By Anna Von Reitz
There are those among us who gossip wildly, recklessly, with no respect for the facts. Those who are doing this are hereby put on Notice. People who consistently do this are either not mentally stable, or are doing it on purpose to obstruct progress.
As we do not have time to deal with obstruction, grudge-matches or sophomoric nonsense, any further activity of this kind will be met with a permanent injunction against the Gossipers participation in Assembly Meetings and Committee work, at any level, State or County.
Their birthright will be honored and they will be enabled to vote in public elections, but they will not have a place of trust or honor and will not be enabled to continue in this manner.
Our Forefathers gave us the ability to protect the integrity and function of the assemblies by various means and we are prepared to deploy them all.
Let me unequivocally state that Lisa Schaffer of Ohio has been a very effective and dedicated teacher and guide and is a reliable and trusted member of the whole team effort. She has led a successful and highly informative weekly podcast and hosted our last "Family Reunion" in Ohio, and she sometimes steps in to help answer questions on the weekly Coordinator Call when I know I will be a few minutes late. She does this as a favor to me, so that participants aren't wasting their time because of my schedule.
The people of Ohio have successfully navigated the entire process of standing up their State Assembly; they have generously shared what they learned and experienced in the process for the potential benefit of all the other State Assemblies encountering the same challenges --- not to force the same answers on any other State, but to present answers that worked for Ohio as a point of departure for discussion and consideration.
Jealous people, scheming people, people who are motivated by fear and suspicion, have tried to detract from Ohio's success instead of learning from it. They have attributed evil intentions to Ohio's efforts to share information and they have attacked Lisa Schaffer and made grossly false statements about her.
Nobody here at the Federation will stand for it.
Louise Campbell-Anthony moved to Ohio in 2023 and Lisa Schaffer helped her correct her status. At the time, Louise explained that she was in transition and intending to return to Illinois once her school and family issues resolved -- and that is precisely what happened. She left Ohio voluntarily, according to her own plan, right on schedule, and nobody "chased her out".
Denise Miraz of The Nevada Assembly has made very, very irresponsible statements about this and other matters that are not credible.
While in Ohio, Louise Campbell-Anthony worked on an IT Committee to develop a website for The Ohio Assembly. She was one of four members and contributed her expertise as a website designer, however, neither she nor anyone else on the committee had the programming skills to develop the database aspects of the planned new website.
Ohio pitched their pennies in the hat and raised $6000 and initially consulted a programmer from India who gave them wildly varied cost estimates, anywhere from $1500 to many thousands. What Ohio wanted was a simple start up for the State Assembly. The programmer offered everything from a Volkswagen to a Lamborghini they couldn't dream about affording.
Louise suggested that Ohio could afford a much more expensive design if they charged each County Assembly $50,000 as they came on board. The other members objected because --- first of all, nobody can commit someone else to paying for something in advance, and secondly, having to pay such a sum simply to gain a spin off website access to the State Assembly website and data services could be a financial impediment for fledgling counties.
Other options were discussed. Alternatives to hiring the Indian programmer arose along with objections from the General Assembly to the idea of entrusting the website database design to a foreign programmer. This was voted on, and the plan to use his services was dropped.
The problem arose when Louise Campbell-Anthony later sent this same Indian programmer the database information, even after the General Assembly had voted to nix the effort. Some members felt that this was a serious breach of trust, resulting in private information being given to a foreign vendor even after the General Assembly had voted to end that part of the initiative and take a different route forward.
Louise was widely criticized over this in Ohio, but as she left Ohio shortly afterward, it seemed to be a moot issue--- yet she felt wronged by the backlash and continued to talk about it and even threatened legal action against The Ohio Assembly.
The Federation heard about the situation, considered it a matter of making a mistake, but nothing so serious, as all the "leaked information" was already public as a part of the State Credential Verify system. Ohio settled down, Louise Campbell-Anthony moved on as she intended, and that should have been the end of it -- in our opinion.
Misrepresentations of this circumstance have surfaced in the form of wild allegations made by Denise Miraz, from The Nevada Assembly, who has been known to make similar "reinterpretations" about other circumstances and people, attributing evil motivations to others, and "gossiping it up" -- adding non-existent details, plot twists, and even involving people who weren't present at all.
This is not free speech.
This is indicative of a mental/perceptual problem or a deliberate effort to misrepresent people and circumstances in a way calculated to create ill will and suspicion and the spread of false allegations and rumors. For example, in the present situation, Denise claimed to have spoken to Lisa Schaffer multiple times, but actually spoke to Lisa exactly once about a different topic.
Is her memory faulty? Did she think she was speaking to Lisa when speaking to someone else? We don't know. What we do know is that all this "faulty information" coming out of The Nevada Assembly has caused unnecessary disruption and ill-will and suspicion, none of which is welcome here.
It also resulted in a discussion of this disinformation in an international level Marshal-at-Arms meeting, a meeting at which neither the Ohio Speaker, Lisa Schaffer, nor the Ohio Marshal-at-Arms were present.
What should have happened, is that any discussion should have been tabled until such time as the Ohio contingent was available to speak on their own behalf, and every Marshal-at-Arms present should have objected to the consideration of Secondhand testimony from a member of The Nevada Assembly who wasn't even remotely involved in anything that happened or failed to happen in Ohio.
We, at the Federation, who loan the Marshals at Arms positions to the Assemblies to perform basic security operations for the Assemblies, are appalled.
It is not the job of any Marshals at Arms personnel to entertain Secondhand gossip and it is not the job of the PKTF to promote any situation like this as "training" for our Marshals at Arms.
The only possible training this situation offers is the opportunity to recognize personal grudges, fear-mongering, and reckless gossip being allowed to interfere with the proper functioning of our Assemblies and the accomplishment of their own duties.
Now, we will put it to The Nevada Assembly and the responsible County Assembly just as we put it to The North Carolina Assembly when similar problems appeared.
It's your responsibility to uphold standards of behavior for your members and to discipline them so as to ensure that their activities are not causing baseless disruption and unpleasantness.
If you have someone playing the part of the Unaccountable Source, and their gossip is causing divisiveness and ill-will in your assembly or worse, interfering across state lines in anyone else's assembly, they must be forthrightly addressed. The objectionable nature of their activity must be explained to them and they must be given the chance to correct.
If they do not correct and continue to bring forward baseless assertions and/or secondhand gossip, they must be disciplined with a time out of at least three months' duration. The Marshal at Arms, the Coordinator or Speaker, and the Militia Commander are responsible for preserving the informational security and standards of evidence for the Assembly at Large according to American Common Law, our customs, and traditions.
Granna
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