I agree with an earlier post that observes that law enforcement officials are understaffed and too busy to interfere with the lives of law abiding citizens. They are, however, human and not necessarily above the average of all of us in their perceptions, interpretations and responses. Probably all involved in Waco and Ruby Ridge had the best of intentions, but bad information, good information incorrectly interpreted and the impulse to action which ultimately buried common sense. Even if we ascribe to our law enforcement people the best of motives, it is perhaps that they are so busy that they often step wrong, and the results can be disastrous for innocent people.
Recently, on a piece of property of which I am partial owner, there was a massive raid of a farm building that houses tractors, a lot of machine and woodworking tools, etc. A combined force of County Police, DEA and ATF, armed with automatic weapons tripped all over each other looking for a shipment of cocaine that they claim an anonymous informant told them about. They had been visually and electronically surveilling the place for several weeks. They had seen nighttime activity - my brothers and I and friends, most of whom have day jobs, work there often at night, woodworking, welding, fixing old farm machinery; they had heard mention that a Spanish translator might be needed - one has several Mexican employees on a landscape crew; they had heard mention of underground vaults [clearly for storage of drugs and money] - they found ten new vaults containing the valves for a mile of new pipe and six automatic horse waterers just installed; they observed several men with hair tied in pony tails; they checked and found what they presented to the court as a narcotics history on one of the people observed - a 1987 probation for a pipe with marijuana residue. They had the address of the property wrong, they never checked to see who owned it, and never questioned anyone in the area, such as the state trooper neighbor.
Based on this, they descended with probably thirty heavily armed people, whose most significant accomplishment that night was to handcuff and terrorize a mildly retarded 15 year old girl who was watching television in her nearby home. They tried to get a guy who happened to be there to "confess" by holding up a box from the refrigerator and claiming they had found cocaine - it was ice cream. They did find a marijuana joint and a legal handgun in a motor home that had been brought there to have some repairs done. Their owner was given a ticket, not an arrest. No cocaine was found - one clown is probably still tasting the borax from the welding cart that he actually stuck in his mouth to test.
The next morning, we read in the paper about nationwide simultaneous raids on drug importers in a lot of different states. Ours was part of a DEA/ATF publicity stunt. No one was badly hurt, although a couple of people were roughed up. Fortunately, none of the eager law enforcers shot each other, although a lot were running around in the dark looking for nonexistent bad guys. There will be no trials, since nothing significant was found. If any trials were needed, however, they would not have been secret, and Constitutional protections would have permitted those involved to point out that if the anonymous informant ever existed, he was in error.
Our place is a farm, now surrounded by subdivisions. Those of you in similar locations, particularly if you have a shop where you and friends gather to play with manly toys, will find yourselves the target of some suspicion among your more urbanized neighbors. Before 9/11 the suspicion was drugs - now presumably it will be terrorism, as well.
The point of all this is that those who enforce our laws, however well intentioned, can be badly wrong, and disastrously so. Some, unfortunately are venal, some are political. The founding fathers were far more concerned about protection from the government than protection by the government. They were right. Law enforcement at all levels and for all citizens and visitors needs oversight by the courts; enforcers always need to be concerned about the Constitution, and about their potential public accountability for their actions. We need no change in our laws to find ones which make terrorism illegal. What we are doing in Afghanistan already shows what can be accomplished without a change in the laws protecting our individual freedoms.
I agree with most of what the government has done so far as a result to 9/11. The government needs no more powers to continue that effort. Certainly, the batch that raided our barn need no more power to act without court authority or good sense.
Charlie Iliff
