Decorated Marine Brandon Raub was detained by authorities from the FBI, Secret Service and Chesterfield County PD on Thursday, August 16th for accusing the government of lying about 9/11 in a Facebook post.
An Aug. 5 post said, “If you are unaware of the great amount of evil perpetrated by the American Government I suggest you take … your head out of the sand. The day of reckoning is almost at hand.”
Raub has posted numerous times raising questions about 9/11 and signed a petition to reopen investigation of the terrorist attacks. These posts are then misconstrued by authorities: “Our office had received a complaint about threatening posts,” said Dee Rybiski, spokeswoman for the Richmond FBI office. “As we would do in any circumstance such as this, our office along with Chesterfield Police (Department) officers went to interview Mr. Raub.
“The FBI did not arrest him,” Rybiski said. “We are not commenting any further.”
He was taken from his home in handcuffs and placed him in a Chesterfield PD squad car before taking him directly to Hopewell’s John Randolph Medical Center. He is being detained without charge, indefinitely pending a “mental competency hearing” before a judge.
“I’m currently in John Randolph in the psychiatric ward being held against my will,” Raub said in a telephone interview.
Raub served in the Marine Corps from 2005 to 2011 in Iraq and Afghanistan as a combat engineer sergeant.
“I talked to a Secret Service gentleman for 20, 30 minutes,” Raub said. “I was very cooperative and answered everything honestly. … I really love America, and I think that idea that you can be detained and sent somewhere without due process and a lawyer … is crazy.” Hell, I guess we should just be glad he got that phone call at this point.
I find this farce of Civil Rights highly disconcerting. There are very few avenues for freedom of speech left open when a post on Facebook can have you detained without due process.
Naomi Wolf wrote Ten Steps To Close Down an Open Society, which is both terrifying and illuminating. In the case of Brandon Raub, step 6, “Engage in arbitrary detention and release”, was enacted and it seems that no one really cares. Business as usual in America, land of illusion.
What is really concerning for me is that Raub’s posts, though much more concise, are very similar in ideology to my own writing. I suppose it could only be a matter of time before I find myself in a similar predicament while living in this great nation.
UPDATE:
Lawyers from The Rutherford Institute represented Brandon Raub during the three-hour hearing today at the John Randolph Medical Center and released a statement, saying Raub has been sentenced to “up to 30 days’ further confinement in a VA psych ward” after “government officials again pointed to Raub’s Facebook posts as the sole reason for their concern and for his continued incarceration.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/former-marine-brandon-raub-is-being-held-in-a-psychiatric-ward-over-facebook-posts-about-911-2012-8