|
Junkie
|
well, since there seems to be some confusion as to whether or not copying and pasting the whole article is necessary, or pasting some parts while providing a link to the rest is evident, I will paste the entire article AND the link.
http://www.thebulletin.com/archives/...dsnotosama.htm
Quote:
Orchids... not Osama
The U.S. Government protects us from our greatest national security threat:
a guy selling flowers
Mark Williams
George Norris may never answer the door again.
Last time he did that was on October 28, when six (count 'emsix) United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agents showed up on his doorstep, all covered in bulletproof Kevlar. Evidently, the U.S. Government decided to dress up as Big Brother this Halloween.
If only they had been looking for candy.
Instead, the agents entered the Spring-area home of the 65-year-old Norris and his wife, Kathy--tearing through virtually every room in the house. "They showed me a search warrant and sat me in a chair and told me not to get up. That amounts to house arrest."
During the four-hour "plant raid", some of the FWS agents went into the street in front of Norris' house and stopped neighbors, demanding to see identification and asking about suspicious activity around the Norris house. "People came by the house later asking 'What the heck was that all about?!'"
When the FWS agents left, they had packed up and taken all of Norris' records for the past 25 years, along with his computer.
So what did George Norris do? Did he plan a terroristic act that he intended to perpetrate on American soil? Did he smuggle in dangerous drugs that he planned to sell to school kids?
No.
Although he has been neither arrested nor charged in any crime, George Norris stands accused by the federal government of illegally smuggling orchids into the United States. Yes, orchids. Are these orchids that could be used to make a bomb? Can these orchids be sold as a controlled substance?
No.
The fact of the matter is that George Norris didn't do anything illegal. "I've been importing these particular plants for years," says Norris, a resident of Timber Creek, just south of The Woodlands. "The importation is sanctioned by the government of Peru, and it's all perfectly legal. These are plants that have been grown in the same greenhouse for years."
Norris is accused by the FWS of violation of the Lacey Act: the nation's first far-reaching federal wildlife protection law. Under the Lacey Act, it is illegal to import, export, sell, acquire, or purchase fish, wildlife or plants taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of U.S. or Indian law; or in interstate or foreign commerce involving any fish, wildlife, or plants taken possessed or sold in violation of state or foreign law.
"The Lacey Act was amended to cover plants in 1981," says Norris. "Up until this time, (the FWS) had very little to do with plants and still don't for the most part. The agents who were in the raid went through the greenhouse out back and tore everything up, but they couldn't identify a single plant out there. They didn't know what the plant they were looking for even looked like."
The Lacey Act sets fines for violations involving imports or exports, or commercial violations in which the value of the wildlife exceeds $350. Fines for misdemeanor violations are currently set at a maximum of $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for organizations; maximum fines for felonies are presently $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for organizations.
According to the FWS website, "(o)fficers enforcing the Lacey Act may carry firearms; make arrests; search and seize; issue subpoenas and warrants; and inspect vessels, vehicles, aircraft, packages, crates, and containers on arrival or departure from the United States. The law authorizes rewards for information leading to arrests, criminal convictions, civil penalties, or forfeiture of property, and for payment of costs of temporary care for fish, wildlife, or plants needed for court proceedings."
On October 28, the FWS agents involved in this oh-so deadly dangerous raid did just that, led by FWS agent Jeff Odom, who did not return calls from The Bulletin on this matter. "I think (the Lacey Act) is a decent law, but it can be interpreted too broadly, and it can be abused." Norris says that he had documents proving that the orchids were imported legally, "but they wouldn't listen. They didn't want to listen. They had a plan and went through with it. They don't even understand their own regulations."
And quite a plan it was.
Of the six agents involved in this one-of-a-kind raid, four stormed up the driveway and through the front door while the other two covered the back of the house. "They were ready to shoot us if we slipped out the back," says Norris of the armed agents. Evidently, the agents were ready to use deadly force in the pursuit of this very dangerous criminal. "They had the route mapped out to Woodlands Memorial Hospital--just in case they had to take my body there."
But the FWS might have had a long wait to serve the warrant had they waited on the Spring Police Department--a law enforcement agency that doesn't even exist. "They told me they were thinking of calling the Spring police to help them if I gave them any trouble. They didn't seem to know that Spring is a postal district. There's a lot they didn't seem to know..."
For the past quarter century, Norris has complemented his Social Security income by running a small business, Spring Orchid Specialties, from his home. Norris has a number of ailments--arthritis, diabetes, heart problems--and is unable to work. "I don't make a whole lot of money off this...maybe about $10,000 a year. I drive an 11-year-old Surburban and I've lived in the same house for 35 years."
Norris says that the FWS got the search warrant from a local magistrate on the flimsiest of evidence, using partial e-mails--private communiqués from Norris' computer--that were tracked with Carnivore, a "diagnostic tool" used by the federal government to tag questionable material sent through the internet, ostensibly to prevent the onslaught of terrorism inside the United States. "Any time words like 'bombs' or 'guns' or something like that is used in an e-mail, it gets kicked over to the system," says Norris.
Okay, sure: guns, bombs...but orchids?!
"The search warrant they showed me was illegal," Norris says, "and it was obtained by taking things out of context."
Norris says the search warrant was obtained because of an e-mail sent to him over two years ago. "A man wrote me from Ecuador offering to smuggle in some orchid using his mother. That's what (the FWS) used to get their warrant. What they didn't use was my response to the man, which was not just no, but hell no. I told him it was illegal and that his mother would probably end up in jail for the rest of her life."
"I think my warrant got mixed in with other warrants when they when to the judge," says Norris. "I think they put me in with drug dealers and counterfeiters to get the warrant."
As things now stand, Norris cannot defend himself against the charges, because the FWS, in raiding every closet and drawer in sight, took all of Norris' business records--including the documentation for the orchids in question. "I can't even hire a lawyer now, because I don't have any proof of my innocence, but (the FWS) can't prove anything with what they got."
Norris estimates that the FWS is spending about $100,000 on this investigation so far and are nowhere near through with Norris; his business records have been taken to Albuquerque, New Mexico--despite the fact that no FWS agents have even looked at them yet. "They're not even investigating this thing locally," Norris says, "and those records could just sit there for months. Norris says that his computer, which was confiscated by the FWS, is currently at a government forensics lab in Phoenix, Arizona. "They're seeing what they can pull off the hard drive, see what they can find," he says.
Unfortunately, Norris has gone through all this before with the FWS--although their methods were not quite the "gestapo tactics" that Norris says were used on him on October 28. It was only five years ago that the FWS raided Spring Orchid Specialties for the first time--without a search warrant, but with Norris' full cooperation. They found nothing to incriminate Norris in any kind of criminal act.
Given its absurd nature, it is easy to make light of this situation--but the cold hard truth is that the joke is on all of us.
The tragedy of 9-11 has clearly given government agencies the power to use and abuse the citizenry of the United States. To not cooperate with the ridiculous demands of these agencies is practically considered to be treason, in light of our current national climate.
George Norris is not in jail or even charged with a crime, but his business has been shut down by a governmental agency that has more power than anyone can even fathom. "The Fish and Wildlife Service is more powerful than the F.B.I. or the C.I.A.," says Norris.
The FWS can walk into anyone's home at any time and tear it apart without even having to say what it is they are looking for; they spend taxpayer money on wild goose chases like this one, ripping apart lives for the sake of a few orchids that are legally in this country in the first place.
Power is being abused in the name of homeland security in the land of the free and the home of the brave. "If it can happen to me," says Norris, "it can happen to anyone.”
|
__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."
|