Chapter 19

Posted: September 25, 2006 - 03:36:10 pm

While the girls were polite, there was still some underlying tension between them. I made sure to take Brenda out, but I could not very well ignore Debra. The feds were actively looking for her, and Tom gave her a secure phone to use to call her office, and inform them of what was going on.

That started a very well known, high-powered law firm, to get on the road to a confrontation with the federal government. The problem the government was having, was that they were finding it difficult to find 'yes man' judges, anymore. Even the so-called Fisa judges were cautious about stepping on a person's rights, at this time.

I wonder if it had something to do with our little demonstration of power over their lives? Unless the feds had strong evidence and all their ducks in a row, the federal judges weren't granting them authority to violate people's basic rights, anymore. Supposition and suspicion was no longer a valid argument to hold a person indefinitely for questioning. Overwhelming evidence of 'something', had to be presented, too. Hmm, go figure.

This was why the government was resorting to clandestine operations. It was apparent that the career agents within the government were not impressed with Tom's demonstrations. However, our intervention in preventing Debra's kidnapping by the government, served two purposes.

One, it showed them we were onto them. And two, we had taped the whole thing, including when the agents were getting ready for the operation. Debra's law firm received a copy of the tape, as did all the national news agencies. Got to admire Tom, and his 'almost there' abilities.

The government legal team, when questioned about things like warrants, could not produce any. Several ranking persons within the government, at 'career level', were brought up on charges. This sent a message to the rest, because the US attorney general and Debra's law firm made sure the whole fiasco was in the forefront of the news.

Debra's firm showed it would defend their employees. The US Attorney General, was showing the subordinates within the government, that they had better fall in line. The days of 'wild-ass cowboys', when agencies ran missions on their own, were over. We settled back to watch this, and Debra finally moved back to her place in Chicago.

Tom put in an appearance at the trial of the supervisor who had ordered the breaking, entering, kidnapping of our half sister. The team that had performed the operation was punished with reduction in rank and pay, and a warning placed in their official folders. The supervisor was being charged with enough violations (attempted kidnapping being the most serious one), that a guilty verdict would cause him some serious jail time. Either way, his career was over.

The prosecution was handled by the US Attorney General, himself. He laid out the prosecutions case, step by step. The career supervisor, agent Brian Pelter, had gotten a team together, and had run a break, enter, and snatch (kidnapping) operation, as the agents referred to it.

The prosecutor presented the court with video evidence of the agents in action, and their subsequent written statements, outlining their part in the operation. The only reason they had not been fired, was that all stated they thought it a legitimate operation.

The defense tried to put up a fight, but the evidence was damning. The prosecution rested his case in just three hours. The defense tried to defuse several things, and had already tried to get the tape suppressed, but nothing seemed to work.

It went to the jury. They found the agent guilty of disobeying written directives, breaking and entering, damaging private property, malicious criminal activity, and attempted kidnapping. Supervisor Pelter found himself stripped of his job and pension, and was sentenced to six years at Leavenworth.

So while the guy did not get the max sentence allowed by law, Tom was satisfied that justice had been carried out, as was our sister. Hopefully, it would not be 'business as usual' anymore, within the US government. In all honesty, it was time for the feds to pay attention to the spirit as well as the intent of the law, and to protect our rights, instead of using new laws, to suspend them.

Debra stayed in touch with us. I sort of liked having a sister. Tom had been a surprise, but Debra was an even bigger one. Now that she was no longer in my house, I sort of missed her. Brenda even admitted that she had not treated Debra that well. I asked her about it, but she kept balking at explaining her action, or reasons.

I was beginning to wonder if Courtney didn't have some sort of mild talent, like empathy, or telepathy. Either way, she was a natural peace-broker and had eased the situation in my house, tremendously. I mentioned my theory about Courtney to Tom. He got a slightly startled, then thoughtful look on his face.

I kept close watch on the immediate future. For example, if something was happening in my life twenty-four hours from now, and it was important, I then paid close attention to what I was doing and what was going on around me. As I have said, the future is not immutable. It flows. So, actions in the 'now', affect the outcome of the 'tomorrows' of your life.

I always checked to see how my tomorrow, looked. While I did not look at every aspect of my tomorrows, I checked to make sure I was still there. I didn't want to be captured by the government, or killed, or injured in an accident of some sort. I tried not to mess with my future, just as religiously as Tom tried not to cause splits in reality. I agreed with him whole-heartedly, that too much change was a dangerous course of action.

Tom had also given me a download to read in my computer. I knew my home computer was a safe place to store materials of any type, as it had a totally different operating system than anything the US government or civilian companies now had in use. It was also a very secure system. It had a recognition program that would not let anyone except authorized people operate it.

It contained security of a type the US government (hell, any government, or company) would pay a fortune for. It also contained several code breaking programs, tracers, worms, and other surprises. I could single-handedly cause utility companies, local, state or the federal governments, problems of titanic proportions if I so desired.

It was still not as sophisticated as Tom's future computer. That alternate reality of Tom's could not get an AI program to operate in a way similar to the way Tom's did.

I did not neglect my exercising or sparring. At least once a week Tom would spar with me. He kept me in shape by tossing me around. I was also exercising my talent everyday. I was pushing it really hard. The resulting headaches meant I was stretching and establishing pathways or conduits to use these abilities. I was getting better and more accurate with my future 'forecasts', and stronger with my TK abilities.

I was also beginning to see why God did not let everyone have this ability. Knowing the future could make your life boring as hell. That was why I was careful not to view every aspect of my immediate future. I only looked far enough ahead to get a general idea of how things were going. Well, at least until something impacted me adversely. Then I definitely made adjustments.

It was during a general surfing the internet that I discovered something. Well, in all fairness I sort of knew this, already. It just hit me rather hard on this particular day.

Brenda was again at school, finishing out the spring term. I was lonely and bored. Tom had explained that my computer would not allow any viruses, worms, or attacks to its systems. Nor would it allow such things as ISP 'ident'. It faked my address. Basically, I surfed with total anonymity. I also had a fake profile that it provided. The 'collectors of information' believed I was operating a laptop so inferior to my actual computer, that it was laughable.

I was doing a Google search, when my computer began flashing warnings at me. It seemed that Google was trying to insert a 'crawler' into my machine, to mine it for data. My computer of course countered this easily, but I was finding it annoying to say the least. It was being done through my Google email account. Hmm.

When you set up a free email with Google, you sign, electronically, a license allowing them to scan everything going on within your account. They then stored this information, and any other information about you, in their primary storage library.

This is how the search engine companies make their money. They sell your information to other companies and vendors, and (of course) the spammers. Your surfing habits, if you buy anything on the internet, what you buy, how you pay for it... all sorts of information is 'mined'. Every time you used the system, you gave them more information to store about you, and to correlate with previously stored data. So much for privacy.

They weren't the only ones that did this either. Every 'free email' provider did this. Well in my case and Tom's, they tried, but were very unsuccessful. Still, it was annoying, to say the least. It was unavoidable when you connected with one of these systems. You could surf the net without one, but it was becoming more difficult not to do it through a provider, and the system was made to be that way. It was all about money, after all.

Hmm, this led me to some thoughts that started me pondering. Ok, I wanted a source of income. I wanted it to be legal, and stand the light of governmental and corporate snooping, and the courts' finagling. I could go a couple ways with this.

Search engines, or the codes used by them were the bread and butter of certain companies. Alta Vista used to be the big primary search engine, some time ago, but now Google had replaced them, along with a couple of others.

What if I got my computer to design a really good search engine? I could sell it, or better yet, approach a company like Google, for example. I would ask them how much they would pay me not to release my version to the public domain, free of charge? It would be an interesting quandary for the search engine companies.

I had my computer run a search on the legality of this. It shortly informed me that I needed to speak to a patent and copyright attorney. This dealt with ideas, and the computer was unable to reach any conclusions other than that of basic law. At least, thats what the screen told me when I looked in on it, about an hour after I had set it to work.

Ok, I could do that. I called Tom and discussed this with him. I laid out my whole idea, and he chuckled over it.

"You know the providers will scream, and the government stands to loose a ton of tax revenue if you did that. While not illegal, they would be reluctant to allow something like this into the public domain.

"Go with asking the companies to provide you with a monthly income not to release the new search engine to the public domain, or sell it to them. If you're not too greedy, you might get away with it. You do know, once you show them what you have, the capabilities of this thing, they will want it. They will try to tie you up in litigation for the rest of your life, or until you cave," Tom cautioned me.

So it was decided. Tom's computer and mine got together. They broke several search engine codes, fairly quickly. Then, using some of them as the basic model, they created an entirely new type of search engine.

Tom's 'command module computer' had been a real asset. It had a lot of source code information on many of these companies already. These were already contained in a file. With it, we manufactured the new search engine. I asked Tom if he wanted to go partners, but he said 'no'. This was my idea and my baby, he said, and I should run with it.

So, after we had a working search engine (complete with truly secure encryption), I went to a patent attorney. I had him file my 'intellectual property' with the appropriate US and international patent organizations, then I sat back and waited.

The first nibble came within the week. All the major electronic companies trolled the patent offices continuously, looking for just such items. Sometimes they were gems, sometimes they were headaches. I was both, once they looked over my product.

I had put my lawyers business phone number down as my contact number. He said I had already received several calls, with more coming in all the time. It seemed I was in business, and not even a week had gone by!

While I could put my search engine was out there, the source code was hidden. It was my personal property. One thing my search engine did, was to let me know if it was being used. I wanted to keep a firm hold on my search engine, until I came to a deal with someone. It was not released for use yet, so anyone using it was doing so without my permission, illegally.

Not only did it my engine search the internet, but it worked without going through any existing providers. In effect, it made your computer it's own ISP. It was a slightly large program, at eighteen megabytes. However, by using it, people were freed from having to pay a monthly fee to such places as AOL, or Google, or the other big ISP companies. All you needed was a computer, modem, and a phone line, and you were set. The program set everything up for you.

Two weeks after the first call to my patent attorney's office, I was scheduled to meet with a somewhat large group of individuals. They were representing various ISP companies, several government agencies, and the UN! It was totally unbelievable to me. Talk about stirring up a hornet's nest!

On a Friday morning at 10:30 AM, I found myself in a rented hall. I had rented it, and Tom provided the security. By the time I entered the room, there was no less than thirty people assembled, representing the above-mentioned groups and organizations.

Prior to my entering the room, one of my assistants had handed out thin folders with several pages contained in the folders. All the material was the same, in each folder.

An assistant had also made an announcement that I was not going to entertain any threats, covert or overt, at this time. All persons making such threats would be summarily ejected from the meeting. Whomever or whatever that person was representing, would not be included in any negotiations. Continued threats after the first person was ejected, would result in the termination of the meeting. Everyone claimed to understand.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I stepped out and in front of my audience.

"Good morning, ladies and gentleman. My name is Scott Garner, and I understand you all have an interest in talking with me," I began.