User:Stapler80/9/11 conspiracy theory goes to U.S. Court in Denver

July 21, 2011

On Monday, July 11, 2011, [pro se] plaintiff Leonardo Ramos-Hernandez filed a draft of a first amended complaint in the U.S. District Court in Denver, Colorado claiming that the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 was an inside job. Ramos-Hernandez says that as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration convened various task forces that established policies that he claims now violate due process rights. Thus, the yet unnamed conspirators would be ultimately responsible for those post 9/11 U.S. policies.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, two airliners impacted the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City. Both airliners were full of fuel as were expected to travel to the west coast from nearby Boston. The fuel ignited fires that lasted for hours until the collapse of the towers. Both towers fell at close to free fall speed pulverizing most of their concrete mass into a huge cloud of particulate. The ensuing rescue and clean up effort was reportedly impaired by persistent underground fires lasting more than 90 days. The Bush administration convened the 9/11 Comission, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), and the National Institute of Standards and Tests (NIST) at Rockville, Maryland to investigate the incident.

A CBS News/New York Times poll made between October 6 and 8 of 2006 in the United States said only 16% of the respondents believed the official story and 81% believed the Bush admnistration was either hiding something or lying about what they knew prior to 9/11 about possible terrorist attacks against the United States. While a WorldPublicOpinion.org poll made in 17 countries outside the United Stated between July 15 and August 31 2008 found there is no popular consensus as to whom is to blame for the 9/11 attacks. Between 15% and 23% respondents in Europe and 30% in Mexico said the U.S. government was to blame. Several internet websites have put forward 9/11 conspiracy theories supported by a subtantial following audience.

According to Ramos-Hernandez's complaint, the forensic investigation performed by the NIST is incomplete because it bases the official explanation of the 9/11 attack on premises that are impossible to corroborate independently; namely, the amount of fireproffing dislodged by the airliners impact and the amount of damage sustained by the core columns. Those two factors are impossible to be corroborated because no internal visual inspection was possible before the demise of the towers. Ramos-Hernandez asserts that a computer modelling of the fall of the towers that will account for the effects of gravitational and structural forces involved will conclusively establish wheather the near free fall collapse of the towers was really plausible or the affair was a preplannned demolition. "Only 16% of the respondents believed the official story and 81% believed the Bush admnistration was either hiding something or lying about what they knew prior to 9/11 about possible terrorist attacks against the United States."

As a consequence of the 9/11 attack, the United States has embarked in two wars and has implemented extensive and sometimes intrusive security measures from head to toe searches in airports to counterfeiting proof driver's licenses. By attacking these security measures, Ramos-Hernandez, is attempting bring a "test case" for the conspiracy theory.

Post 9/11 immigration policy
He questions the alleged post 9/11 Social Security Administration (SSA) policy to not receive applications for Social Security numbers on behalf of non-resident aliens. Ramos-Hernandez is a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico and is married to a citizen of Dominican Republic that does not reside in the United States. He alleges he requested Social Security numbers on behalf of his wife and two children on February 2009 at the Lakeland, Florida Field Office of the SSA. He claims the SSA Field Office refused to receive the request for his wife and a child. But received and refused to process the request for the second child. In October 2002, SSA did begin implementing the first phase of a long-term process to redesign how it issues SSNs to noncitizens, called “Enumeration at Entry” (EAE). Also, under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-458) SSA was required, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, to form an inter-agency task force for the purpose of further improving the security of Social Security cards and numbers.

He also questions the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) post 9/11 policy to refuse fee waivers to the poor who petition immigration visas for their spouses and children to unify families into the United States. Ramos-Hernandez alleges that on February 2009, he filed with the USCIS a petition on behalf of his wife for an immigration visa. Unemployed since November 2008, he requested a waiver of the then $355 filing fee. He claims the petitioned was returned, without filing, with a letter stating that the fee is not waivable. After 9/11 the USCIS revised its regulation concerning fees raising the fee for filing a Petition for Alien Relative (form I-130) from $185 in 2005 to $420 in 2011 and prohibiting the fee waiver.

CBP's post 9/11 "war on drugs"
He is also challenging the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for what he calls, the "practice", of seizing or persuading U.S. Citizens to abandon their prescription drugs at the border crossing points with Mexico and Canada whenever they lawfully bought the prescription drugs with a Mexican or Canadian prescription, while at the same time, allowing foreigners to enter the same prescription drugs with similar Mexican or Canadian prescriptions. On May 15th 2009, Ramos-Hernandez at age 39, obtained a prescription for Testoprim-D, an anabolic steroid, from Mexican Dr. Raúl Cristo-Sánchez for hormone replacement therapy. On May 18th 2009, he declared the medication to Border Point of Entry agents who then seized it after allegedly attempting to persuade him to abandon it because he was an U.S. citizen and thus needed an American prescription.

According to Dr. Kryger of the Monterey Preventive Medicine Clinic, Monterey California, "Anabolic steroids have many beneficial effects and should be used more often by the medical establishment. However, some of the US regulatory agencies fear that men will become addicted to the anabolic effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids." Dr. Kryger further asserts: "In 2002, the FDA attempted to remove generic steroids from the market, so that they were better able to regulate the "lost inventory" of the steroid producing pharmaceutical companies. They thought that they could police a smaller number of companies more efficiently. Unfortunately, this zealous regulation of injectable brand name steroids only contributed to the problem and did raised prices. The "war on drugs" is a victimless war that will never end and there is no "winner". What happens is that demand is only increased by the apparent unavailability of product? The main effect is to raise the price, restrict availability and encourage counterfeiting."

Border Patrol road checkpoints
Ramos-Hernandez is further challenging the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoints 100 miles inland as non-compliant with the Martinez and Ortiz case law that allows their operation away from any functional border crossing. On April 2009, Ramos-Hernandez was allegedly stopped at the Border Patrol Checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas on U.S. Highway 281. Though he allegedly showed the Border Patrol agents his valid driver's license issued by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, he was nevertheless allegedly arrested because of his inability to speak English without a strong Spanish accent to be processed for deportation. He was allegedly fingerprinted and a mug shot was allegedly taken. Allegedly, he was later released, as his identity as a U.S. Navy post 9/11 war veteran with a 's Secret Security Clearance was established.

The CBP checkpoints were declared constitutional in 1976 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case USA v. Martínez-Fuerte. The court said it is constitutional to refer motorists selectively to a secondary inspection area for limited inquiry, since the intrusion is sufficiently minimal that no particularized reason need exist to justify it. But such secondary inspection had also been limited in 1975 to voluntary questioning and not searches by the decision on USA v. Ortiz that prohibited searches in said CBP checkpoints without warrant or probable cause.

Case status
Ramos-Hernandez case faces an initial obstacle. The U.S. District Court issued on April 29th an Order to Cure Deficiencies regarding to his Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis and Complaint under Local Rule 8.1 that mandates that pro se litigants must use the court provided forms. On Wednesday, July 13, 2011, the court overruled Ramos-Hernandez objection to the order summarily denying his argument that the mandate infringes on his constitutional rights to equal protection and petition government for the redress of grievances. The court granted Ramos-Hernandez request for second extension and gave him 30 days to comply with the April 29th order that warned of dismissal of his case for non-compliance. The case is Ramos v. USA, 11-cv-01073-BNB at the U.S. District Court for Colorado.