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AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin is entitled to his dignity. He is not, however, entitled to sustain the lies that sustained ASD during its miserable run or kept false hope alive for thousands of members after the U.S. Secret Service seized his money.

When the ASD case ends, it should end without ambiguity.

The prosecution of ASD’s assets in the form of money and real estate never was about an “evil government” — not even for one minute. All fair-minded people know that. If you bought into that story, you bought into a lie. If you wrote disingenuous letters to the government at Bowdoin’s urging — or if you wrote them on your own initiative, without doing appropriate research — you contributed to what amounts to an unconscionable spin campaign to sanitize a wretched enterprise that was polluting the U.S. money supply.

And you did it at a time in which U.S. banks were failing at a pace not seen since the Great Depression and more and more people were consumed by worry and sliding into poverty.

This is a case about domestic and international wire fraud and money-laundering. It featured an attack on the U.S. banking system and an attack on the U.S. Treasury itself. These things should make you feel utter revulsion. If they don’t, you are endorsing crime on a global scale.

Why would you do that?

If your answer is that surfs are fundamentally harmless, you are engaging in self-delusion of the highest order. Their danger is inarguable in any rational context. You cannot sanitize this filthy business via disclaimer or by saying things such as, “Only spend what you can afford to lose.”

You should have to force yourself not to hurl every time you read those words or get an email from an “industry expert” who counsels you to be careful while playing these terrible games — all while providing an affiliate link so he or she can pocket a commission before the enterprise collapses or is destroyed by the government, thus potentially implicating you in a crime.

If he or she sloughs it off with something along the lines of, “People should be free to make their own choices,” ask him or her if that theory applies to bank robbery or theft on a grand scale hidden behind a disclaimer that says “rebates aren’t guaranteed.”

It’s not just another form of “gambling,” either. Gambling is highly regulated. So is the Ponzi scheme business, even if you want to delude yourself into thinking it’s not. In fact, the Ponzi scheme business is so tightly regulated and so universally reviled that the Congress saw fit to make it illegal under a host of laws. Taking it “offshore” is nothing but a confession to the crime.

The Constitutional power to legislate is vested in the U.S. Congress. No private attorney is empowered to divine private legislation that makes exceptions for thieves and criminals — to say, in effect, “We get to keep the money, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.” No pro se litigant can turn it into a case of judicial “TREASON” when he or she is properly excluded from the legal proceedings.

Imagine a world in which the Legislature or a judge permitted Ponzi schemes. Bernard Madoff, who devastated legions of individuals, charities and endowments, would be a free man. Compellingly, though,  not even Madoff, a man of relentless cunning and unparalleled criminal hubris, had the gall to ask his investors and the public to understand his plight or to blame it on evil prosecutors.

No autosurf has ever succeeded — unless you define the organized theft business as genuine enterprise or a genuine form of empowerment. The autosurf lane is lined with stinking carcasses and broken dreams. It is paved with shards of glass and cannot be navigated without harm to innocents. The “free market” defense to which autosurf players default by rote is the same one that served up human bondage for profit.

The “rebates aren’t guaranteed” disclaimer is an abomination manufactured to provide cover for promoters, so they’ll have an excuse should the government move in. It is nothing more than a license for the operators and promoters to steal — from the unknowing, from religious groups, from widows, from people from all walks of life. “Insidious” does not even begin to describe it.

These surfs pose a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and other countries. People are using them to scrub enormous sums of money. Criminal enterprises are involved. People who seek to cause widespread harm could be involved. You could be helping a terrorist organization buy bombs or missile launchers or weapons of mass destruction. You could be helping drug dealers hide profits.

Spin Alert: Bowdoin As Victim

Yesterday a poster here reposted an email purportedly from a person who had communicated with ASD President Andy Bowdoin recently. Apparently the spin game already is starting, with Bowdoin being positioned by shills as a victim, as he negotiates with prosecutors.

“The government is really playing hardball and the negotiations are very intense,” the email claims. “A handful of people have sent messages that they don’t understand why Andy hasn’t communicated to everyone and, to them, that means Andy is a crook.

“Those people don’t realize that, when a person is involved in a legal issue, their attorneys counsel them not to discuss anything with anyone,” the email continued. “Why? Because those who want to win the case against that person will look for anything the person says, take it out of context, and use it against the person. It’s very commonly done and done effectively. Many innocent people are in jail because of that very mistake. Andy couldn’t take the chance. Please know that this has been very hard on him, not being able to talk to you directly.”

Horse-hockey.

Andy Bowdoin has blamed every lawyer involved in the case for ASD’s troubles, including his own. He fired his paid counsel without informing them, morphed into a pro se litigant after consulting with amateurs and filed one fantasy brief after another. For good measure, he chided the prosecutors by saying his drivel “should really get their attention.”

“Watch for the filings,” Bowdoin instructed, in a letter published March 13 on the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum. “I will be speaking out on a conference call as soon as the filings are completed. We will notify you of the call. I look forward to talking to you then.”

No conference call occurred after Bowdoin’s filings were completed. Bowdoin’s amateur advisers didn’t anticipate a ruling from the judge that corporate litigants could not proceed pro se, which forced Bowdoin to hire new paid counsel. His previous paid counsel effectively resigned from the case after being ordered by the judge to state their intentions.

Representing intransigent Bowdoin, it seems, had become a royal chore.

In asking for leave to withdraw, the attorneys said their representation of Bowdoin had become “unreasonably difficult.”

“After this Court denied Claimant’s Emergency Motion for Return of Seized Funds [on Nov. 19, 2008], the client-lawyer relationship between the Firm and all three Claimants substantially deteriorated and has not improved thus rendering the representation unreasonably difficult,” the lawyers said.

‘Strong Up The Middle’

Assuming that the email cited above relates an actual conversation and includes a kernel of truth, it’s good to know the government is “really playing hardball.” The government should play hardball; a metaphorical Sandy Koufax should be on the mound, Johnny Bench should be behind the plate, Ozzie Smith should be at shortstop, Joe Morgan should be at second and Willie Mays should be in center field.

It’s important to be strong up the middle on defense.

When it’s time for the government to bat, it should alternate between Ty Cobb and Rickey Henderson at lead-off, with Roberto Clemente in the two-hole. Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig should alternate at the third position, and Babe Ruth should bat cleanup. Hank Aaron and Willie Stargell and Willie McCovey should be ready at a moment’s notice in case the Bambino was just getting home at gametime, and Willie Mays and Kirby Puckett could alternate in the five-hole.

The government team definitely needs an All-Star and Hall of Fame representative from the Minnesota franchise, which is why Puckett is a good selection.

Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews should alternate in the sixth position, and Joe Morgan should bat seventh. Ozzie should bat eighth, with Sandy in the ninth spot. If Sandy tires — or if his elbow becomes inflamed — the call should go to Cy Young. He should be backed by Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton and the entire Hall of Fame pitching staff, including relievers.

Lawyerly Tony LaRussa (for academics) should manage; Billy Martin (for spirit) should coach first, and Walter Alston (for the love of the game) should coach third. The All Star lineup should be so strong that LaRussa doesn’t have to worry about players playing out of position or worry about letting all members of his “strong up the middle” defensive team bat.

If an umpire rules all defensive players have to bat and that the government can’t let people play out of position, LaRussa should field what he believes to be the best team on any given day, which means even immortals will have to ride the bench.

For flexibility, Ozzie and Johnny could alternate with Cal Ripken Jr. and Carlton Fisk, just like Willie Mays and Kirby. In a team consisting of all Hall of Famers, Clemente could sit if his back began to ache, and Bill Mazeroski could spell Joe Morgan at second, perhaps especially late in games. Maz can pick it — and he hit perhaps the most famous 9th inning homerun in the history of the game.

Metaphorical LaRussa must be free to bring metaphorical Bob Gibson into the game on a moment’s notice to throw strategic brushback pitches, if needed, before getting the strikeout.

Andy Bowdoin should be defended by Johnnie Cochran, Gloria Allred, Clarence Darrow, Gerry Spence and Abraham Lincoln — five great legal minds.

And when Bowdoin loses and the spin begins, you should feel revulsion that he is blaming his lawyers, including Abraham Lincoln — while championing the government for playing hardball in this case and sending even the reverential Mr. Lincoln back to the bench, his strikeout by Sandy Koufax duly recorded for posterity.