F.E.A.R. Chronicles newsletter
volume 3 number 2 (March 1996)

On Saturday, June 4, over 300 demonstrators participated in a tractorcade-demonstration, and property rights rally, in Bakersfield, California, an "All-American" city in the southern end of California's San Joaquin Valley. Five yellow bi-plane crop dusters, followed by three black and white helicopter dusters, flew over the parade of tractors, farm equipment and horses. City, county, state and federal representatives filled the hour long rally with five minute speeches. Each called upon the federal government to restore private property rights in America.

The protesters and politicians were outraged into action by a forfeiture initiated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife enforcement officials. On a Sunday morning last February a squadron of more than two dozen state and federal agents and several helicopters raided a Bakersfield area farm. They seized a $50,000 tractor and disc that farmer Taung Ming-Lin, an immigrant from Taiwan, recently purchased. The United States filed suit for civil forfeiture, alleging the farm implements criminally ran over a species of rat that may appear on the endangered species list.

Mr. Lin (who speaks no English) purchased 720 acres of desert land, planning to grow oriental vegetables. He laid out his farm and checked with county officials, who informed him the land is zoned for agriculture. Go ahead and farm they told him. As nationally syndicated commentator, Tony Snow observed in the Washington Times:

Little did they know that federal agents had their eyes on Mr. Lin, who had no idea that his property was listed as natural habitat for the Tipton kangaroo rat, a member of the endangered species club. The feds keep such information secret and inform property owners of their legal liability only when they try to do something potentially criminal, like plowing a field.

Five weeks later, the government told a court that Mr. Lin "did knowingly take and aid and abet the taking of an endangered species of wildlife, to wit, Tipton kangaroo rats." Last week, they threw in counts of harming San Joaquin kit foxes and blunt-nosed leopard lizards.

The interesting thing is that the feds still do not know whether the animals they seized in February were Tipton kangaroo rats, which are virtually identical to some nonendangered rodents. The only thing that distinguishes them from the Herman's kangaroo rat, for instance, is that their rear feet are one-hundredth of an inch longerÄand they can be used as an excuse to seize private property.

Event participants eagerly received the 250 F.E.A.R. brochures I distributed. Most had never before considered the constitutional violations authorized by drug related forfeiture laws. (Nor, for that matter, had I previously realized that the "teeth" built into laws designed to protect the environment include the same type of forfeiture laws spawned by the drug war precedents.) All were very interested to learn there is federal reform legislation that would require a criminal conviction before any property may be forfeited. They especially appreciated the provision in HR 3347 that would eliminate the financial incentives that distort and corrupt law enforcement priorities.

Regardless of one's political views regarding government's role in preventing drug abuse, protecting the environment or any other problem addressed by lawmakers, we can all agree that laws that defy the guarantees enumerated in the Bill of Rights must be changedÄno matter how noble the original reason for their enactment. And we absolutely must end the "Sheriff of Nottingham Syndrome," caused by enforcement agencies' financial reliance on seizures. Agency strategies that produce revenue often conflict with those that would accomplish the intended goals of the laws they enforce be it drug interdiction (see page 8) or preserving the environment. After all, the rats whose body parts were gathered by dozens of federal agents would have been better served if one or two of those Wildlife officials had made Mr. Lin aware of the rodents' presence and protected status before he tilled his land.