Blogger Files Grievance with Texas Bar Against Ergun Caner's Lawyer Over Marine Training Video Takedown

As reported yesterday on Jason Smathers' blog "Witness Unto Me", Ergun Caner and his lawyer David C. Gibbs III have attempted to take down videos posted by Smathers documenting Caner's deceitful training sessions of U.S. Marines in 2005. Smathers is fighting back, legally contesting the takedown, and filing a grievance with the Texas bar against Caner's attorney, claiming the takedown request is an abuse of copyright law, given the very videos they are attempting to take down are property of the U.S. Government.

Please visit Jason's blog here to read about this take-down request, and to view the actual letter sent by David C. Gibbs III to Jason's video hosting company Viddler. Jason Smathers is one of the blogging heroes in this Caner story - he did an incredible amount of research to document for all of modern evangelicalism the depths of the Caner controversy, and Christians everywhere should be grateful to Jason for his work.

Here is some background and analysis and additional information regarding Caner's recent attempts to scrub the Internet of videos documenting his decade of deceit:

Above is a picture of Ergun Caner conducting one of the two training sessions of our Marine officers in New River, North Carolina, on April 15, 2005. This still shot is from the videos of this event that blogger Jason Smathers obtained from the United States government back in 2010 using a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Hands down, the videos of the two Ergun Caner presentations made to our Marines on 4/15/05 are the most egregious deceptions that Caner committed. As I said back in 2010:

"It is one thing to listen to Caner spin his yarns of his days growing up in Turkey when he is front of the guffaw'ing Ohio Free Will Baptist men who are absolutely eating out of his hand. What's the harm: they hear some good stories, hear some great ethnic jokes, get some laughs, and return home to their churches in Ohio.

But to watch a Colonel stand in front of his soldiers and tell them they are about to hear from a Turkish-born Muslim, who came to the states at age 14 through New York, describing him as someone who has seen the "Islamic culture from both sides" just makes my blood boil. These are people who weren't there for a laugh, they weren't gullible Christians on a retreat hoping to be entertained; they were there to try to learn from an expert the culture of the country where they all will have a big target on their chest."

Well, this story just won't die. As I said in my opening paragraph, as Smathers wrote about yesterday on his blog, Ergun Caner has hired the Gibbs Law Firm to help him take down Internet videos - including the two Marine training videos obtained under FOIA by Smathers - that document Caner's "decade of deceit".Caner is also attempting to take-down the videos by blogger "Moses Model", as he wrote here.

As I documented back in the summer of 2010, Caner's decade of deceit started in 2001 right after 9/11, when he was invited by Jerry Vines to speak at FBC Jacksonville. Right in front of my eyes, at my church, with my pastor nodding approvingly, it was then that Caner transformed himself from the little-known "E. Butch Caner" into "Ergun Mehmet Giovanni Caner". His claims to be raised in Turkey, of his training in Islamic Jihad to "do that which was done on 11 September" were all made up. He took advantage of the most horrific terrorist attack on our soil to launch himself to stardom in front of scared, gullible Christians after 9/11. He also gave a similar talk to Prestonwood Baptist Church in late 2001 as I documented here, which was rebroadcast as recently as 2010!

But Smathers is fighting back, thank God. He won't let Caner bully him into letting those videos be taken down permanently.

I predict this is only the beginning of Ergun Caner's offensive, and that it will backfire on him.

I will do my best to stay on top of this story.

Meanwhile, thank you Jason Smathers for fighting the good fight, standing up to Ergun Caner and defending your right to post those videos.