Give me liberty or give me jail

Liberty Dollar rep Kevin Innes seeks support, release
by David Forbes in Vol. 16 / Iss. 28 on 02/03/2010
Mountain Xpress
Feb. 08, 2010

Utter lies and garbage, it was extremely clear the bills were not supposed to be federal reserve notes. The whole idea behind it was they are NOT Federal Reserve notes! They are silver backed certificates which can be used in place of the Federal Reserve's fiat money.

This patriot is being put through absolute hell over a blatant lie, not to mention AFAIK the government stole tens of millions of dollars worth of private citizens silver being kept in vaults. The government agents who are violating his rights and stole the property of his customers are the ones who need to be up on trial, they are full on blatant criminals.William Kevin Innes, an Asheville man arrested last June and charged with trying to pass off a private currency as legal tender, has sent a plea from jail asking community members for help in securing his release before his trial, which is slated to begin next month.

In the undated, handwritten letter, titled "Injustice Comes to Asheville," Innes asserts that his "alleged crime" amounts to no more than "trying to help small businesses by promoting the use of a local-acting, precious-metal currency as the United States Constitution says the whole country should be using."

The federal government, however, sees the case quite differently.

"When groups seek to undermine the U.S. currency system, the government is compelled to act. These coins are not government-produced coinage, yet purchasers were led to believe by those who made and sold them that they should be spent like U.S. Federal Reserve notes," acting U.S. Attorney Edward Ryan declared in announcing the arrest last year. "Such claims are in violation of federal law."

According to the indictment, Liberty Services, the company that distributed the Liberty Dollar, violated the law by designing coins and bills that resemble official U.S. currency (the indictment specifically cites the use of the head of Lady Liberty and a torch) and by encouraging private merchants to make change with Liberty Dollars in $5, $10, $20 and $50 denominations. According to the Liberty Dollar Web site, 74 Asheville area merchants were accepting the currency at the time of the arrests.

After Innes was named in search warrants issued in connection with a 2007 FBI raid on the Liberty Services headquarters in Indiana, he told Xpress he had never represented the currency as legal tender. In the letter, he says he was careful to ask local law-enforcement officials that his actions were legal.

"From the beginning of 2003, I have continuously received assurance from law enforcement, including Sheriff Van Duncan, that no law was being broken," Innes writes. "How is the FBI serving and protecting the country by arresting me?"

Continued