by Ian | Dec 3, 2022 | Announcement
Christmas came early! Just days before the start of the Crypto Six trial, federal prosecutors have revealed they will be dropping the supermajority of counts in their ridiculous case against me. Gone are all twelve of the “wire fraud” charges, three “money laundering” charges, “conspiracy to commit bank fraud & wire fraud”, and most importantly the charge with the ten-year mandatory minimum sentence, the “kingpin” charge of “continuing financial crimes enterprise”. All gone!
If you’ve been paying attention to the case for the last twenty months, you may recall the big deal the prosecutors made to try to keep me in jail until trial, claiming I am a “sophisticated cyber criminal” and a “danger to the community”. Prior to the charges being dropped, my bail conditions had loosed to where I am no longer wearing a tracking anklet. Now that those charges are gone, when we recently asked to remove the government spyware from my computer and phone, the prosecutors had no objection. Apparently, I’m no longer the scary things they told the judge and press that I was.
The remaining charges that are slated for trial are:
- Conspiracy to Operate Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business
- Operation of Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business
- Money Laundering
- Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
- Attempt to Evade or Defeat Tax (four counts for 2016-2019)
Read the full story at Free Keene.
by Ian | Sep 28, 2022 | Announcement, Video
Word is the Crypto Six trial has been moved from November to December, with jury selection starting on December 6th at Federal Court Church in Concord, NH. Recently more of the Six took plea “deals” for victimless “crimes”, and now I am the only one left proceeding to trial. I am facing approximately 420 years in prison if convicted of all counts. No victim, no crime. Bitcoin is not a crime.
There’s also news about the proposed “Ballad of the Crypto Six” documentary film, which has recently switched its fundraiser to Indiegogo and begun offering various benefits for financial support. Depending on your contribution you can score T shirts and caps, to dinner with one of the Crypto 6 and even to co-host one or more episodes of Free Talk Live! If you think this subject deserves its own documentary, please watch the nine-minute trailer and join the Indiegogo:
Here is the trailer:
by Ian | May 22, 2022 | Announcement, Publicity
Industry honors don’t get bigger than this. Every year at their convention in New York City, talk radio’s premiere industry publication, TALKERS Magazine awards the “Gene Burns Memorial Award for Freedom of Speech”, which prior to Burns’ death in 2013 was called the “Freedom of Speech Award”. Burns was the award’s first recipient in 1988 and I’m extremely honored to be its recipient this year of 2022.
TALKERS has stated their prestigious award is given to broadcasters who “have demonstrated through their words, deeds and courage the First Amendment in action, its purpose and how it operates.” Past recipients include Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Sean Hannity, Thom Hartmann, G. Gordon Liddy, Al Franken, Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge, and more. There’s no doubt that the hosts of Free Talk Live, the country’s only syndicated libertarian radio show, are dedicated to freedom, especially the freedom of speech. While I am the founder of the show, all of our co-hosts share the same philosophy. I’m super grateful to the people at TALKERS for this award.
In any normal year, I’d be attending the TALKERS convention in NYC to accept the award in person. This year however, I’m currently on highly restrictive bail conditions as I await trial in the Crypto Six case. Unless I can get the prosecution to agree to let me attend, I’m stuck at home. Thankfully, Mark Edge will be there to accept the award in my stead. Would I have been able to speak, I’d have said something like this:
I’m grateful to Michael, Kevin, and the rest of TALKERS Magazine’s staff for presenting me with the Freedom of Speech Award. Every year we gather here in New York City and gratitude is often expressed that as an industry, we are free to share our opinions on the radio. However, is it really true that we have free speech? Or, is it simply that most talk radio hosts have opinions that are within an acceptable range? (more…)
by Ian | May 3, 2022 | Announcement
Big news from our Matrix chat server! Finally, we have gotten direct audio and video calling working. These calls are supposedly client-to-client and do not use our server as a midpoint, so they should be as fast and as high quality as the calling parties’ internet connections and devices allow. Note, this only works on direct conversations with two people. If you have a chat room with more than two, you’ll still need to use the Jitsi conference option that has always been available. Enjoy!
If you’re not yet part of our Matrix server, you can visit this page to get step-by-step instructions on how to join. Matrix is a self-hosted, open source, federated chat system where you can join existing channels or create and admin your own, public or private!
by Ian | Apr 15, 2022 | Announcement, Publicity
Radio industry publication TALKERS Magazine’s “Heavy Hundred” is their list of the “most important radio talk show hosts in America” and we’ve moved from from #25 to #24 on the 2022 edition! It is an honor to continue to be included and moved up year after year. Thank you to the great people at TALKERS. If you missed TALKERS publisher Michael Harrison interviewing me recently, you can find that here.
by Ian | Apr 6, 2022 | Announcement, Video
Thanks to Bonnie for creating the new FTL TikTok account! She’s uploading clips from the show and they have hundreds of views already, though we don’t have many followers. While we’ll surely be booted off their platform at some point, if you are a TikTok user, please give our account a follow and do share your favorite clips. Thank you!
