Obnoxii Civitati
October 22, 2024
Yesterday Freeman1337 was denied bail and remanded in a New York federal court. The case is United States v. Celentano, 1:24-mj-01204-JJM-1 (W.D. NY). The most recent minute entry says that Freeman, who managed The Gatalog’s entire tech stack, will have his devices forensically examined by the United States “on a rolling basis.” We learn in the unsealed complaint, provided below, that Freeman had, as predicted, been under investigation since at least September.
Standout details from the complaint include an RV stash and an attempted “boating accident.” Turns out ATF just sends a dive team, by the way. Freeman continued the Gravedigging tradition by asking his friends to unknowingly hold his hottest products and, unsurprisingly, this backwoods network collapsed the first time a lawman made a phone call.
We learn Freeman was searched on September 29th and arrested October 17th, meaning Gatalog leadership knew what was up for the last month. As it happens, October 17th is the same day “Dr. Death” suddenly resigned from The Gatalog, professing a renewed interest in family life.
One imagines AUSA Jeffrey Intravatola has as sudden an interest in the name “Dr. Death.”
Why would the good doctor keep this secret? And why did the Gatalog inner party fail to inform its members that the entirety of their profiles, communications, and Odysee activity had been completely captured by the feds? In the spirit of earnest and forthright dealing, you should know The Gatalog Rocketchat software permanently stores every message, public and private. These messages are fully accessible, unencrypted, to any administrator. As we learned from Director Holladay in Everytown v. DEFCAD, the only unacceptable outcome of that case was if Gatalog members found out their leadership had full, historical access to their channel messages and private conversations. Did Freeman, as their IT guy, want it that way?
The Roman concept of liberty in antiquity was always contrasted with the condition of slavery. What made a man a slave was not his being subject to physical force, but his being in poteste. Roman historians like Tacitus drew from this legal distinction a moral one, describing slavery as the condition that makes a man obnoxius — endlessly liable to punishment or the will of another.
In the original sense, Freeman is the most obnoxious person in the movement, but it was his sponsor organization’s commitment to censorship and bureaucracy that subjected hundreds more to harm. Freeman and Dr. Death’s hasty exits mask an administrative history of uncompensated stupidity, and now leave it to a single fall guy named UberClay (read: UberPlayed) to choose whether to delete the server or hold the bag.
TL;DR – It will take a little longer now to get your beta approved. You’d have better luck driving to the local FBI field office and asking them yourself.
Though the final text order in ECF mentions Rule 48(b) and allows the investigation and negotiated plea deal to be finalized by January, 2025, I wouldn’t worry about it. This is a winnable 2A case, and Freeman knows the very best lawyer in the game. The man is a soldier. And if I’ve learned anything at all about him over the years, it’s that he’d never sell out the directors of The Gatalog, and he’d never run from a fight.
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