Lying Federales: When is it OK to lie, under oath, in court, and be paid for it?

You may lie in court, under oath, when the person testifying is a federal employee, and the person believes by lying, they are in compliance with their responsibilities as per their job description, and/or their department's job plan.

Seems incredible, but this was the ruling of the judge in the early stages of the Dick Manning case. But hold on; it gets worse. Recently, I sat in a hearing wherein New Mexico was arguing that Dick should not be allowed to get them (the state) before a jury and bring the years long, mega-thousands of dollars case to an end. Their reasoning was the case was not "ripe." In ranch country language, this means the state wanted to file a few more appeals; and hopefully, bust Dick financially before they could be judged.

Then the incredible happened. Within three days of saying the case was not "ripe," they moved for dismissal, contending the statute of limitations had expired and Dick didn't have any more rights to get (take) them to court.

I know they are lawyers and I know it is their duty and responsibility to do whatever is necessary to win for their client, in this case the state. However, at some point, the public has a right to expect public employees and lawyers working for the state and federal government to be held to the same standards of truthfulness as the rest of us. However, I don't guess this is to be. When I got home from the Dick Manning hearing, someone had e-mailed me another update on the "lynx situation."

This is another story of how government employees lie, and get paid for it. In this case, they got a bonus for lying.

There are several environmental groups that believe the most proper way to manage federal lands is to declare them off limits to any and all human intrusion. Experience has proven that one of the most effective ways to accomplish this is have the area declared critical habitat for an endangered species. One of the endangered species is the Canadian Lynx. Individual lynx range over large areas, and if evidence could be found that one had merely passed though someplace, a large area could be sealed off from humans. Of course, the person sighting the lynx would be a hero, but that takes time; and besides, it is cold and sometimes wet and miserable out in the forest.

Anyway, some enterprising person got the big idea of "salting" an area with lynx DNA. And what better way to accomplish this than to use the fur from a captive lynx? This would be quick (the animals were already in a pen and didn't have to be found), easy (just pick some hairs from where they sleep), and irrefutable (DNA is the latest science), and very powerful "evidence." Lynx habitat is closed to all vehicular traffic on roads through the area, and any and all off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, skies, snow snowshoes, livestock grazing, tree trimming, hiking, camping, etc. is prohibited.

So Fish and Wildlife service employees, cooperating with Forest Service employees, salted an area with the hairs off a captive lynx. The fur was duly "discovered," and this "evidence" was in the process of being used to kick humans off parts of the Gifford Pinchat and Wenatcher National Forest(s), when a retiring US Forest Service employee turned "whistleblower," and the Washington Times published the story.

This is a case of federal employees from the US Forest Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service not only lying, but doing it to change management decisions regarding the public's use of national forest lands. This is basically the same thing they did in Dick Manning's mining case.

What did the federal agencies do when they were exposed for their employee's lying? They gave them a bonus and ordered they receive "counseling" for "using bad judgment." There were seven biologists from three state and federal agencies involved in this lie.

Why? Why would any agency pay bonuses to hired help to deliberately lie, when they knew the results would change the rules under which those forests would be operated to specifically prohibit the public from using them? There are many who believe that there is a coordinated effort on the part of certain individuals and tax-exempt organizations to systematically exclude human life from specific areas of our nation. They literally want to turn it "back to the 'way it was' when Columbus discovered America." Several years ago, these people published a map showing where animals will live, and where people will be allowed to live. This map even shows the degree of usage they want permitted by both animals and humans for the various areas.

When I first saw the map, I thought some nut had prepared it to discredit an environmental group. No one could be so deranged as to propose actually moving people out of their homes so the country could be turned back to the bears, lion(s), wolves, etc. Now, after twenty years of connecting the dots, I am an avowed believer in the "conspiracy theory", not only for the economic and political subversion of our nation, but for the destruction of human's rights in favor of rights for varmints.

Any nation whose leaders will pay its hired help to lie in order to destroy a person's right to earn a living, as in the case of Dick Manning; and now, actually give cash bonuses to those who lie, need to be fired before they have passed the point of no return in their headlong rush to destroy our Constitution and rights of all Americans.

It is imperative that the state of New Mexico stands trial for its treatment of Dick Manning. If Dick wins, we all win.

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Luther Broaddus, publisher of LUTHER'S COMMENTS, a nationally circulated column for local weekly newspapers, lives in the high mountains, southwest of Magdalena, NM.

Associated Press writier, Martha Mendoza, won a Pulitzer Prize for her work reqarding the contoversial incident(s) at No Gun Ri, South Korea during the Korean War; see What Really Happened At NO Gun Ri?, Salon.com, June 3, 2002, by Judith Greer (posted by Copernicus).

Environmental Crime Busters
By Martha Mendoza [of the Associated Press]
The Press Democrat
Sunday, January 13, 2002
San Francisco --- After years of ignoring people caught damaging the environment in Northern California, federal prosecutors are cracking down on tree poachers, salmon snatchers, illegal trail cutters, oil dumpers and other polluters.
The U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco, responsible for enforcing federal law from the once-pristine redwood forests at the Oregon border to the protected waters of Monterey Bay, has gone from being the worst in the country for prosecuting environmental crimes to one of the best.
"There were some people who assumed that paying fines was part of the cost of doing business," said Mike Gonzales, special agent in charge of the National Marine Fisheries Service law enforcement office in Long Beach. "But those same people don't want to go to jail." The region is renowned for its ancient redwoods, glacier-carved lakes, fern- lined trails, granite mountains and rugged coastline. Those resources coexist with logging, fishing, recreation and shipping industries.
At times the two clash, but for more than a decade, there was minimal federal action taken against violators. That changed three years ago.
Since 1998, the office has steadily increased its environmental criminal caseload, filling more than three dozen last year, according to records obtained by Syracuse University's
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
From 1986 through 1997, only four cases were filed.
"The prosecution of environmental criminal cases has been a priority for this office since 1998 and will continue as long as I am the U.S. attorney, said U.S. Attorney David Shapiro in San Francisco.
New Commitment
The result, say federal pollution police, is a cleaner, safer environment.
Cases brought by the Coast Guard against shipping companies last year are a case in point. One company was caught illegally transporting hazardous materials, another convicted of operating its ship with oil leaking into the ballast tanks, causing a serious risk of explosion, and a third firm pleaded guilty to six felonies and paid $3 million in fines after it was caught leaking oil and lying about it.
The new commitment also has resulted in tough punishments for some Northern California residents.
Fishermen and hunters have been sent to federal prison for trying to fool authorities about their catch. Manufacturers have been forced to restore wetlands after trying to build over them.
And in September, Robert Bonner of Livermore was sentenced to three years' probation and a $100,000 fine for allowing his metal- finishing company to violate the Clean Water
Act by discharging contaminated wastewater into the sewer. By November, the company had filed for bankruptcy.
Bikers Busted
In August, three mountain bikers&emdash;Michael More, 47, of San Rafael, William McBride, 50, of Ross, and Neal Daskal, 46, of Oakland&emdash;were sentenced to three years' probation, a $34,000 fine and hundreds of hours of community service for cutting an illegal trail through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin County. "I thought the charges were extremely trumped- up," said Marty Beckins, board member of the Marin Bicycle Trails Council. "Nobody has ever been tried for this before, and they were facing federal felony charges. I think the prosecutors must have been pressured by zealots."
Mueller Priority
The impetus to change in Northern California came in 1998, when Robert Mueller, who now heads the FBI, replaced the then-U.S. Attorney Michael Yamaguchi. At the time, the Associated Press published a story describing the lack of environmental prosecutions in Northern California. Mueller didn't dispute the data, but promised to improve.
Mueller told the AP then that one of his top priorities was to begin enforcing federal environmental crime laws. He brought in an environmental prosecutor and hired several other prosecutors with EPA and environmental law experience for his white collar crime team. He also told law enforcement agencies that his office would be more receptive.
Two years later, Mueller had doubled the number of criminal cases filed. The civil division, went from collecting just under $7 million in damages in 1998 to $208 million in 2000, a spokeswoman said.
Shapiro, Mueller's criminal chief before taking his place in September, said he's committed to continuing to take on environmental cases, despite pressures from all directions.
"While I am the U.S. attorney, environmental criminal cases will remain an important priority," he said. "Obviously, the office now has a very significant responsibility to devote resources to terrorism investigations and to continue our active prosecution of violent criminals and firearms violators.
"The white collar part of our portfolio&emdash;including environmental cases&emdash;will also continue unabated."

The unequal application of the law is the issue and directly the responsibility of the President of the United States. He is prosecuting seemingly all but that of his Bush [still running the Clinton] Administration.

So much for Bush's integrity.

Any nation whose leaders will pay its hired help to lie in order to destroy a person's right to earn a living, as in the case of Dick Manning; and now, actually give cash bonuses to those who lie, need to be fired before they have passed the point of no return in their headlong rush to destroy our Constitution and rights of all Americans.

Mr. Broaddus III makes a hard observation, which unfortunately about our "most high," there is not much we can do about except to publicly observe the failures by the Bush part of the Bush [still running the Clinton] Administration.

We ought not be arresting people who pick up eagle feathers and applying the mass of government power against private lives when our President will not apply the law against his own.

It's the kind of injustice upon which conflict becomes unresolved except by test of Arms.

We are in a cultural civil war, and the preservation of our justice system must prevail in order to keep things from heating up.

Compromise as a cause, will not.

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