Today's Herald has a human interest story about Greg Grant who hired sniper John Muhammad for yard chores a year ago - just a couple weeks before his rampage of killing. This past week, Greg testified at the sentencing portion of Muhammad's trial in Virginia. Now, Greg is a very decent fellow who tries to do the right thing, so what follows is not meant to insult him. But the Herald again shows why it is such a poor news reporting paper. Check the story posted on NwCitizen a year ago (10/26/02) about Greg Grant and a billboard on his property.

In a nutshell, Al Archer, an expert on evaluating people, reports Muhammad to the Bellingham police and they do nothing. Greg allows US Customs to use his property to put up a public road sign urging us normal citizens to report "suspicious activity" - a catch phrase for non-normal behavior of all sorts. The sign outrages many of us citizens. Ironically, Greg spends many hours with Muhammad and never senses any "suspicious" behavior.

The point? The problem is with the police, not with us citizens. All this frenzy and expense to track us normal citizens, have us spy on each other, tap our email, question us and destroy our civil liberties is basically ineffective for stopping terrorism but very effective in setting up an apparatus to control those of us who disagree with our government. You want to fly to visit your grandmother? You might not be allowed to if you are a local dissident. (Yes, I was singled out for special attention when flying back east for my mother's funeral. I was the only one and the agent told me the computer told them to stop me. I was later allowed to fly. I am for airport scanning.)

In Muhammad's case, the police had the information and blew it. We are learning much more about how the Feds muffed the Kennedy assassination investigation as new information comes to light in the last couple years. This year the Feds are muffing the investigation of how the 9/11 attacks were planned, who was involved and what the Feds themselves knew before the attacks. George W is withholding information from the commission charged with the investigation. We may be learning more vital information 40 and 50 years from now - if we are still a free society. And I mean information that exists now in Federal files but is being hidden or destroyed.

We citizens should insist on accountability from our police and law enforcement agencies. We should speak out and insist on hiring and retaining the best-qualified persons to run our police and law agencies. Our city council should hold hearings on the qualifications of Bellingham Police Chief Randy Carroll. They should demand answers to why our police ignored evidence that was given to them by an expert. We should reopen the case of the Margot Poss shooting in Bellingham - done perhaps the very day when Muhammad and Malvo left Bellingham for good.

I can post information here. You, fellow citizen, can do your part. A lot of you privately thank me for my efforts here. Liberals and conservatives stop me briefly each day to tell me my site is checked and read. That's appreciated. I put considerable time and effort into this site - more than I can afford.

But - If this site is only a quick, fun read for you while surfing web sites then don't give me your personal praise. It is empty. You, fellow citizen, need to act also. Do your part. You need to talk with your elected officials - council members and others. Tell them you want accountability. Write them. Speak out at council meetings. Yes, go public with your concerns. Now, either there is no risk in going public so you have no excuse. Or, there is risk to your privacy, job security, career path, social life, peer approval, travel plans, financial security and more. Well, if you do not start to act now then it may be worse in the near future. And you may not even have this web site to read by then.