Power Corrupts…

Posted on October 7, 2009
Filed Under Bureaucracy, Fish and Wildlife Service, Freedom, Kathy and Gearge Norris, Louie Gohmert, Orchids, Richard Thornburg, Robert C. Scott, SWAT team, US Representative Louie Gohmert, US Representative Robert C. Scott, USSR, abusing power, bureaucrats, free society, freedom of opportunity, government, government agencies, governmental abuse | 2 Comments

We all know the old dictum power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The following appeared in The Washington Times:

Criminalizing everyone

Needed: A ‘clean line’ to determine lawfulness
By Brian W. Walsh

“You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.

No, this didn’t happen in a Kafkaesque novel like The Trial. No it didn’t happen in the old USSR or in any of its satellite countries, or even in a fascist police state. No, gentle reader, it happened right here on our very own shores!

The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.

The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with – get this - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

No folks this did not happen during the filming of a movie set sometime in the future…

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

That’s right. Orchids.

No, they weren’t looking for some some dangerous drugs, nor for some terrorist usable substance like anthrax or the like… Their problem was… ORCHIDS!!!

By March 2004, federal prosecutors were well on their way to turning 66-year-old retiree George Norris into an inmate in a federal penitentiary – based on his home-based business of cultivating, importing and selling orchids.

Mrs. Norris testified before the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime this summer. The hearing’s topic: the rapid and dangerous expansion of federal criminal law, an expansion that is often unprincipled and highly partisan.

Chairman Robert C. Scott, Virginia Democrat, and ranking member Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, conducted a truly bipartisan hearing (a D.C. rarity this year).

These two leaders have begun giving voice to the increasing number of experts who worry about “overcriminalization.” Astronomical numbers of federal criminal laws lack specifics, can apply to almost anyone and fail to protect innocents by requiring substantial proof that an accused person acted with actual criminal intent.

Mr. Norris ended up spending almost two years in prison because he didn’t have the proper paperwork for some of the many orchids he imported. The orchids were all legal – but Mr. Norris and the overseas shippers who had packaged the flowers had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty’s new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora.

The judge who sentenced Mr. Norris had some advice for him and his wife: “Life sometimes presents us with lemons.” Their job was, yes, to “turn lemons into lemonade.”

The judge apparently failed to appreciate how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you’re an elderly diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease serving time in a federal penitentiary. If only Mr. Norris had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official at least would have weighed in on his behalf to secure a health-based mercy release.

Are our bureaucrats (unelected, don’t forget it!) so entrenched, so arrogant, so forgetful of who pays their salary that by merely invoking some obscure laws they can act with impunity in a caper one would have expected in the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or any of the former banana republics in Latin America?

Krister Evertson, another victim of overcriminalization, told Congress, “What I have experienced in these past years is something that should scare you and all Americans.” He’s right. Evertson, a small-time entrepreneur and inventor, faced two separate federal prosecutions stemming from his work trying to develop clean-energy fuel cells.

The feds prosecuted Mr. Evertson the first time for failing to put a federally mandated sticker on an otherwise lawful UPS package in which he shipped some of his supplies. A jury acquitted him, so the feds brought new charges. This time they claimed he technically had “abandoned” his fuel-cell materials – something he had no intention of doing – while defending himself against the first charges. Mr. Evertson, too, spent almost two years in federal prison.

Yet the ACLU, so self righteously outraged about the rights of murderous terrorists being ignored, did not find Mr. Everson’s, Mr. Norris and tens or hundreds of similar ones worthy of their valuable time? Is it necessary to become a fanatical IslamoFascist, hater of the West, before a “civil liberties” organization takes an interest?!?!?

As George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg testified at the House hearing, cases like these “illustrate about as well as you can illustrate the overreach of federal criminal law.” The Cato Institute’s Timothy Lynch, an expert on overcriminalization, called for “a clean line between lawful conduct and unlawful conduct.” A person should not be deemed a criminal unless that person “crossed over that line knowing what he or she was doing.” Seems like common sense, but apparently it isn’t to some federal officials.

Former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh’s testimony captured the essence of the problems that worry so many criminal-law experts. “Those of us concerned about this subject,” he testified, “share a common goal – to have criminal statutes that punish actual criminal acts and [that] do not seek to criminalize conduct that is better dealt with by the seeking of regulatory and civil remedies.” Only when the conduct is sufficiently wrongful and severe, Mr. Thornburgh said, does it warrant the “stigma, public condemnation and potential deprivation of liberty that go along with [the criminal] sanction.”

The Norrises’ nightmare began with the search in October 2003. It didn’t end until Mr. Norris was released from federal supervision in December 2008. His wife testified, however, that even after he came home, the man she had married was still gone. He was by then 71 years old. Unsurprisingly, serving two years as a federal convict – in addition to the years it took to defend unsuccessfully against the charges – had taken a severe toll on him mentally, emotionally and physically.

These are repressive consequences for an elderly man who made mistakes in a small business. The feds should be ashamed, and Mr. Evertson is right that everyone else should be scared. Far too many federal laws are far too broad.

Mr. Scott and Mr. Gohmert have set the stage for more hearings on why this places far too many Americans at risk of unjust punishment. Members of both parties in Congress should follow their lead.

Brian W. Walsh is senior legal research fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

The feds should be ashamed, and Mr. Evertson is right that everyone else should be scared. Far too many federal laws are far too broad. Where are those who truly care about the citizenry’s civil liberties? Do they exist? Why do existing organizations seem to concern themselves with highly visible cases where they are sure to get lots of publicity? What about the plight of simple American folks who unwittingly violated of some idiotic, arbitrary law designed to create more bureaucracy? Are these people (you, me, our friends, neighbors, relatives) unimportant? Why shouldn’t these cases be anything but an issue that concerns and scares everyone, regardless of where they may fall in the political spectrum?

Literature, Russian literature specifically, has given us countless examples of the folly, the corruption and the power flexing of government bureaucrats. In most third world countries today you can still hear many a harrowing tale of bureaucratic abuse. Hardly any of those stories, however, equal the above quoted ones. Unfortunately we cannot just shake our heads in disbelief and dismiss it all as happening somewhere in a repressive, backward regime. It’s happening right here in America!?!?!

Chaim

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Comments

2 Responses to “Power Corrupts…”

Jersey Jeff from New Jersey, United States on October 7th, 2009 1:42 pm

I have long held the view that only even-numbered Congresses should be allowed to pass legislation. Odd-numbered Congresses should only be allowed to repeal laws — especially idiotic ones like those mentioned above.
Jermaine from New York, United States on October 7th, 2009 6:05 pm

No one of yous should wory because Obama is fixing everythings thats wronge.
Dont you remeber what he said? He said he will making many changes in the time he gets to be a presidential man.
so now he is so the story of this older man going to the prisons for two years is a lie. obama wouldnt let that hapen becuse he makes change.
HAhahahahaha.
ACLU IS A copmmunist site. already they have defend the KKK and other low iq bums. so why should they cover for a nice man? No, they dont help him cause he isnt a famos known person.