FBI Raids AnonForecast; takes medical device

by Sue Basko

Important Note: Aaron Bale, aka AnonForecast is NOT sending any emails or participating in any IRCs or chats at this time.  If you receive or see any such email or chat or accounts, it is not him.  Aaron is busy taking care of his health.
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Early on the morning of June 20, I got a phone call from my legal client, Aaron Bale, aka AnonForecast.  Aaron was calling to tell me the FBI was in his apartment.  An FBI agent came to the door and showed Aaron a long list of computer screen names and wanted to know what Aaron knew about them.  Aaron said he did not want to talk without a lawyer.   

The agent then showed Aaron a warrant. Ten other agents, with their guns drawn, entered the tiny one bedroom apartment.  All of this is mighty overkill since Aaron is a smiley-faced teddy bear with no weapons.   He has narcolepsy and was half asleep.  He's also disabled, a survivor of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and recently had heart surgery.  Aaron poses no physical threat.  

Aaron also poses no computer threat, since, even if he wanted to hack things, he doesn't have the type of skills needed, because of his TBI.   Aaron is very bright, possibly brilliant, but certain types of skills that require memory, recall, and clear thinking, are not his forte.  And, if anything requires staying awake, that's a no-go, since he has narcolepsy.  There are photos and videos of Aaron asleep at dinners, asleep at parties, asleep on air during a radio show, asleep during online chats.   

 Aaron's memory gets wiped clean by his TBI and by the drug he is prescribed for his narcolepsy.    Aaron depends on his phone, which is also a prescribed medical orthotic, to keep him alive and going.  The phone has special apps that fill in the missing puzzle pieces of Aaron's brain.  There's an app that monitors his breathing and alerts if his respiration becomes too shallow or stops.  There's an app that reminds him to take his medicine. There's an app that wakes him up and has him solve little puzzles, to test if his brain is alert enough to move on to the tasks at hand.

The FBI took Aaron's phone/ cognitive orthotic.  That left him  without phone communication, which is an extremely irresponsible and dangerous thing to do to a disabled person.  The taking of his phone also left Aaron without his cognitive orthotic.  It was as if the FBI  snatched part of Aaron's brain.  Immediately, Aaron's life went into lethal danger.  Aaron takes medicine, the "side effects" of which are confusion, coma, death, suicide, and hallucinations.  The medicine has to be taken exactly as prescribed and precisely on schedule. It's a damn dangerous drug, but one he cannot live without.  And the FBI took the tool he needs to take the drug properly and on time -- his cognitive orthotic, or phone.  

Within a day of this FBI raid, Aaron was plummeted into a dire medical and mental condition.  When the FBI arrived, Aaron was supposed to be taking his morning medicine and getting ready to go to his neuro rehab session.  Instead, he was facing 11 men with guns ransacking his apartment, with all the shock and terror that entails.  It was all downhill from there, because they took his phone, so he could not schedule rides to his rehab or keep track of his medication schedule.  Within 24 hours, Aaron's health was totally screwed up; I repeatedly thought we had lost him and sent someone to go see if he was still alive.

 I find it incomprehensible that the FBI can enter the home of a disabled man and take his mandatory, prescribed, direly-needed, life-or-death medical appliance.   The laws regarding this need to change.  If the FBI wants someone's medical orthotic, they should be required to show up with a replacement in hand, along with medical personnel to care for the person and train them in use of the new device.  The FBI should also be required to pay for clean-up of the ransacked apartment and for medical care for the person they have traumatized. What is happening now is unreasonable search and seizure.  What is happening now is life-threatening and wrong.    

The main agent running the raid, Dan Jackman, told Aaron the raid was in  regard to KYAnonymous.  KYAnonymous is a young man in Kentucky, whose real name is Deric Lostutter.  Deric, as KYAnonymous, allegedly ran an online protest called KnightSec or OpRedRoll that was trying to spread news about a high school rape in Steubenville, Ohio.  I don't know the details of the rape or of KnightSec, so I won't pretend I do.  I've heard that a cheesy website, run by a fan of a high school sports team, got hacked by someone who has admitted doing it, who also claims to be working for the government.  It sounds as if what Lostutter did was not illegal, but merely annoying to some and heroic to others.    

What I do know is that Aaron Bale had absolutely nothing to do with KnightSec, OpRedRoll, the website, or KYAnonymous.   Aaron had even gone on a radio show saying he disagreed with the timing of the  KnightSec activity on the basis that the high school boys had not yet been brought to trial.   

Aaron says that Agent Jackman and another agent played a prototypical game of Good Cop/ Bad Cop with him.  They tried to get Aaron to talk about Deric Lostutter by telling him that his "friend" KYAnonymous had "ratted on" him and "spilled the beans."  It sounds like the script of a 1960s cop show.  Except, Aaron does not know Deric Lostutter and there are no beans to spill.   

The FBI agents held Aaron for several hours and carted off his computer, his phone, a paper notebook, and piles of broken old computer junk Aaron collected from different places, that he sometimes uses for spare parts.  They took his old music CDs he has not listened to since high school.  I think we can all agree that much of 1990s music was a crime, so taking those was justified.  Taking his phone/cognitive orthotic was the equivalent of attempted murder.  

Will the FBI come up with some trumped-up charges to cover their wrongdoing in harming Aaron?  We'll find out.  

Since the raid, I've spent countless hours trying to help Aaron recover, recuperate, and get organized.  That's not easy with a person who is confused, whose memory keeps being wiped, who keeps falling asleep, who is living without his direly-needed medical and communications equipment, and who is in possession of prescribed drugs that a slip-up in the dose can put him in a coma.  I am learning advanced techniques in patience, except when I am cranky.

 And there's so much to do.  Aaron needs some legal help there in Kentucky.  We NEED a Kentucky licensed federal criminal defense lawyer to volunteer at least a little time.   Aaron needs to replace his communications equipment, but lacks funds to do that.   Aaron  needs medical care because he says his tailbone seems to have been injured by the raid, when the FBI agents made him sit for hours outside on a narrow ledge leading to the roof.  (They also sent a few agents with him into the bathroom to watch him take a poo,  as if he might escape by flushing himself down the toilet.)

The 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect against unreasonable search and seizure.  Surely, that means situations like this.