FBI raid

[surf]

Yesterday's story: FBI says some artifacts likely belong elsewhere

 

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[Guest 1551]

I would not doubt one bit... Comments like this and other's seem to reason someone is trying to undermine us. Seriously you think we are that stupid?

Well some people are look at the presiden....oops. Can't say it here

 

[diggummup]

Yesterday's story: FBI says some artifacts likely belong elsewhere

View attachment 976759

Like I said I think the whole fiasco is pure BS. Someone is looking to make a name for themselves I believe.

It is not entirely clear which, if any, of the items might have been illegally obtained, and the rules regarding the removal or collection of cultural artifacts are complex, involving state, federal and international laws.“Some of the things he had were improper to possess,” FBI Special Agent Drew Northern said Wednesday. He did not elaborate.

 

[jeff of pa]

right ! notice they are stopping short of saying illegal.

"some of the items likely belong elsewhere" well the FBI likely belongs elsewhere protecting people
from killers and crooked cops.


“Some of the things he had were improper to possess,” So what ? He didn't say Illegal, Just Improper.
It's improper to posses a paper bag of human Poop
just for the Aroma in your car. but I don't think it's Illegal.

The whole thing is just a way to steal his collection.

as long as he doesn't protest too loudly no charges will be threatend.

Not that I could see them sticking. at his age overnight in jail could end up being a life sentence.
No matter how well he appears to be today.

Now if they find out he has a very Large Bank account.

they may go after fines

 

[diggummup]

right ! notice they are stopping short of saying illegal.

"some of the items likely belong elsewhere" well the FBI likely belongs elsewhere protecting people
from killers and crooked cops.


“Some of the things he had were improper to possess,” So what ? He didn't say Illegal, Just Improper.
It's improper to posses a paper bag of human Poop
just for the Aroma in your car. but I don't think it's Illegal.

The whole thing is just a way to steal his collection.

as long as he doesn't protest too loudly no charges will be threatend.

Not that I could see them sticking. at his age overnight in jail could end up being a life sentence.
No matter how well he appears to be today.

Now if they find out he has a very Large Bank account.

they may go after fines

I was reading somewhere where they said it may take anywhere from weeks to several years to properly identify where some of the pieces came from. Like you said, this is just a way for the archeothorities to "legally" steal his collection. IMHO, this is a travesty and they owe that man an apology and monetary awards for the items that they stole from him. Last I heard, this is still America, not Amerika! Although at this rate...

 

[billn1956]

I'm sure they didn't raid a house without a warrant. I didn't read anywhere that an illegal search and seizure took place. And since they are from the FBI group dealing with stolen art and artifacts they are probably there because like it says in the article he told everyone and didn't try to keep it a secret. Yes I think it's a shame that he is losing such a passion of his and people aren't going to be able to enjoy it there. I'm sure he broke many laws buying or exporting cultural artifacts from the country of origin without proper licence or paperwork.
May suck but that's the law and if your that big of a collector and you want your collection to be public you should make sure or someone should tell you to make sure you have your stuff inline.
A suppressor for a gun is legal to own just a form and tax. Owning a suppressor without that form or tax - federal crime.
The police don't just raid houses illegally. They might make it a pain in the @** to do stuff legally which I hate but you have to follow the rules. If you don't want to jump through the hoops it doesn't really bother me on something like this just don't make it a big public thing where you are going to have the feds come.

It was not that many years ago when there were
No laws about buying these kind of thinks over seas and bringing them to the u.s. This man probaly never broke any laws in his collecting.Just because some thing is illegal now does not mean it was 2 or 3 years ago.Educate your self before talking about a man that from what we no of him is a law abide man.

 

[billn1956]

What makes you say that? Criminals think in very similar ways. My dad has seen their ways for 20+ years.

It is also said and we have all seen it enough to judge for our self .That a man can be judged by the company he keeps,that is why so many cops and lawyers are crooks

 

[Jeremy S]

Agents from the FBI’s art crime team left Miller’s home on Monday after confiscating part, but not all, of his massive collection, Northern said.

The FBI is making an inventory of the artifacts to determine their legal status, “with the intent of repatriation,” he said.

I wonder how many of those "repatriated" items will end up on the market for sale or in some other guys collection? Hopefully the confiscated part of his collection was small. Maybe this will be an eye open for those who have legally collected artifacts. Keep your mouth shut, your collection out of sight, and trust no one!

 

[Seadog72]

In 2004, I was living in NC and met a rock hound at a local turkey shoot. We became friends and I went to his house one Sunday to watch a nascar race. He operated heavy equip and told me that a few weeks prior he had dug up a massive native burial ground on a military base where his company was building new buildings. He immediately called his supervisor over to show him and his supervisor told him to bury the artifacts and keep working or he would be fired. His supervisor thought if they notified anyone, the govt would cancel their work and they'd all be unemployed (from prior experience w/ artifacts). My friend did as he was told, because as he told me, he lived from paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford to take time off work. Such a shame and I wonder how often tragedies like this happen because of the laws we have on the books.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Seadog72, what you are saying isn't unique. In fact, in cases of construction sites, where the "environmental impact report" requires "archaeological monitoring", the solution to that is .... uh .... "quite simple" . There's know archaeological consulting firms in our state that .... for the right price .... will not find anything of significance. They call them "customer friendly" archaeologists. They'll sign off on whatever you give them to sign.

Now seriously, if YOU were the developer with a schedule to meet, and a job to finish, can you blame them for a minute ??

 

[Reed Lukens]

After watching the videos & everything, it is obvious that with his background in the Manhattan Project, etc that he is very very well connected. More than likely a call was made from Washington to the FBI & they were ordered to back off. I think that this story will be pushed to the back burner quietly & as soon as the FBI can get a handle on their mix up. Arresting him will not happen, applauding him I think will happen soon enough. Most likely the FBI agents who started the investigation will be reassigned.
This is all speculation but easily seen by reading between the lines on what's being released now.

 

[diggummup]

After watching the videos & everything, it is obvious that with his background in the Manhattan Project, etc that he is very very well connected. More than likely a call was made from Washington to the FBI & they were ordered to back off. I think that this story will be pushed to the back burner quietly & as soon as the FBI can get a handle on their mix up. Arresting him will not happen, applauding him I think will happen soon enough. Most likely the FBI agents who started the investigation will be reassigned.
This is all speculation but easily seen by reading between the lines on what's being released now.

Yeah. Notice how nothing new has come about with this story. Big breaking national news story turns into "All's Quiet On The Western Front".

 

[littleneckhalfshell]

Did anyone see the 'rest of the story' The reason for the 'raid' was that he actually had some artifacts from his days on the Manhattan Project. A follow up to the story I saw said that he had a half sphere of an Atom bomb, and a real, (not model) triggering device for said bomb! A visitor who had seen it in his private treasure room years ago, started getting nervous that due to his increasing age, that at his death it might wind up in a yard sale, and ratted him out. The stuff about all the other relics is not why there were all those tents and FBI etc.

 

[littleneckhalfshell]

http://www.vocativ.com/culture/art-culture/indianas-real-indiana-jones/
the item that initially concerned the FBI had nothing to do with Native American art.

***​

At 22, Miller, then an army engineer, was chosen to help develop the first nuclear bomb. One of his jobs, according to Bolt and Dave Zeph, who also worked with Miller at the Naval Avionics Center in Indianapolis, was to build closed circuit TVs for the first test detonation, known as the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945. It would be a way for senior military officials to try to gather as full a picture as possible of the explosion before the cameras vaporized.
The experience of working on the bomb scarred Miller, and in the 1950s, convinced the world was going to end, he built a concrete bomb shelter with his own hands, complete with electricity, air filtration and running water. “He was a doomsday prepper,” says Bolt. “He was prepared for three to four weeks underground.”
The bomb shelter is part of his basement, where in addition to the Native American artifacts, Miller has some keepsakes from his time working on the Manhattan Project. About 10 years ago, Miller invited Richard M. Gramly, a Harvard-trained anthropologist, and a friend to visit his home.
When Miller took Gramly downstairs, it wasn’t the art that grabbed his attention. ”There was a patch of the army unit to which he belonged,” Gramly recalls. “It had a mushroom cloud with a lightning bolt coming out of it.” Behind the mushroom cloud patch, he says, was a literal bombshell. ”On the shelf was a triggering device for an atomic bomb. The first bomb [Little Boy] that blew up Hiroshima was made exactly from those components,” says Gramly.
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/art-culture/indianas-real-indiana-jones/#

Patch from the Manhattan Project



He said the half-hollow sphere was the size of a softball and the central sphere was the size of a golfball. “It was heavy uranium, which is heavy metal. One cannot confuse uranium isotopes with lead. Don Miller, in my opinion, did not have a copy of a trigger on the shelf of his display case in his basement relic room—rather he had the real McCoy.”
The discovery shook Gramly. ”To my horror, I see the man has a switch,” he says. “No private person should have this device.”
The night ended and Gramly kept what he saw to himself. Later, though, a friend forwarded him a photo (likely taken without Miller’s consent) of the switch. Convinced that it could fall into the wrong hands and that someone could potentially use it to make a dirty bomb, Gramly decided to call the authorities. ”I hate to rat someone out, but it’s no longer a private thing.” He reached out to a relative of his who was a colonel at the Pentagon, who told Gramly to contact the FBI, which he did. That was in 2008.

 

[cudamark]

The design for an A-bomb is not a secret. All the materials to make one are readily available....except for the enriched, weapons grade, fissionable material. I find it hard to believe they would pull a raid like that if they only wanted a few items from his days at the Manhattan Project. He probably would have just handed them over and been done with it.

 

[Jeremy S]

So he trustingly let some weasel into his house who in turn started screaming "dirty bomb" to the FBI.

I have heard this same story before, letting someone see your collection and in turn that person going straight to the authorities trying to get you in trouble. The last story I heard was about some deer antlers that a friend had found on the ground in the forest. He brought them home and hung them in his garage. A friend of his son's saw them while visiting, but went straight home and called the DNR screaming about poaching deer out of season, even though they were antlers normally shed by the deer and the antlers clearly showed that. A few days later the conservation officers were knocking on his door with a warrant to search the property. Naturally they saw the antlers and laughed, and in the end nothing was lost except any trust and respect for his son's friend.


As a reminder to us all, be very careful what you post on here and who you let into your house!

 

[cudamark]

So he trustingly let some weasel into his house who in turn started screaming "dirty bomb" to the FBI.

I have heard this same story before, letting someone see your collection and in turn that person going straight to the authorities trying to get you in trouble. The last story I heard was about some deer antlers that a friend had found on the ground in the forest. He brought them home and hung them in his garage. A friend of his son's saw them while visiting, but went straight home and called the DNR screaming about poaching deer out of season, even though they were antlers normally shed by the deer and the antlers clearly showed that. A few days later the conservation officers were knocking on his door with a warrant to search the property. Naturally they saw the antlers and laughed, and in the end nothing was lost except any trust or respect for his son's friend.


As a reminder to us all, be very careful what you post on here and who you let into your house!

There should be some recourse and/or justice in a case like that. The DNR should have to explain how they got a warrant on such flimsy evidence and the "friend" should be prosecuted for filing a false report. These Gestapo tactics on some knuckleheads' say-so have got to stop.

 

[diggummup]

There should be some recourse and/or justice in a case like that. The DNR should have to explain how they got a warrant on such flimsy evidence and the "friend" should be prosecuted for filing a false report. These Gestapo tactics on some knuckleheads' say-so have got to stop.

Don't forget... we must give up certain rights in order for our government to protect us from terrorists. At least that's what they want us to believe.

"Those that would sacrifice liberty for security will in the end have neither, nor deserve neither."- Ben Franklin

“The greatest danger to American Freedom is a government that ignores and perverts the Constitution”- Thomas Jefferson

 

[Reed Lukens]

http://www.vocativ.com/culture/art-culture/indianas-real-indiana-jones/
the item that initially concerned the FBI had nothing to do with Native American art.

***​

At 22, Miller, then an army engineer, was chosen to help develop the first nuclear bomb. One of his jobs, according to Bolt and Dave Zeph, who also worked with Miller at the Naval Avionics Center in Indianapolis, was to build closed circuit TVs for the first test detonation, known as the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945. It would be a way for senior military officials to try to gather as full a picture as possible of the explosion before the cameras vaporized.
The experience of working on the bomb scarred Miller, and in the 1950s, convinced the world was going to end, he built a concrete bomb shelter with his own hands...

Sounds like the same thing happened to him, as far as letting someone in who had no idea what he was looking at. Even if he had the trigger mechanism for the bomb in his house, it was an empty artifact that was more of a personal memory than anything else. The trigger has to be filled with the nuclear material to make it usable and as said it was empty. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is what was used as the triggering isotope in the 2 bombs that the USA dropped on Japan. Now a days Tritium has lots of uses and my favorite is the T100 Tritium tube watch because they glow for 25+ years... lol. If you do buy a tritium watch be sure it has the T100 tubes and not the small T25. My diving watch is a Deep Blue Diver T100 but a lot cheaper than this one
Deep Blue 46mm T-100 Diver Limited Edition Valjoux 7754 GMT Bracelet Watch ShopHQ.com

Android 48mm or 45mm Bioluminescence T100 Automatic Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch ShopHQ.com

 

[dougachim]

A while back a guy in southern New Mexico got home to around 60 Homeland security agents packing up his collection because a guy from California he bought some stuff from might have had a illegal pot from Peru. Took about a year and a bunch of money to get it back.