#tim ballard

[optimisticaudience]

Sound of Freedom, Operation Underground Railroad, and Tim Ballard are frauds who hurt the people who fight actual human trafficking.

Talk to anyone who fights real trafficking, they will tell you what is wrong with Ballard. To start with, he used to fight child sexual exploitation as a federal agent but he quit to act as a vigilante. Here is the short version of how OUR works: they go into a foreign country and throw money around until a pimp approaches them. They then tell the pimp they want children, and ask the pimp to bring kids to a secondary location. Then they call the cops, have the police arrest the pimps, streams the arrest on FaceTime for a high tier donor, and then go home. If you don’t get what’s wrong with this let me explain: OUR raises the demand for child sex slaves. A mommy blogger who Ballard brought along wrote an entire article about her experience. He says his team is all sorts of CIA agents and SEALs, but apparently moms from Utah are more reflective. It turns out some of the kids were trafficked for the first time FOR Ballard. He waved money and encouraged that trafficking. Afterwards, he left the country with a handshake promise that the kids would be cared for by the police. He will say the kids got aftercare, but evidence says otherwise.

But maybe that’s not enough for you?

He hired a psychic in Utah to tell him where a child was in the Dominican Republic. He flew a team as well as that child’s father down to the town the psychic indicated and found nothing other than locals scared of the American paramilitary vigilantes who were asking for children.

He and a sister organization said they were evacuating people from Afghanistan. No one has found any evidence to prove that.

He has claimed OUR saved a 12 year old girl from slavery. Then, she was 11. Then it turned out she saved herself a decade ago without his help and they want to get credit for rescuing her.

He claimed to be partnered with American Airlines, who have no idea what he is talking about.

So what actually DOES Ballard do?

He campaigns against drag queens

Promotes Qanon/Wayfair conspiracies

Cast the actor who played Jesus to play himself in his own movie. (The actor actively campaigns on blood libel Q conspiracies)

But beyond all that, just remember the movie isn’t donating to anti trafficking causes. It’s just asking you to buy more tickets to juice the numbers.

Donate to your local shelter. Most trafficking victims are trafficked by loved ones or people close to them. The victims need all the help they can get.

And another thing: People are conflating criticism of this film with apologia for child trafficking. I keep seeing posts say it will “Raise Awareness,” despite it being an incorrect portrayal. If that’s true, then Die Hard is raising awareness about bank robbers.

Here’s an idea: watch or read ANYTHING from real survivors of trafficking.

#tw trafficking #tw abuse #tw sex abuse #tw child abuse #sound of freedom #operation Underground Railroad #Tim Ballard #jim caviezel #tw antisemitism #bc caviezel is

[kirain]

Saw your comment on a post about Sound of Freedom and I came here to say.....shame on you. Shame. On. You. Since when is child trafficking a political issue? Since when is calling pedophilia bad a political issue? If you have a problem with this movie then maybe YOU'RE the problem. No better than the big Disney fat cats who tried to suppress this movie and keep it shelved. Or theaters messing with the ac and saying seats are sold out when they're empty. Shame on you! God's children are not for sale!

I wish people would do a little more research on this topic. If Hollywood and the "powers that be" didn't want this movie being seen, it wouldn't have been released in over 3000 theatres countrywide. It's being shown in major and minor locations all across America and Canada, and the vast majority of those locations aren't having any problems.

Case and point, my own mother and her friend went to see it last week and everything was fine. No issues whatsoever and the seats were packed. The movie isn't being "suppressed". This is all a marketing gimmick from the production company Angel Studios, a Christian streaming service. The movie is jam-packed with lies and only serves to glorify Tim Ballard, the man the movie is based on, and Christianity as a whole. I truly wish this wasn't political, but it is. They made it political.

Tim Ballard has provably exaggerated or fabricated many, if not most of his "rescues", and his organisation, Operation Underground Railroad, has been widely criticised by professional anti-sex trafficking organizations (including other Christian-based ones) for years. He has accumulated millions of dollars for his so-called "non-profit" organisation, and he runs several for profit organisations on the side. Most of this money is presumably pocketed by Ballard and his cohorts, as millions is unaccounted for and only a sliver goes to OUR. It's not about "saving children", it's about money and spreading Ballard's religious ideology.

This is compounded by the fact that Ballard, before he left the CIA, was almost always the last officer to arrive on any scene where child sex trafficking was involved, yet he somehow has hundreds of stories where he's singlehandedly rescued children. In fact, the "true story" the film is based on, where Ballard apparently saved a five year old boy—who, by Ballard's own account, ran up to him, hugged him, and begged to be taken away—didn't even happen. According to court receipts from the arrest and trial of Earl Venton Buchanan (the pedophile in possession of the little boy), Ballard arrived at the scene long after the boy was rescued and taken into custody, and he was barely involved. The documents can easily be found online under the San Diego incident reports.

Ballard was also caught lying about saving one particular girl named Liliana, the literal poster child for OUR. As it turns out, Liliana rescued herself by escaping her captors when she was seventeen and being trafficked in New York. Even more egregious, every time Ballard told her story, he would lower her age to garner more sympathy ... as if her being seventeen wasn't sad enough. In one instance, he claimed she was 14. In another, he claimed she was 11. Ballard also exploited Liliana's story as a reason for needing stricter border patrols and a better wall, despite the fact that she was being abused in America. There is no evidence to suggest OUR had anything to do with her rescue.

Ballard and his "organisation" have even ruined entire legitimate rescue operations in other countries and put children at risk, like in the Dominican Republic, where he endangered the lives of 26 girls by playing vigilante, being followed around by a camera crew, and causing a shootout that effectively traumatised the children he used as a prop to lure in buyers. His response to the mishap and rightful criticism by the Dominican police was basically, "Well ... you win some, you lose some."

The children were released without receiving any therapy or rehabilitative care, and Anne Gallagher, the leading global expert on the international law on human trafficking, said that OUR has an "alarming lack of understanding about how sophisticated criminal trafficking networks must be approached and dismantled" and went on to call the work of OUR "arrogant, unethical, and illegal". Those children easily could've been shot and killed. This occurred in 2014, but Ballard still insists that his "rescues" be filmed, and he even pitched it as a reality TV show. His reasoning for this, he says, is to "spread awareness", but we all know it's because he loves the spotlight.

Entire law enforcement agencies have actually cut ties with or even condemned OUR, such as Washington State Law Enforcement, as a result of Ballard's proclivity to conflate child sex trafficking with consensual adult sex work. Ballard and OUR regularly set up sting operations and lambasted the men who showed up for kink play, publicly branding them as pedophiles, even though the men in question were under the impression that they were meeting for sex with consenting, adult women. This led to several lawsuits against OUR, all of which they rightfully lost.

Ballard's means of gathering intelligence is also questionable, as he, by his own admission, sometimes consults psychic mediums for information on missing children and asks where they're being held captive. I genuinely wish I was joking about that.

The main actor in Sound of Freedom, Jim Caviezel, also has ties to the Qanon movement, and Caviezel himself is a hardcore conspiracy theorist. He believes that Donald Trump is "the new Moses" and that "liberals [literally] drink the blood of children". This is ironic, considering Caviezel and Ballard both met Trump several times, yet never pressed him for information regarding Epstein's client list. Moreover, Caviezel and Ballard both donate to the Catholic Church, which funds the largest child sex trafficking ring on the southern border and has a history of rampant sexual abuse of children. Even more insane, Caviezel admitted to watching child porn, to apparently "get in character" for the movie. He claimed that if Ballard had to watch it, it only "made sense" that he'd have to watch it, too. To "motivate" him to fight child trafficking.

...Alright, bud.

Surprise, surprise, both men are also outspokenly anti-LGBTQ+, despite the fact that children/teens in that community are statistically more likely to be trafficked. The majority of child trafficking is not the result of random kidnappings, as the movie would have you believe. The majority of children are actually recruited into sexual exploitation by a family member or friend/boss. The majority of those children are also not generally passed around in Mexico, like this racist, white savior-oriented movie would have you believe, but they actually either stay in or end up in America. America is, in fact, the largest consumer of child porn and child sex slaves this side of the globe (and nearly the largest producer), yet the movie depicts almost every pedophile as Mexican or some other non-white race.

At the end of the movie, Ballard comes on screen and asks people to donate/buy tickets for others, so that the movie can spread awareness. This is why so many seats in certain theatres are empty, despite websites saying the seats are sold out. Whether or not Angel Studios is also shadow purchasing tickets to boost sales can't be proven, obviously, but I wouldn't put it past them. These "conspiracies" have all served to market the movie and boost ticket sales.

As for Disney trying to keep the movie shelved, that's also a lie. Yes, Disney did technically shelve the movie when they bought Fox, since it didn't exactly correspond with its family-friendly brand, but they had no problem with the movie being released under a different studio. The actual reason Sound of Freedom was in "production hell" for five years was because Tim Ballard kept trying to milk donations. Despite the fact that filming wrapped up in 2018, he kept asking for more and more and more. He used people's faith and understandably emotional response to something as wicked as pedophilia to rake in millions. That's what Ballard is really about, money and stardom. In the movie, there's even a post-credit message where Jim Caviezel says the movie was held back to "maximize its distribution and raise awareness about child sex trafficking".

Translation: Ballard greedy.

Ballard himself admitted the accuracy of this movie "isn't important", and that he just wanted to get the movie out to "spread the word". By that, he of course means the Christian word—but why should fighting child sex trafficking be tied to religion? At the end of the day, Sound of Freedom is a vanity project, and it spreads incredibly dangerous misinformation. Stranger still, Ballard left the OUR just prior to the debut of Sound of Freedom, a fact he's neglected to mention in every interview regarding the movie. It's not clear why he left, but it seems that he fled after an internal investigation into the organisation began. That's not too suspicious or anything. My guess is authorities are trying to find out were all that missing money went, and Ballard doesn't want to be there when they figure it out.

By the way, that final line you hit me with; "God's children are not for sale", the line from the movie that Ballard claims a fellow agent whispered to him while on a case, as well as the title of the movie, which another agent supposedly said to Ballard after a giant rescue operation—those were lies, too. No agents ever said that to him. The police reports for those cases, as well as the agents Ballard supposedly quoted, all said he was the last to arrive on the scene and those conversations never happened.

Ballard cannot be trusted and Sound of Freedom is based on a lie. It's a scam. Everything he does is a scam. All he cares about is spreading his ideology, making money, and looking like a superhero. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Look into his other companies, and into the ex-military soldiers and police officers who left OUR because of how poorly trained their people are when it comes to rescue operations.

Every sane person knows pedophilia and human trafficking is wrong, but giving your money to Qanon-adjacent, right-wing leaning, LGBTQ+-hating, Catholic Church-sympathising, fame-chasing, money-hungry, perpetual liar Tim Ballard isn't going to help.

The best way to help out is learning about the signs of child trafficking. Keep an eye out for any children that might be getting abused. If you suspect something, report it, don't be a silent bystander. Volunteer within your community to make sure the children in your area have food and resources, support LGBTQ+ youth, and watch the other adults around you to ensure they're not acting inappropriately. You can also donate to social programs that create safe spaces for children and even apply for jobs that specialise in these fields. Don't go to see a movie just because it aligns with your religious beliefs, feel sad for a little while, then sit on your ass and let Tim Ballard handle everything.

#sound of freedom #tim ballard #jim caviezel #christianity #child trafficking #propaganda #angel studios #I can't believe you made me defend Disney

[pleasant-plant-x]

nintendo doesnt want you to see this

#pokemon black and white #196 #r196 #ruleposting #r/196 #leftist hypocrisy #the sound of freedom #tim ballard #pokemon #border security #liberal hypocrisy #homestuck #nintendo

[vinnfeyntheinsane]

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM FAM WE GOT A PROBLEM

#oh my god i hope the guy recording this is okay #i haven't watched it yet because i'm scared but i might later #exmo #exmormon #this is the final straw of my conference weekend #i am going to go to bed and not move for years #tim ballard #apostake #mormonism

[bootyduke]

why the movie "the sound of freedom," is bullshit we need to keep an eye on

i need yall to know that the sound of freedom movie is being called qanon shit because it perpetuates qanon lite and holds up the pipeline to average people. it's only in theaters now rather than years ago when it was produced, because qanon has created a fervent audience for it. the fervent audience is now a counter to the fact that the studios involved in its production were swayed from releasing it by experts in child trafficking who informed them of the misinformation it would spread. this movie not only sensationalizes child trafficking, it also simplifies what leads to child trafficking in a way that creates a false perception of how it happens at all, especially by depicting children exclusively being kidnapped by strangers rather than the more common situations where kids trust their abusers and come to depend on those who exploit them in exchange for housing, food, and drugs that traffickers often force their victims into dependency. it even fails to acknowledge the fact that most (67%) child trafficking victims are between 15 and 17, most often queer kids kicked out of their homes by parents, with a majority of young child victims being sold into slavery to pay off debts or in exchange for drugs by their own parents. sound of freedom turns perpetuators of child trafficking into anonymous villains and implies complicity in government, especially liberal government figures, rather than focusing on the parents who kick out their kids or neighbors who groom those parents and take in their troubled teens and send them somewhere no one cares enough about to investigate until they're completely missing. "raising awareness" of child trafficking is a noble goal, but relying on the terrifying shock of toddlers being assaulted rather than dissecting the systemic ways children are coerced and exploited muddies the waters and makes us directionless and afraid, with mysterious figures implied to be the real source of the problem (hint: when a movie has vague, powerful monsters instead of the real villain being the deeply entangled web of multi-system failures, there's a 50/50 shot the audience will stumble into "its the jews fault," while attempting research outside the conventional sources films like these say are controlled by "the media, re: the jews again." that's the whole point of the vagueness and instilling mistrust in reputable news outlets and academia.)

furthermore, the film is based on and vindicates tim ballard, a guy who quit his effective but not-so-action-packed work against child pornography with the cia, to go to south america and document himself "saving" people from human sex trafficking in colombia and haiti. ask anyone who works in trafficking prevention and they'll have some THINGS to say about this guy, they fucking HATE tim ballard! "but why?" you may ask. the answer is that he thinks things stop existing when not in direct line of sight. mr. ballard failed to think about how the extenuating circumstances surrounding these survivors, such as debt, drugs, poverty, and housing. as such, almost everyone tim "rescued," from trafficking wound up right back where they were within a handful of years. tim is also a proponent of the qanon conspiracy theory and fully believes that children are being molested and drained of blood by a secret kabal of wealthy elites to harvest their adrenochrome. this conspiracy theory has deep roots in one of the longest-standing antisemitic conspiracy theories on earth about jewish people stealing away christian/white children to drink their blood or use it for dark magic, aka blood libel.

this movie is designed to make its viewer fall down the rabbit hole of disinformation and qanon. its star, jim cavizeel (aka jesus from passion of the christ) has completely fallen down that rabbit hole since filming the damn thing, and cites the sound of freedom as the lynchpin in his journey there.

the sound of freedom is not worth your time, but it is worth your time to learn why this movie is sensationalized propaganda so that you can refute it.

#sound of freedom #tim ballard #seriously pls look into ballard he is a NIGHTMARE

[airasilver]

@forknightshonor @uncle-mojave @hatesaltrat @beardedmrbean

I have a question. You all can ignore it if you like but I was wondering what you thought of what is going on with Tim Ballard now.

The fact that he is actually doing everything he is supposedly against. I don’t know if it’s true or if people are making it up but I was wondering what you all think about it.

#tim ballard #operation underground railroad

[queerism1969]

#sound of freedom #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbtq #queer #lgbt pride #nonbinary #sapphic #nonbinary lesbian #human trafficking #child trafficking #tim ballard #operation underground railroad #the sound of freedom #gay girls #lesbian #right wing terrorism #right wing politics #right wing bullshit #conservatives #right wing extremism #gop #conservatism #right wing women #far right #politics #gop patriots #gop house #michigan gop #fuck the gop

[internetcatholicism]

Some statistics

Child Sex Trafficking has been reported in all 50 states

The most human trafficking cases have been reported in California, Texas and Florida.  Las Vegas is also a hot spot.

There are more than 365,000 missing children in the US each year. 30% of those missing are being trafficked (approximately 109,000 children).

The average age of a trafficked child is 15 years old.

You can be a part of the movement to put an end to child trafficking by donating to the cause. Every donation, no matter how small makes a difference!

#human trafficking #child trafficking #sound of freedom #Tim Ballard #fundraiser #donations #non profit #operation underground railroad

[aressida]

watch this.

#the sound of freedom #jim caviezel #jordan peterson #tim ballard

[heathersdesk]

Guys. You guys. He had a PSYCHIC.

And not just any psychic.

A psychic who was receiving messages from

*and I kid you not*

the prophet Nephi. Like, from The Book of Mormon. THAT Nephi.

That's how Tim Ballard was trying to find trafficked kids. Taking directions from a woman who thinks she can talk to a dead prophet. All in hopes that it would convince people to join the Church.

And his delusions have gotten so bad, the Church made a statement that as good as calls Tim Ballard a liar for using Elder Ballard's name to advance himself and give the crazy things he was saying some kind of credibility.

I tell you all that to say this:

Just because something is published or sold at Deseret Book doesn't make it true.

Just because someone says they are close to church leadership doesn't mean they're trustworthy.

Just because they tell you they're helping children doesn't mean that's what they're actually achieving. Wanting to help is not the same thing as knowing how, and doing it in such a way that doesn't put even more people in danger.

Just because someone is a member of the Church doesn't mean they're automatically a good person. It doesn't mean you can trust them with your money, your name, or anything else you care about.

If something sounds too good to be true, like some schmoe who is a literal nobody rescuing kids from human trafficking, it probably is!

Tim Ballard is a grifter. The fact that there are large swaths of the Church who won't recognize him as a grifter, even now that the Church has rejected the narrative he's spinning, is astounding.

So yeah. The Sound of Freedom is fictional. Tim Ballard is a con artist. Everything he says and does is to advance his own ambitions and to make him money. And if he does end up running for office in Utah and y'all vote for him, you can't say you weren't warned.

#mormon #lds #mormonism #the church of jesus christ of latter day saints #religion #faith #tim ballard #sound of freedom

[hybridmindthoughtsreloaded]

There's a reason "The Sound of Freedom" movie exist. It is there to install fear in you. They already have the solution available for the reaction you're having because of the problem being projected to you on movie screens across America.

Give the Freemasons all your child's information, including their DNA- under the guise of "safety".

Georgia Child Identification Program

A Gift From the Freemasons of Georgia.

Georgia Masons provide the GACHIP program FREE of charge as a public service and as our gift to the citizens of our state.

The Georgia Child Identification Program (GACHIP) is a comprehensive identification kit to be offered to parents in the state of Georgia.

At a GACHIP event, Freemasons set up the equipment necessary to generate completed identification kits.

Each person progresses through several stations, taking about 10 to 15 minutes for the entire process. The recorded information is presented to the child's parent or guardian to take home for safe keeping.

There is no age limit.

#the sound of freedom #tim ballard #freemasons

[porterdavis]

Tim Ballard, the founder and former head of the anti-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad whose heavily fictionalized exploits were the subject of this summer’s surprise box-office hit Sound of Freedom, has been sued ...by five women accusing him of sexual misconduct. 

Well knock me over with a feather.

#tim ballard #our #sound of freedom

[ophilosoraptoro]

BOMBSHELL! Mel Gibson about to EXPOSE all of them

#human trafficking #child trafficking #tim ballard #mel gibson #hollywood #sound of freedom #jeffrey epstein #ukraine #mexico #CIA #cover up #propaganda #Youtube

[ohifonlyx33]

Idk but the fact that they apparently sent like 30 navy seals down to Colombia to be security on set while they filmed The Sound of Freedom, and that while they were there they just happened to bust a kid-smuggling ring and save something like 200 kids... no see that's actually wild to me.

Because while everyone is talking about box office numbers and mainstream is calling it a conspiracy theory, the fact that they just casually dropped this tidbit in the middle of an episode of TimcastIRL like it was nothing is actually insane.

Like, maybe lead with that next time.

#the sound of freedom #tim ballard #tim pool #timcast irl

[terriwriting]

Reminder that Qanon, like Pizzagate before it, and all related "protect the children" campaigns, are nothing but distractions from the sex crimes of Evangelical Christianity and the far-right.

Provided with a detailed description of what was in the investigative files, he did not deny that the videos showed him doing what the investigator's description said they did, or dispute that he had felt the trafficking victim's naked breasts. He did dispute that she was a minor, asserting that he had a sworn affidavit from Mexican federal police saying that she was over 18. He did not respond to multiple requests, sent over a period of weeks, to provide a copy of this document.

#sound of freedom #tim ballard #paul hutchinson #qanon #fabian marta #operation underground railroad

[parttimereporter]

Tim Ballard’s exit from Operation Underground Railroad earlier this year followed an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct involving seven women, according to sources with direct knowledge of the organization.

Sources familiar with the situation said that the self-styled anti-slavery activist, who appears to be preparing for a Senate run, invited women to act as his “wife” on undercover overseas missions ostensibly aimed at rescuing victims of sex trafficking. He would then allegedly coerce those women into sharing a bed or showering together, claiming that it was necessary to fool traffickers. Ballard, who was played by Jim Caviezel in the hit film Sound of Freedom, is said to have sent at least one woman a photo of himself in his underwear, festooned with fake tattoos, and to have asked another “how far she was willing to go,” in the words of a source, to save children. These sources requested anonymity because they fear retaliation.

#tim ballard #operation underground railroad #scandal