textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/sc013.xml

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<p><ent type='PERSON'>Skolnick</ent> COMMENTARY #013
========================</p>

<p>[CfD Editor -- I neither necessarily believe nor disbelieve
either all or portions of the following.]</p>

<p>[The following is a transcript of a recorded phone message put
out by a group in <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> called "Citizens' Committee to Clean Up
the Courts." (312) 731-1100 and (312) 731-1505.]</p>

<p>Hi! Sherman <ent type='PERSON'>Skolnick</ent>, Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts,
9800 South Oglesby.</p>

<p>The phone company reserves the right to sabotage your phones if
you are a political activist.</p>

<p>The background: In the 1960s and 1970s, like other phone
companies nationwide, <ent type='ORG'>Illinois Bell Telephone Company</ent> assisted
the espionage agencies in monitoring and sabotaging the phones of
civil rights advocates, anti-war activists, trade unionists and
such. Some local police units had or have units called "red
squads" on the presumption that political activists are
subversive. "<ent type='ORG'>Red squad</ent>" agents had free access to phone company
facilities to monitor phones, to obtain records of phone calls,
and to screw up phone lines so calls couldn't go through -- such
as right before or during civil rights protest events.</p>

<p>In 1969 there was a boycott in <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> by blacks, directed
against banks who refused them mortgages and took discriminatory
and highly inflated contract payments instead. The protest was by
<ent type='ORG'>the Southside Contract Buyers League</ent>, some 25000 black
homeowners. At a key point in the boycott, all the phones were
blanked out in the areas where the Southside Contract Buyers
League members lived. Blacks who weren't even members, but lived
*near* members, also had *their* phones cut off.</p>

<p>Thereafter, a class action lawsuit was being planned against
<ent type='ORG'>Illinois Bell Telephone</ent> for sabotage and racial discrimination in
services. The president and the vice-president of the black
homeowners group met with phone company officials in the home of
our [Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts] chairman. The
phone company offered a "gift" of a half-million dollars in
"hush" money. The meeting blew up, however, when our chairman
said he was going public with the phone company's attempted
bribery.</p>

<p><ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> alderman Ed Vyrdolak headed a committee supposedly
investigating phone company complicity in wire-tapping. City
Council hearings were scrapped, however, after <ent type='ORG'>Illinois Bell</ent>
Telephone Company reportedly gave "<ent type='ORG'>Fast Eddy</ent>'s" [i.e. Vyrdolak]
law firm a bribe of almost $1 million.</p>

<p>By 1982, the <ent type='ORG'>FBI</ent> and the <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> police entered into a federal
court consent decree that they would cease doing dirty tricks
against political activists and others in this federal district.
Thereafter, the <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent> [Internal Revenue Service] intelligence,
acting similar to <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, took over wire-tapping and spying in this
district, the result of a loophole in the consent decree. The <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent>
gestapo does a number of acts having nothing to do with tax
collecting:</p>

<p>1) They monitor and sabotage the phones of political activists.</p>

<p>2) As admitted offhand during a federal court hearing, the <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent>
keeps dossiers on federal judges here for blackmail and
extortion. A federal judge who does not rule in favor of the <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent>
can expect himself and his family to be wrecked.</p>

<p>3) The <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent> unlawfully spies on first class mail, with the
connivance of postal authorities.</p>

<p>4) Top <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent> officials in the <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> area are secret partners in
vending machine companies owned by the mafia in the south
suburbs.</p>

<p>5) According to an unpublicized court suit, the <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent> demanded the
wife divorce a husband for publicly criticizing the <ent type='ORG'>IRS</ent>.</p>

<p>Does the phone company sabotage these [Citizen's Committee's
phone] lines? You're darn right. In November of '93, <ent type='GPE'>Illinois</ent>
Bell -- now called <ent type='ORG'>Ameritech</ent> -- resumed a 20-year-long sabotage
campaign against these recorded commentaries. (By the way, the
phone company security department is a *rotten joke*.)</p>

<p>In <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent>, see us on cable t.v. channel 21, 9 pm most Monday
evenings.</p>

<p>Play it again: Murdered Reporters. (312) 731-1505.</p>

<p>New message Thursday; we change it several times a week.</p>

<p>Donations appreciated. Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the
Courts, 9800 South Oglesby, <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent>, [<ent type='GPE'>Illinois</ent>] 60617. For the
latest on courts, banks, espionage agencies, political
assassinations, and the news media.

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