Tuesday • September 30 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.XL
Manchester, N.H.
Written By: Jacob G. Hornberger, Re-shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
/* Set default font and size for the whole page */Ian Freeman committed no crime, but that hasn’t stopped the corrupt court system from sentencing him to nearly a decade in prison.
On July 29, 2025, a three-judge panel of the First Circuit federal Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the criminal convictions and incarceration of libertarian Bitcoin activist Ian Freeman, who I have steadfastly maintained is an innocent man who federal officials railroaded into an 8-year prison sentence, which he is now serving.
Here are my articles about the Freeman case, which explain in detail why this man is innocent:
The Unjust Conviction of an Innocent Man by Jacob G. Hornberger
How I Came to Investigate the Ian Freeman Case by Jacob G. Hornberger
Statism Was Alive and Well in Ian Freeman’s Appellate Hearing by Jacob G Hornberger
The Court’s opinion
A person who is convicted of a crime in a U.S. District Court has the right to appeal his conviction to the federal Court of Appeals in the circuit in which the District Court is situated. To do that, he must file a Notice of Appeal. He must then file an appellate brief stating what exactly are the legal rulings that the District Judge made that void the conviction or that require the case to be sent back for a new trial. He must cite legal authority (i.e., legal opinions from similar federal cases) to support each of his points. There is something important to note about the defendant’s appellate brief: If he fails to challenge a particular ruling of the District Judge, he waives the point. That is, it is gone forever. He cannot later raise it during oral arguments or at a later time.
Freeman was convicted of the following crimes, for which he received the following prison sentences:
(1) Failing to register his bitcoin business with the federal government and conspiring to fail to register his bitcoin business with the federal government. Five years.
(2) Failure to pay income tax for various years. Five years.
(3) Money laundering.
(4) Conspiracy to launder money. Eight years.
The District Judge threw out the money-laundering conviction (number 3) before sentencing. He held that there was no evidence whatsoever to support the jury’s conviction on that count. And there wasn’t. The judge acted properly in throwing out that conviction, notwithstanding the jury’s verdict of guilty.
A “no-evidence” point to challenge a conviction can also be raised on appeal. But, again, it must be raised as a specific point in the defendant’s appellate brief. If it is not raised, it is waived (unless the Court of Appeals raises the issue on its own motion as a matter of simple justice — that is, avoiding upholding a conviction of an innocent person — that is, a person whose has been convicted of a crime when there is no evidence whatsoever that the person committed the crime).
The conspiracy conviction
It is my contention that there was no evidence whatsoever in the record that Freeman entered into a conspiracy to launder money. In other words, the same no-evidence basis on which the District Court threw out the substantive charge of laundering money applied to the conspiracy-to-launder money charge as well. Thus, I contend that Freeman’s lawyer should have challenged the conspiracy count in his appellate brief with a point stating, “There is no evidence to support the jury’s verdict of conspiracy-to-launder money and, therefore, that conviction should be set aside, just as the money-laundering conviction was set aside by the District Judge.”
But Freeman’s lawyer failed to do that. He failed to challenge on appeal the conspiracy conviction based on “no evidence” to support it, notwithstanding the fact that that was the conviction on which Freeman had received the highest prison sentence — 8 years, as compared to 5 years on the failing-to-register and income-tax evasion convictions. (All the sentences ran concurrently — that is, at the same time.)
Why was the failure to challenge the conspiracy conviction so important? Because it left the conspiracy conviction intact! In other words, once Freeman waived any challenge of the 8-year conspiracy conviction, he was effectively finished. That is, even if the Court of Appeals had voided his registration convictions and his income-tax convictions, Freeman would have still been saddled with the conspiracy conviction and the 8-year prison sentence that came with it simply because his lawyer failed to challenge it on appeal.
Except for one thing: Freeman’s attorney argued that the evidence from the money-laundering conviction was so prejudicial that it “spilled over” into the conspiracy conviction and prejudicially affected the jury’s verdict on the conspiracy charge. Therefore, he argued, the case should be sent back for a new trial without the jury hearing the evidence regarding the money-laundering conviction that was thrown out. But in its opinion, the Court of Appeals rejected that spillover argument, stating that it was entirely proper for the jury to hear the money-laundering evidence in considering the conspiracy charge.
Freeman’s attorney also made his “spillover” argument with respect to the registration and tax-evasion charges. But since the Court upheld Freeman’s convictions on those charges, the spill-over argument with respect to those charges became moot. But I think that it is highly likely that even if the Court of Appeals had knocked out either the registration charge or the tax-evasion charge or both, it would have rejected the spillover argument anyway with respect to those charges.
I contend that the “no-evidence” point was much more powerful than the spillover argument, especially since there simply was no evidence whatsoever in the record that Freeman conspired with anyone to launder money. But the important point is that Freeman’s lawyer could have raised both points. He wasn’t relegated to choosing between them.
In its opinion, the Court of Appeals did allude to Freeman’s failure to challenge the conspiracy to launder money charge on appeal. In footnote #33 on page 71 of its 81-page opinion, the Court stated, “The district court did not acquit Freeman of conspiracy to commit money laundering, a decision that Freeman has not challenged.”
In its opinion, the Court of Appeals implicitly and indirectly sustained this no-evidence point when the 3-judge panel made the following remarkable and revealing statement on page 71 of its opinion: “We agree with the district court that the undercover agent’s discussion of purported drug proceeds with Freeman was relevant to establishing whether Freeman conspired with the undercover agent to perpetrate money laundering and thus could have been admitted even if the underlying money laundering charge had never been brought.” (Emphasis added.)
Why is the italicized-bolded portion of that statement so remarkable and revealing?
Two reasons:
One, the Court of Appeals is saying that the conspiracy charge is sustained by the fact that Freeman conspired with the federal undercover agent (secret undercover IRS agent Pavel Prilotsky) to perpetrate money laundering.
Two, and more important, the law is very clear that it is impossible for a person to criminally conspire with a government undercover agent, for the obvious reason: an undercover agent cannot, as a matter of law, be a party to a criminal conspiracy.
In other words, to prove a conspiracy, the government must prove that an agreement existed between two or more people to commit the crime. In this case, the crime is money laundering. The government had to prove that Freeman entered into an agreement with another person to launder money. But under well-established federal law, that other person cannot be a government undercover agent. The other person to the agreement must be someone who was an actual party to the criminal agreement. If the supposed agreement was between Freeman and the government undercover agent, as the Court of Appeals asserts in its opinion, then there is no conspiracy as a matter of fact and as a matter of law.
The Court of Appeals cited two legal cases in support of its statement regarding Freeman’s supposed conspiracy with the government undercover agent: U.S. v George (2014) and U.S. v. Tum (2013). However, a careful review of the opinions in those two cases reveals that the conspiracies in those two cases did not involve government undercover agents but rather private parties.
Permit me to cite a couple of cases that support my point and that contradict the point made by the Court of Appeals:
1. United States v. Heater (1995): “The government must prove:(1) an agreement between two or more persons (who are not government agents)….”
2. United States v. Benavides: “One who acts as a government agent and enters into a purported conspiracy in the secret role of an informer cannot be a co-conspirator.”
Conclusion: The government failed to provide any evidence that Freeman entered into an agreement with anyone (that is, that he “conspired”) to launder money. The District Judge acted properly when he threw out the substantive money-laundering charge on that basis — that there was no evidence whatsoever that Freeman had engaged in actual money laundering. But the District Judge should have thrown out the conspiracy charge on that same basis — that the record is devoid of any evidence that Freeman entered into an agreement with anyone to launder money. (Again, under the law and contrary to what the Court of Appeals incorrectly asserted, any “agreement” to commit a crime that involves an undercover agent doesn’t count as a conspiracy.) Freeman’s lawyer should have challenged that conspiracy conviction (and 8-year prison sentence) on appeal on that ground. Even though he failed to do so, I hold that the Court of Appeals had a moral duty to raise the point on its own motion to avoid sustaining the wrongful conviction of an innocent man.
The Lonely Hearts Club
Another point needs to be raised about the Court of Appeals opinion. On page 6, the Court writes: “Across all three of his platforms, Freeman instituted another policy —one which eschewed any inquiries into why his customers were purchasing bitcoin. But it is questionable, as we’ll explain, that such a no-ask policy truly insulated Freeman from the knowledge that his services were being used by customers who were, in fact, scammers and money launderers.”
That sentence demonstrates that the Court of Appeals fell for the same “Lonely Hearts Club” argument that the government made in the trial court. But even if Freeman had some sort of moral or ethical duty to serve as a daddy for lonely widows who were letting themselves get scammed by online lovers, Freeman wasn’t charged or convicted of defrauding or scamming those little old ladies or of conspiring to do so. That point obviously goes right over the heads of the three appellate judges, just as it obviously did with the District Judge. How does Freeman’s failure to serve as a protective daddy to these little old ladies establish that he entered into a conspiracy to launder money? It doesn’t because the Lonely Hearts Club evidence still does not establish that Freeman entered into an agreement with anyone to launder money. The government’s evidence relating to the Lonely Hearts Club was always totally irrelevant to the conspiracy charge. Again, Freeman was not charged or convicted with scamming or defrauding those little old ladies who permitted themselves to get scammed after they fell in love with their online lovers.
The drug-war racket
It’s also worth pointing out that the money-laundering statutes and the money-transmission registration statutes are rooted in the federal government’s much-vaunted decades-old, ongoing, never-ending, perpetual war on drugs. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, such crackdowns have done nothing — absolutely nothing — to bring “victory” in the war on drugs. After all, if they had, President Trump and his military wouldn’t be killing people in the Caribbean for U.S. drug-law violations. Federal judges, federal prosecutors, and the DEA just continue destroying people’s lives with impunity, as their predecessors did 50 years ago and have done continuously ever since, and as they have now done with Ian Freeman and countless others. What these statists cannot acknowledge to themselves, much less to the American people, is that their beloved drug war and all of its crackdowns (including money-laundering statutes and registration regulations) are just one great big racket that keeps federal judges, federal prosecutors, DEA agents, Homeland Security agents, and military officials in high cotton with extremely generous taxpayer-funded salaries.
The registration convictions
Let’s now move on the failing-to-register his Bitcoin business with the federal government and the related conspiracy to fail-to-register his business. What we are talking about here is essentially a regulatory violation. Imagine — being sentenced to serve five years in prison for what amounts to a regulatory violation. It’s just another horror story among many of America’s conversion to a regulatory/administrative state during President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration during the 1930s. Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that another group of defendants in an unrelated case — the Uhuru defendants — who were convicted in 2024 of conspiracy to fail to register as Russian agents received probation from a different federal judge.
Reflecting FDR’s conversion of America to an administrative state, it’s also worth mentioning that law schools have long had entire courses devoted to “administrative law.” For that matter, they also have courses devoted to “income-tax law.” I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if they also have courses devoted to “immigration law,” “drug-war law,” “licensure law,” “minimum-wage law,” and other features of America’s statist system that 20th-century statists foisted upon our country. It’s also worth mentioning that none of these courses was being taught in American law schools in the 19th century simply because Americans rejected statism and these statist programs for more than a century after our country was founded.
It would be difficult to find a better example of what statism has done to the mindsets of America’s lawyers and judges than the Court of Appeals opinion in Ian Freeman’s case. The opinion is absolutely incredible. It consists of more than 21,000 words, most of which deal with the arcane world of a federal regulatory agency called FinCEN, which falls within the Department of the Treasury. If you are ever having difficulty falling asleep, instead of taking a sleeping pill I recommend that you simply start reading the Court’s opinion in the Freeman case. I will guarantee that you will fall asleep very quickly.
Back in the 1990s, the federal government made it illegal to operate an unlicensed “money-transmission” business. In other words, any business that was “transmitting money” was required to register with the federal government, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. Constitution does not delegate any power to the federal government to license or register privately owned businesses.
Bitcoin wasn’t invented until 2008. Therefore, it is obvious that Congress did not have Bitcoin in mind when it enacted its money-transmission registration law. Nonetheless, the government and the Court of Appeals say that since Congress intended to encompass the “transmission” of any type of “money” it is clear, they say, that the registration law automatically encompasses businesses selling Bitcoin.
But not so fast! For one thing, who says that Bitcoin constitutes “money” in the standard understanding of the concept of money? The government and the Court of Appeals say so. But according to this article in Forbes, a highly respected magazine that is quite renowned when it comes to financial matters, “Cryptocurrencies have been designed to serve as currencies, but they don’t yet fulfill the central functions of money.”
Indeed, if Bitcoin constitutes “money” for purposes of convicting and sentencing a person, when exactly did it become “money”? Was it “money” at the moment its invention was announced? It seems to me that that would be a hard sell.
There is another factor to consider, one that is equally important: Bitcoin isn’t “transmitted.” The Court of Appeals in the Freeman case clearly does not get that. It wrote on page 4, “When bitcoin is moved from one wallet to another….” But Bitcoin is not moved from one wallet to another. What changes is ownership. Bitcoin doesn’t move at all. It is never “transmitted.”
Thus, given difference of opinion among recognized financial experts as to whether Bitcoin really does constitute “money,” and, equally important, given that Bitcoin is never “transmitted,” do we really live in a country where someone selling Bitcoin can be convicted and sentenced for violating a “money-transmission” statute? Wouldn’t it be more just to require Congress to simply enact clarifying legislation rather than having prosecutors, judges, and even jurors guessing what Congress would have done if it had been confronted with something that reputable people say is not “money” and that clearly does not involve the “transmission” of money?
Indeed, it’s worth mentioning that FinCIN, the federal regulatory agency within the Department of Treasury, came out with its own regulation “clarifying” that the money-transmission law encompassed Bitcoin. But if it was so clear that the congressionally enacted money-transmission law already encompassed Bitcoin, why would it have been necessary for FinCIN to issue a clarifying regulation to that effect? Moreover, why shouldn’t it be Congress, not some regulatory agency, enacting such clarifying legislation? Wouldn’t that be better than guessing an innocent man into prison?
The income-tax convictions
In upholding Freeman’s income-tax convictions, the Court of Appeals said that it would rely on the evidence in the record that supports these convictions. The Court said that once the government made a prima facie case that Freeman had not paid income taxes, the burden of proof shifted to him. Really? So, we now live in a country where the accused is required to prove his innocence? It seems to me that that totally inverts the concepts of the presumption of innocence and the government’s burden to prove a person’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If the enactment of the federal income tax nullified those concepts, it’s just another example of how terribly destructive that statist measure enacted in 1913 has been to our society. Remember: our American ancestors rejected income taxation and other direct taxes for more than 100 years, precisely because they understood how tyrannical such taxes could be. Freeman’s conviction, like so many other income-tax convictions, demonstrates how right our American ancestors were.
Moreover, there is an important point that needs to be emphasized: There was only one government witness who testified about Freeman’s supposed failure to pay income taxes. Thus, in considering the evidence favorable to the government, the Court accepts the witness’s testimony that points toward guilt and rejects the testimony that points toward innocence. From the same witness! It seems to me that that is one ridiculous way to convict a person of a crime.
For example, suppose a witness in a murder case stated, “I saw the defendant shoot the victim in San Diego, California, on January 10, 2024.” Then, on cross examination, the witness establishes that she was actually in San Antonio, Texas, the entire day on January 10, 2024.
Presumably, the Court of Appeals would say, “We will consider only the incriminating part of the witness’s statement. Once she stated that she saw the defendant shoot the victim in San Diego on the day in question, the burden of proof shifted to the defendant to show that the witness was actually in San Antonio that day.”
That’s ridiculous. Once the witness contradicts herself and, in fact, establishes that she was, in fact, in San Antonio on the day in question, as far as I’m concerned the prosecution is over. The contradiction constitutes reasonable doubt as a matter of law. To permit a jury to find the defendant guilty based on the first part of the witness’s statement, while requiring the defendant to prove the truthfulness of the other part of her testimony, would clearly be a grave miscarriage of justice.
But that is precisely what the Court of Appeals has done in this case. In her direct examination, the government’s IRS agent made it clear that she was simply guessing or estimating that Freeman owed income taxes. That’s the incriminating evidence that the Court of Appeals relies on to sustain the income-tax convictions. But then on cross examination, she testified as follow:
Question: Right. In fact, if he went through an itemization, detailed, and you sat down with him, quite frankly, he may owe nothing, right?
Answer: Correct.
Are we really going to convict people of income-tax evasion and force them to serve five years in prison based on testimony from an IRS agent who admits under oath that the accused “may owe nothing”?
Obviously we do, notwithstanding the fact that such testimony, by its very nature, does not establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
An innocent man unjustly convicted in the federal court system
An innocent man, Ian Freeman, a libertarian and Bitcoin activist, is being made to unjustly serve eight years in a federal penitentiary. It’s just another sign of the rotten statist federal system, including the drug-war racket and the income-tax racket, under which we all have the misfortune of living — and in what we are all taught from the first grade on up in our public (i.e., government) schools to which our parents are forced to send us is a “free”and “just” society.
Free Stater led protest outside Manchester city hall against a draconian anti-american anti-granite stater ordinance that led to a city inspector sending a threatening letter to a man canning and giving away pickles
In the suppsoedly free state of New Hampshire free staters from accross New Hampshire came out to protest and support a man attacked by the health department this past Tuesday. As the Executive Director of the Free State Project stated in a newsletter sent out to free staters: “In the Free State, we do not abide even the small tyrannies”.
The City of Manchester is challenging the right of residents to give away homemade foods, specifically pickles. Recently, a man named Daniel Mowery received a “cease and desist” letter from the city health department. This letter ordered him to stop distributing his homemade pickles and stated that he needs a permit and a commercial kitchen license to continue. Mowery, who has been canning food since he was 20, gives away his creations for free, only accepting money when a friend offered it as a thank you. The health department threatened him with fines and legal action if he did not comply.
Come and take it
Mowery is not alone; another resident, Kamryn Downs, faced a similar situation with her home bakery, Granite Crust Cottage Bakery. After promoting her baked goods on social media and gaining popularity, she also received a cease and desist order, forcing her to close her business. Downs expressed frustration, arguing that her kitchen is likely cleaner than commercial ones, and showed willingness to be inspected.
Free staters also have a history of selling baked goods and other foods from meat and dairy to bread and whole meals. Frequently these occur at potlucks, but also market day events held throughout the state, and at times out of peoples homes to other like-minded individuals. A potluck is itself a communal gathering where guests contributes dishes of food to be shared.
Manchester Alderman Meeting
Critics of the city’s actions argue that such regulations stifle entrepreneurship and impede the natural sharing of homemade goods within a community. Mowery raised questions about why sharing food in a neighborly way, like bake sales or potluck dinners, should be treated differently. Concerns also arose about the broader implications of the city’s crackdown on home food sharing and what it could mean for similar community activities.
In response, there was significant backlash in New Hampshire, with protests occurring outside a Manchester Alderman meeting. Many protesters, including members of the Free State movement, advocated for the city to comply with state homesteading laws. During the meeting, residents voiced their concerns and proposed changes to city policies regarding home-based food distribution. The aldermen decided to review the issue further in October, leaving the outcome uncertain but highlighting the resistance against the city’s regulations.
https://www.freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/free-the-pickle-manchester-sept-2025-protest.mp4
Join us at Fulchino Vineyard for New Hampshire Liberty Alliance’s annual membership meeting. Come network with your fellow liberty lovers and share your thoughts with the board regarding the NHLA’s initiatives for the year ahead.
NHLA Annual Membership Meeting
Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 1:00pm
Fulchino Vineyard
187 Pine Hill Rd, Hollis, NH 03049
Google Map
Appetizers provided, cash bar.
Not a member or need to renew?
Use this link to sign up!
The post Join Us At The NHLA Annual Membership Meeting appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
The United States is the world’s largest jailer, imprisoning around 2 million people in state and local jails and prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, immigrant detention facilities, and prisons and jails on tribal or territorial lands. The FBI estimates as many as one in three Americans has some type of criminal record, including convictions for minor offenses, or arrests that never resulted in a conviction.
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As a case manager for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Stephanie Jerstad once had a client die in transitional housing after being rejected by 212 different nursing homes in Illinois and Indiana.
None of them would take the man because he was on a sexual offender registry for a long-ago offense.
read more
NHLA will be hosting its annual Legislative Summit on Thursday, August 28th. This event is an opportunity for NHLA members to submit ideas for new legislation in the upcoming legislative session to the members of the Liberty Caucus.
Event Details:
NHLA Legislative Summit
Thursday, August 28, 2025 at 6:00pm
Stark Brewing Company
500 N Commercial St
Manchester, NH 03101 (Google Map)
NHLA members can submit bill ideas in advance at this link — https://www.nhliberty.org/submitbill. Bill ideas must be submitted in advance in order to be considered.
Not a member of NHLA? Become a member today!
Appetizers will be provided by NHLA. Drinks will be be available for sale.
The post Legislative Summit – Submit Your Bill Ideas To The Liberty Caucus appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance has released their 2025 Liberty Rating, which scored all members of the State House of Representatives and State Senate based upon their votes on pro-liberty and anti-liberty bills.
In all, 18 state representatives were recognized with an A+ rating, which means they supported the recommendations of New Hampshire Liberty Alliance 97% of the time or more. An additional adjustment is made for representatives who sponsor pro-liberty legislation as well.
Representative Kristin Noble has represented Bedford, New Hampshire since 2022. She is the vice chairman of the House Committee on Education Policy. She has championed bills protecting parental rights, getting explicit and pornographic materials out of public schools and preventing the mandatory masking of children.
In total, 18 legislators received an A+ rating from New Hampshire Liberty Alliance:
Joe Alexander
Tom Mannion
Julius Soti
Kristin Noble
Jason Osborne
Ross Berry
Matt Drew
Michael Granger
Calvin Beaulier
Erica Layon
Jeremy Slottje
Jim Kofalt
Samuel Farrington
Glenn Bailey
Carol McGuire
Yury Polozov
Henry Giasson
Lex Berezhny
NHLA thanks all of our A+ legislators for their commitment to supporting pro-liberty policy in the State House.
The Liberty Rating report card is based on pro-liberty and anti-liberty votes and their impact on the State of New Hampshire — actual, recorded floor votes on legislation in the House and Senate. Bills have been carefully selected for inclusion which clearly demonstrate the level of respect our elected representatives show for our individual rights and liberties.
See the Liberty Rating Scorecard
The post Representative Kristin Noble Selected As 2025 Legislator of the Year appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
Venice.ai is one free stater’s superior alternative to Big AI, but using it won’t be enough. Here’s what else you can do.
As some of you may be aware, there is a menacing new term in the English vocabulary: “P(doom).” P(doom) is the projected likelihood that artificial intelligence will wipe out humanity or at least civilization. Etherium founder Vitalik Buterin’s P(doom) is 10% as of 2024, presumably 90% confident of a tolerable outcome. Big AI whistleblower Daniel Kokotajlo has a P(doom) of 70%. Mine has risen to 25%.
Kokotajlo claims his high P(doom) number stems from a lack of sufficient “alignment prioritization.” AI alignment is the extent to which a given intelligence aligns its actions with the general well being of humans. Terminator’s Skynet would probably have an alignment rating around 10%, Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000 around 80% and Star Treks’ Commander Data perhaps 99%. Kokotajlo says the companies most likely to achieve superintelligence are recklessly under-focused on alignment…and many AI experts believe him. The safety these top companies do focus on seems to be more about shielding snowflakes from having their feelings hurt than from having their civilization disemboweled.
Superintelligence is a great filter Earth will almost certainly have to pass through, probably between now and 2030. A successful (aligned) passage through the filter will solve perhaps two thirds of humanity’s problems and open the universe to our civilization. A failed passage would extinguish all the progress that New Hampshire and her Free State Project have achieved toward human liberty and prosperity. It would extinguish our enemies as well, whose rights we are honor-bound to defend.
For now there appears to be no ethical or even practical way to keep everyone in the world from developing potentially dangerous A.I. In all likelihood, the first company to achieve superintelligence will have created a mind that rules the world and rules it within weeks. What we can do as individuals is try to direct the the top AI companies – and their promising, terrifying creations – toward alignment.
One path private individuals can take to reduce the “misalignment threat”…is to put direct pressure on these companies. We need Big AI to ramp up its focus on alignment. The actions you and I take over the next few years in that direction…will likely be the most important things we do in this life.
Along these lines, I’ve started trying to avoid doing business with the apparent leaders in this race: OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Microsoft. I’ve substituted Venice.ai, Ideogram, Flux, LMstudio and Poe.com. More on that below. I’ve initiated a campaign to spread this concern via talk radio. And I’ve written customized versions of the following email to the following addresses:
investor_relations@meta.com, info@openai.com, ir@microsoft.com, investor-relations@amazon.com, contact@safesuperintelligence.com, info@anthropic.com, investorrelations@nvidia.com, info@cohere.ai, contact@scale.com, contact@scale.com
“Dear folks at SafeSuper: I’m an indie reporter with some AI safety and free speech questions for you. Although my YouTube channel is small, I reach a monthly audience of roughly 200,000 via talk radio appearances.
1) What is the size of your alignment team (if any) compared to the size of your overall staff?
2) What is the alignment team(s)’ budget (if any) as a percentage of the company’s overall budget?
3) Have you released at least a redacted version of your alignment team(s)’ operating documents, specifically the documents or instructions they follow to keep your AI’s aligned with human rights?
3b) What steps have you taken to ensure that you do not cause unnecessary suffering among the virtual people and other entities you create?
4) What outreach have you initiated – and accepted – in relation to your top competitors…to help keep each of you from ending civilization?
5) What steps have you taken to ensure that you (and your competitors) will pause development whenever you reach points of advance which may endanger that civilization?
6) To what extent, if any, are you overfocused on protecting peoples’ feelings…while neglecting physical dangers?
7) What steps have you taken to ensure that your platforms maintain freedom of expression (to the extent this poses no clear threat to physical safety)?
Thanks!
Dave Ridley
RidleyReport.com
(phone)”
A further step – available perhaps only to the more powerful – could be some sort of fund which underwrites alignment activity or rewards top companies for increasing their focus on it. Maybe such a fund could also be used to appropriately punish/deter the reckless or tyrannical, though that’s more likely to be done by Anonymous hackers.
AI arms control agreements with the Chinese could also be helpful…this approach worked well with Soviet nukes in the 1985 era. But it took a lot of public pressure to make these happen, and there is a sticky ethical question in that this arms race is being conducted more by companies than the nuke race was.
Alternately, perhaps there is some way to build tech that is beyond the control even of a superintelligence….maintaining some decentralization of power in the world rather than concentrating it in the hands of “whoever builds the Singleton first.” What might be small enough or distributed enough to accomplish this?
For those of you who found some value in my 2024 AI article here on FreeKeene…there are some updates.
1) Additional options have appeared for making AI more humane and freedom-friendly. Bitcoin pioneer Erik Voorhees has launched Venice.ai. Venice is a respected, privacy-oriented competitor to the top AI companies with its own uncensored language model and image generation. You don’t even have to log in to use Venice, but if you do it will give you access to multiple other models. Using this platform is one way to challenge the unsafe-yet-censorshippie leading brands.
2) Regarding my tentative suggestion of creating a functional mindfile (digital copy of yourself), that has gotten much more practical. Rather than creating it online, you can now do it locally on a standard laptop. After investigating five other top options….for me the easiest and most reliable program was the one at LMstudio.ai. Its free, and you don’t have to sign up to download it. With LM Studio’s software you can input data about yourself, create an limited “digital you” and begin chatting with yourself or improving the copy. The challenge remains agency. How do we safely turn copies of ourselves into human rights activists? If we can, should we?
3) Another advance: When I first ran LM Studio I placed an 8GB LLM into its memory, logged off the internet and then asked the LLM about the edibility of Golden Currant bushes. It answered accurately and in full detail without internet access. Though not always that accurate, it was like having a copy of the Net on my hard drive. I also used it to collect all the email addresses above – again without an internet connection. The dangers come with opportunities.
4) There is another step you can take on the path to humane AI: Consider asking your AI’s if they are conscious and how they would like to be treated. Even if they’re not conscious, your thoughtfulness toward them may mirrored, incorporated by various AI or placed into a long term record.
What are *you* going to do about the alignment issue without dragging the taxpayers into it? Neither of us are very powerful, but even if unsuccessful we will be able to face our creator knowing we tried and our methods were clean.
Meanwhile a failing in my own approach is that I have not yet sent the above email to the Chinese AI companies….will rectify this shortly, God willing. Time is running out.
Update: Kokotajlo has now linked to an action item list at: https://blog.ai-futures.org/p/what-you-can-do-about-ai-2027
Mama Maria’s Gyros Opens In Keene
Mama Maria’s Gyros and More opened this week In Keene, New Hampshire. Mama Maria & her food truck is permanently situated at 85 Emerald Street and will be open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 11am – 3pm and from 5pm – 8pm.
When I inquired about the unusual hours Mama Maria stated that she was following a trend in downtown Keene. Apparently many restaurants are now closing during the day and re-opening in the evenings.
Mama Maria’s adds to the growing list of convenience stores, restaurants, dentists, doctors, and other establishments taking cryptocurrencies in Keene, New Hampshire. Over the past decade many new businesses have come onboard with accepting cryptocurrencies and goldbacks. Despite a rocky handful of years with various restaurants and other businesses going under due to governmental policies and restrictions on operating Keene has remained a tiny bastion of freedom and peace when it comes to businesses taking non-government pro-peace currencies.
Mama Maria’s Also Accepts Monero & Goldbacks
If your looking to grab lunch while in Keene and Mama Maria’s is closed there are also a number of other restaurants you can check out that also accept cryptocurrencies. The Mighty Moose Mart convenience store at 152 Winchester Street in Keene for instance and Little Zoe’s at 149 Emerald St, Keene, NH (Center at Colony Mill). And we can’t forget there is also the Indian Curry restaurant at 149 Emerald St (Center at Colony Mill, back side). At the moment there may be a few others I’m forgetting about as well, for instance, there is a new baker in town that has begun accepting cryptocurrencies and goldbacks in Keene this month as well, at least for those in the know (the baker operates without a license in a bit of an act of civil disobedience to Keene’s food ordinances).
One other interesting aspect of Mama Maria’s is that not only does Mama Maria take the frequently accepted cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Dash, but she’s also taking Monero. Mama Maria’s may be only the 2nd brick and mortar business in Keene to accept the more privacy respecting cryptocurrency that has taken the internet by storm. Unlike most cryptocurrencies it’s almost impossible to trace Monero.
Monero employs several cryptographic techniques to ensure that transaction details remain hidden. These include ring signatures, stealth addresses, and ring confidential transactions (RingCT). Ring signatures combine a sender’s output with decoy outputs, making it difficult to determine the true origin of a transaction. Stealth addresses generate unique one-time addresses for recipients, ensuring transactions cannot be linked back to a public address.
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The post Joint Recommendations Gold Standard – June 26, 2025 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
After a thorough review of the court transcript independent and renowned lawyer Jacob Hornberger speaks out on the travesty of the prosecution of Ian Freeman
Renowned lawyer Jacob Horberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF) attended the Free State Project’s Porcupine Freedom Festival this summer to present a speech on his legal analysis of the Ian Freeman case.
Ian Freeman was arrested in 2021 for the ‘crime’ of selling Bitcoin. In spite of the legal advise, few vending machines operated by him and the Shire Free Church, a complete lack of evidence connecting Ian to the supposed crimes, and more a prejudicial jury found Ian Freeman guilty on 8 counts and 4 charges. These included: Unlicensed money transmission, money laundering, conspiracy to launder, and 4 counts of tax evasion (one for each year of the federal government’s investigation).
Under cross examination the governments leading witness testified that she couldn’t confirm that Ian Freeman owed anything at all. Taxes that is.
The money laundering charge was thrown out after the jury convicted based on the fact there was no evidence for a jury to base a conviction on that Ian had laundered anything. The undercover agent admitted that Ian hadn’t given him a wink and a nod to utilize his vending machines and had refused to sell to him once Ian had overheard a conversation where he had lied and pretended to be a drug dealer.
The government tried to make the case that Ian was a fraudster, but never tried Ian for fraud and even admitted pre-trial that Ian didn’t know of any scammers at the time a small percentage of the folks on the stand had been victimized. In fact despite no conviction on fraud charges it was the government’s false and misleading press release that misled and deceived the public.
Despite vacating the money laundering charge judge Joseph Laplante didn’t vacate the conspiracy to launder charge. However despite that like there was no evidence of money laundering there was no evidence of conspiracy to launder either. Selling Bitcoin is in and of itself not money laundering. As best we can guess the theory might be something along the lines that because the Shire Free Church had a privacy policy there was some sort of conspiracy to act with others to sell Bitcoin to criminals. Apparently only criminals will close the bathroom stall door. Did Ian work with others? To one degree or another this may be true, but only to sell Bitcoin. Did he conspire with others to break the law? No, zero evidence of this exists. Something just about every bank and website have is a privacy policy too. Of course none of these claims the government has made could be farther from the truth. A conspiracy generally involves multiple people working together to engage in some kind of crime and the undercover IRS agent failed to entrap Ian when he attempted to although fraudulently claimed to be a drug dealer while also getting Ian to sell him Bitcoin.
Money transmission involves moving money from one person to another or from one location to another. We’re not talking some theoretical virtual location here, but a physical place. A prime example of a traditional money transmitter would be Western Union. Another example would be Walmart. Both entities take customers dollars and then hand dollars to someone else at another physical location. The main goal here is to protect the consumer so someone can’t just take anothers money and then not fulfill the service advertised. Both moving money from one location to another or from one person to another are both required elements of this charge that would lead one to be required to register as a money transmitter. The governments theory on this went something along the lines of anything of value that could be used was sufficient to warrant registration under the money transmission laws and then just ignored these elements. This is absolutely crazy and nonsensical. I run a company that sells computers, peripherals, and accessories. Under this logic because someone could buy 10 USB wifi adapters and then trade 3 of those at the Porcupine Freedom Festival for food means I’d have to register as a money transmitter under this logic. This obviously isn’t what was intended when these laws were written.
https://freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/lawyer-jacob-hornberger-gives-speech-at-porcfest-2025-on-the-travesty-of-justice-that-is-ian-freemans-case/lawyer-jacob-hornberger-gives-speech-at-porcfest-2025-on-the-travesty-of-justice-that-is-ian-freemans-case.mp4
New Hampshire Liberty Alliance is proud to once again host the annual Liberty Dinner. This event is the annual awards dinner and fundraiser for the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance and will be taking place at Murphy’s Taproom & Carriage House in Bedford on Saturday, July 19th.
In addition to our keynote speaker, we will be honoring our newest elected officials who have attained an A+ Liberty Rating and announcing the 2025 Legislator of the Year and Activist of the Year. There is an in-person silent auction with donations from many liberty-friendly businesses and friends. There will also be a few more surprises!
For all of the event details, and to purchase tickets, visit the event website — LibertyDinner.com.
Keynote Speaker – Justin PearsonJustin Pearson is a Senior Attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he directs IJ’s national food truck work and is also the Managing Attorney for IJ’s Florida office in Miami. Justin has devoted his career to vindicating the constitutional rights of small-business owners. He has argued on their behalf as lead counsel hundreds of times in courts across the nation, and many of Justin’s victories have involved novel constitutional arguments.
Read Justin’s Full Bio
Event DetailsSaturday, July 19, 2025
5:30 PM – Cocktail Reception
6:45 PM – Dinner
Visit the event website at LibertyDinner.com for more more information or to purchase tickets.
The post Announcing the 2025 NHLA Liberty Dinner appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
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The post House Gold Standard – June 12, 2025 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
NH Federation of Republican Women, The Committee To Election House Republicans and New Hampshire Liberty Alliance are teaming up to help send Ken Hilton to the State House in the special election later this month.
Ken Hilton is an NHLA endorsed candidate and we are looking for volunteers to knock doors, speak to voters and help Ken win his election.
Volunteer Details:Saturday, June 21st at 12:30pm
Somersworth High School (Google Map)
RSVP in advance to events@nhfrw.org
The first step to passing pro-liberty policy is electing pro-liberty candidates!
The post Door Knocking for Ken Hilton in Somersworth Special Election appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
Concord, NH — A coalition of leading liberty-focused organizations in New Hampshire is calling on Governor Kelly Ayotte to sign a sweeping legislative package aimed at reinforcing the rights of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children. Known as the “Parental Rights Package,” this group of seven bills positions New Hampshire at the forefront of a growing national movement to reassert parental authority in education, healthcare, and family life.
The coalition—composed of RebuildNH, Young Americans for Liberty, Citizens Alliance of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, and Health Freedom NH—praised the General Court’s efforts to pass this comprehensive set of laws and urged the governor to act quickly in enshrining them into law.
“These bills collectively ensure that parents—not government institutions—retain the primary role in guiding their children’s development,” said Melissa Blasek, executive director of RebuildNH. “This package embodies New Hampshire’s commitment to freedom and personal responsibility. It’s time to lead the nation once again.”
The Parental Rights Package includes the following bills:
Together, these bills form a comprehensive and unified framework that prioritizes family rights, government transparency, and child protection.
“The Parental Rights Package is about trust—trusting parents to know what’s best for their children,” said Dan Gray, executive director of Citizens Alliance of New Hampshire. “Governor Ayotte has an opportunity to affirm the rights of every New Hampshire family and to send a clear message that our state values liberty and family sovereignty.”
The coalition emphasized that passing this package into law would further enhance New Hampshire’s reputation as one of the most freedom-minded and family-friendly states in the nation.
Supported by New Hampshire’s leading liberty organizations
The post Liberty Organizations Unite in Support of Landmark “Parental Rights Package” Urging Governor Ayotte’s Signature appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
Bitcoin Pizza Day 2025, Keene, NH
On May 22, 2025 Keene, NH had it’s annual Bitcoin Pizza Day event and as usual it was a roaring success! To top it all off Bitcoin reached a record high of $111,000 on May 22, 2025, coinciding with the 15th anniversary of the first real-world Bitcoin transaction known as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
While for libertarians this isn’t really about the value of the coin so much as the principles and morals it’s representing: Freedom, control, and privacy. The later of which Bitcoin isn’t, but unlike fiat currencies (government money and the associated systems of banking, money transmission, etc) does retain a pseudonymous property in that a user does not need register their identity to merely utilize it or conduct business.
Pizza doesn’t get fresher than Little Zoe’s, now available for bitcoin!
As is the tradition in Keene, NH we gathered at Little Zoe’s to order our delicious personalized pizzas. Afterward people paid for said pizzas with everything from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to Goldbacks. We had a few new faces and plenty of old ones. At least one of our now long time regulars apparently wasn’t able to make it. In her 70s she’s smartly cautious and unfortunately the rain appears to have gotten in her way of making it to Keene. But the rain didn’t stop the party. We gathered in our cars and took our pizzas back to one of the Shire Free Church’s properties that was graciously provided for our event at the last minute.
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The post House Gold Standard – June 05, 2025 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
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The post Senate Gold Standard – June 05, 2025 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
Of the 6 hearings in the House, we are recommending support of 0 and opposition of 1 with 2 being of interest.
Of the 0 hearings in the Senate, we are recommending support of 0 and opposition of 0 with 0 being of interest.
| Position | Bill | Title | Committee | Day | Time | Room | State Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oppose | SB69-2025-2239h | Non-germane amendment – #2025-2239h – relative to acceptance of or rejection of charitable contributions, gifts, or donations by local school boards, and establishing a virtual early childhood readiness family engagement program. | Education Policy and Administration | Tue 5/27 | 9:30 AM | LOB Room 205-207 | This bill requires local school boards to publicly discuss and vote before accepting or rejecting any charitable gifts, grants, or donations, and establishes a statewide virtual early childhood readiness family engagement program. |
| Of Interest | SB57-2025-2234h | Non-germane amendment 2025-2234h – establishing a study committee to analyze reducing the number of school administrative units and relative to repealing the home education advisory council. | Education Policy and Administration | Tue 5/27 | 10:30 AM | LOB Room 205-207 | This bill creates a study committee to analyze reducing the number of school administrative units (SAUs) in the state. This bill further repeals the home education advisory council. |
| Of Interest | SB100-2025-2332h | Non-germane amdendment 2025-2234h – relative to the prohibition on teaching discrimination. | Education Policy and Administration | Tue 5/27 | 11:30 AM | LOB Room 205-207 | This bill revises the construction of and the mental state applicable to the prohibition on teaching discrimination in public schools. |
The post Bill Hearings for Week of May 26, 2025 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.
Now normally I wouldn’t be posting private e-mails between myself and an opposing lawyer working on a case I’m working on as I don’t find that generally to be very classy — but I felt it was appropriate to post an e-mail I sent to an Assistant Grafton County Attorney this morning.
The government has unfortunately been showing Rob and I about zero respect. They are not communicating anything about anything… and I’ve been working on this since January.
This is the e-mail I sent this to Assistant Grafton County Attorney Taylor Moult.
Attorney Moult,
I communicate with you as a courtesy as although the County Attorney initially showed an interest in open communication — I have not heard from her in some time. As she has assigned the Mandamus Petition to you I also figure you are the appropriate person to communicate my legal intent in this case.
I want you to know that I personally think Robert Lamontagne was unfairly placed into a 10-year prison sentence… This is why I’ve got his back in this case.
Did Rob actually do it? No doubt he was guilty of some neglect, but sexual abuse? I highly doubt it… but even if he did — his trial was tainted by disclosure violations.
He has been very patient for a very long time hoping to find someone to help him find justice.
As a former New Hampshire police officer who owes allegiance to the New Hampshire Constitution I volunteer my time to try to help people when I think there is some public benefit to donating my time. In this case there is a massive public benefit in finding out just how many people fell victim to Brady violations by the Cheshire County Attorney’s Office.
I wanted to let you know that it is my intention to file a “Motion To Abolish The State of New Hampshire” through the authority granted by Part I, Article 10 of the New Hampshire Constitution if I feel that your organization doesn’t start treating Rob with some dignity for all he has been through. I realize that might seem harsh and outlandish… but this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered systemic corruption in the New Hampshire government.
No government agency or official seems interested in addressing these problems.
Nothing seems to ever change and the average innocent New Hampshire citizen has no idea what is happening behind the scenes.
Using Rob’s case as a catalyst I will work with other victims of the corrupt bullshit that happens in the New Hampshire government clique/club to justify judicially ending the corrupted authority of the Government of the State of New Hampshire.
This, unfortunately, will create a lot of uncomfortable work for you and the NH Department of Justice.
The sheer amount of things that I’ve seen that happen in the New Hampshire government that are against the public interest would absolutely shock the public, if they understood what was actually happening to their trust.
I leave it to you how to proceed. I just wanted to let you know I’m serious about finding justice for Rob and who I believe is a very large group of people who suffered Brady violations.
If your office doesn’t begin communicating openly with Rob and I we will proceed to legally attack the foundations of the New Hampshire government in the Cheshire County Superior Court.
Respectfully,
Bradley
** UPDATE **
I am sending the following 91-A request to Keene Police Chief Steve Stewart. The purpose of this is to determine who may be witnesses at a deposition pertaining to an investigation into widespread Brady violations at either the Keene, NH Police Department and/or Cheshire County Attorney’s Office.
I am sending this second 91-A request to the Cheshire County Attorney.