN'S assignment desk and, therefore, its editorial board knew
about the meeting and its agenda well in advance of C-SPAN's daily afternoon
editorialboard meeting on Friday, November 12, 1999, at which it decided
which of the following day's events it would broadcast live, which it
would tape for later broadcast and which it would not cover at all.
-
- Marsha agreed to immediately stop giving out the inaccurate
response and to direct all inquiries on the subject to our website and
to our e-mail address.Under the facts and circumstances of the matter,
we are as troubled over C-SPAN's behavior as are so many other people.Due
to the widespread and intense interest in the issue, we offer here the
facts as we know them.
-
- First, C-SPAN's web site (<http://www.c-span.orgwww.c-span.org)
encourages people to e-mail C-SPAN at events@c-span.org to suggest events
those people would like C-SPAN to cover.
-
- Note: For 6-8 weeks leading up to our July Symposium
on the Legality of The Income and Social Security Taxes, and for 6-8 weeks
leading up to the November 13th Citizens' Summit we received copies of
e-mail messages people from towns across America had sent to C-SPAN requesting
C-SPAN to cover the respective events.
-
- Second. Because so many "off-hill" events
take place in Washington DC everyday, C-SPAN does not decide which "off-hill"
event it will cover until its daily, afternoon editorial board meeting
the day before the event is scheduled to take place. With respect to each
suggestion and request, C-SPAN decides to either cover the event live,
tape it for later broadcast or not cover the event at all.C-SPAN has people
who work at their "assignment desk," and gather the needed information
about each event for presentation at the daily, afternoon editorial board
meeting. Sponsors of events could submit the information about their
event to C-SPAN long before the event is scheduled to take place. However,
the assignment desk people usually do not focus on the information, and
really don't require the information, until 2 or 3 days before the date
of the event.
-
- Note: Denise Douglas was the assignment desk person to
whom we submitted the necessary information about the July Symposium (which
C-SPAN broadcast live) and to whom we submitted the information about the
November 13th Citizens' Summit (which, for some reason, C-SPAN did not
cover).
-
- Third. Early in September, 1999, we contacted C-SPAN's
Viewer Services and spoke to a male representative. Without, yet identifying
who was calling, we said that we would be scheduling an event in Washington
DC during the week of November 8, 1999, the subject of the event was of
nationwide interest, we were inclined to schedule the event for Saturday,
November 13, 1999, to make it possible for more working people to attend
the event, but that we did not want to foreclose on the possibility of
C-SPAN coverage. In other words, we needed to know if C-SPAN avoided covering
events on Saturdays. We told the person at Viewer Services that we were
familiar with C-SPAN's policy and procedure regarding requests for coverage
and that we knew no decision would be forthcoming until the day before
the event, but we needed to know, in effect, if C-SPAN worked on Saturdays
to broadcast events live or to tape events for later broadcast. To our
surprise and delight, the young man immediately asked, "Is this the
We The People group?" We said, "Yes." He then offered that
C-SPAN has had a huge response to the July Tax Symposium, and that they
have not been able to keep their tape of that event on the shelf because
so many people were calling to request a copy. He then said that C-SPAN
often broadcasts live on Saturdays, and that it would make no difference
to C-SPAN which day of the week we held the event during that week in
November. We told him that in that case we would schedule the Summit meeting
for Saturday November 13, 1999.
-
- Fourth. The information that C-SPAN requests from the
sponsor of each event that the sponsor wants covered by C-SPAN is as follows:
name of the event; sponsoring organization; description of the event;
participants (confirmed); start time; end time; and, contact person.
-
- Note: On June 26, 1999, six days before the July 1-2,
1999, date of our Symposium on the Legality of the Income and Social Security
Taxes, we faxed the required information to Denise Douglas. On November
4, 1999, nine days before the November 13th date of the Citizens' Summit
To End the Illegal Operations Of The IRS, Robert Schulz, Chairman of the
We The People Congress, personally hand delivered a letter to C-SPAN at
its office at 400 No. Capitol Street, NW, to the attention of Denise Douglas.
This letter contained the required information.
-
- Fifth. C-SPAN also usually requests a press release
or press advisory relating to the event.
-
- Note: Prior to our July Symposium on the Legality of
the Income and Social Security Taxes, we not only sent C-SPAN a press
release, we used the services of U.S. Newswire to transmit our press release
to what they refer to as the "Washington Circuit," which includes
approximately 361 major media outlets with Washington DC bureaus (most
of which have offices within the National Press Building), as well as the
White House, all cabinet agencies, the U.S. House Information System and
the U.S. Senate Computer System.
-
- On Friday morning, November 12, 1999 we faxed our press
release to C-SPAN's Brad McGuire (as directed by Denise Douglas' voice
machine), and e-mailed a copy to U.S.Newswire. At 12:24 pm on Friday,
November 12, 1999, U.S. Newswire wired our press release to the Washington
Circuit. All afternoon on Friday November 12th we tried to reach either
Denise Douglas or Brad McGuire. We were unsuccessful. They may have been
attending the daily, afternoon editorial board meeting. We were only able
to leave messages on their voice machines.
-
- Sixth.During the afternoon on Friday, November 12, 1999,
we called C-SPAN's scheduling hotline to see what C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2
had scheduled for Saturday, November 13th. The schedule for C-SPAN showed
a live broadcast between 8 and 10 am (Washington Journal) and another
live broadcast Saturday night. Nothing was scheduled on C-SPAN between
10 am and 4 pm -- the hours of the Summit meeting. C-SPAN 2's schedule
for Saturday reflected C-SPAN's long-standing committment to book reviews.
It was obvious that C-SPAN's schedule was open during the time of the
We The People meeting.
-
- Seventh. At about 1:00 pm on Friday, November 12, 1999,
we received a telephone call from a Gary Gray who said he worked for the
Department of Justice, located in the National Press Building, but that
he was speaking personally. He said he knew that we were having a meeting
the next day at the National Press Club. He said that he had gone to the
National Press Club (located in the building) to inquire about the event
and that he learned how many people we had guaranteed for breakfast and
how many we had guaranteed for lunch. His first question was, "Is
this going to be on C-SPAN?" We said we expected C-SPAN to broadcast
the event, as they had our meeting in July, but we didn"t know for
sure. We explained C-SPAN's policy of not deciding and disclosing such
things until after their daily, afternoon editorial board meeting, and
that we didn't expect to hear from C-SPAN until later that day, if at
all. Mr. Gray then asked if it was true that a U.S. Senator attempted to
bribe someone to have the meeting cancelled. We answered, "No, but
that at the Citizens' Summit meeting the next day, Bill Benson, one of
the speakers would be disclosing the name of a U.S. Senator that attempted,
in 1985, to pay to suppress Bill Benson's evidence of Philander Knox's
fraudulent proclamation that the 16th Amendment had been properly and
legally ratified by the States. We told Mr. Gray that during the July
Symposium (aired live by C-SPAN) Bill Benson stopped short of naming the
Senator and that Bill Benson was planning to name the Senator the next
day during the Citizens' Summit. Mr. Gray then asked if the Senator was
alive and in office. We said, "Yes." He then asked who the other
speakers were. We told him that two former IRS agents would be speaking
about their recent decisions to resign from the IRS because they could
no longer enforce the Internal Revenue Code as if the taxes were compulsory,
knowing as they did that the taxes are voluntary. We also identified as
another speaker, David Bosset, the Florida employer who had recently convinced
the IRS that filing and paying income and social security taxes was voluntary,
not compulsory. Mr.Gray then asked, "What if Congress changed the
law to make the tax compulsory?" We said, "Congress would still
be faced with the problem of the unconstitutional 16th Amendment."
We then asked Mr. Gray how he learned about the Summit. He hesitated,
then said, "Someone sent me an e-mail." We asked if he was planning
on attending the Summit. He said that he would try to get there. He offered
that he was not calling in his official capacity, but as an interested
citizen.
-
- Eighth. C-SPAN has a T.V. camera hanging from the ceiling
at the back of the Ballroom at the National Press Club, the room that
the Citizens' Summit was being held in and the room where all major NPC
events are held. C-SPAN is able to operate that camera remotely from its
offices at 400 No. Capitol Street, N.W.. without having to tie up a full
camera crew.
-
- Ninth. C-SPAN did not contact us on Friday or Saturday.
No one from C-SPAN showed up at the Citizens' Summit To End The Illegal
Operations Of The IRS.
-
- Tenth. The lobby of the National Press Building has
approximately 10 T.V.'s built into one wall. They are operated by all the
major broadcasters and appear to operate all day long. On Saturday afternoon,
November 13,1999, we were told by one of the people attending the Summit
that she observed that C-SPAN was broadcasting re-runs of speeches by
Congressmen to an empty chamber of the House of Representatives. We have
been told that C-SPAN 2 was broadcasting reruns of book reviews.
|
