Ex-Judge Napolitano: Govt's Raid on Nevada Ranch 'Draconian'

[happyg]

The federal government used draconian methods in its raid involving Cliven Bundy in an attempt to scare the Nevada rancher in their dispute over grazing rights, said former Judge Andrew Napolitano.

 "The draconian, authoritarian way that the government is going after Mr. Bundy is obviously to try and scare him, and scare ranchers, and send a message which is utterly un-American and not consistent with a free people," Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday.

 Bundy clashed with officials of the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights on federal land. Armed agents seized 400 head of the rancher's cattle after an April 9 standoff that resulted in injuries to Bundy's son and sister.

 Napolitano said the proper procedure for resolving a dispute would be to file documents in the court system, not through the use of force by the government.

 "When you owe the government money, they don't come with guns and troops. And they don't threaten the media that are there to cover it. You file a document in the courthouse, and it's a judgment on the property," Napolitano said.

 Napolitano said he was "shocked" to see federal agents dressed like troops "in camouflage and with M-16s" adding that the BLM is not "a military or a law-enforcement entity."

 During the standoff, BLM agents established a free speech zone for Bundy supporters several miles from the confrontation. Napolitano said that was a direct violation of their First Amendment's freedom of speech rights.

 "The First Amendment presumes that you can say anything you want about the government. And if the government makes it impossible for the government to hear what you're saying by putting you three miles away, then the government has interfered with your First Amendment rights," he said.


Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Andrew-Napolitano-Cliven-Bundy-Nevada/2014/04/15/id/565670#ixzz2yy6LUFx6
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[musiclady]

IMO, the only reason the Obama feds backed off was that their thuggish tactics with camo and weapons was the country was watching their truly Draconian tactics.

They must have figured out that no matter how 'justified' they thought their position was, that their behavior was third world and made for bad 'optics.'

[happyg]

Why would the federal government own so much of the West? It is time for the States to reclaim THEIR OWN LANDS! We can start by abolishing the BLM and creating state & county level civil organizations with 1-year term limits for elected officials.

[musiclady]

Holy Cow!  Look at Nevada in that map!  Does any land belong to anyone other than the federal gov't?

[Fishrrman]

musiclady wrote above:
[[ IMO, the only reason the Obama feds backed off was that their thuggish tactics with camo and weapons was the country was watching their truly Draconian tactics. ]]

"The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!"
(Do you remember Chicago, 1968? I certainly do!)

You're right, of course. Thus, the cordoned-off "free speech area" that was too far away from the action to know what was going on.

Hence, the "no fly" zone -- handy way to keep reporters with helicopters out.

Hence, the blockades of local roads, the attempt to close the entire area from the public.

What the feds had planned for Mr. Bundy was to be done, essentially, "behind closed doors". But the doors were held open, by all those who literally showed up and confronted the BLM and federals.

That's why they backed off.
But... they may be back.

One thing's for certain:
We're going to be seeing more "operations" like this in the future.

What will happen then?

[ABX]

We're going to be seeing more "operations" like this in the future.

What will happen then?

That's the key to the new generation revolution. We're going to be seeing.  Take control of new technology and new media. Don't let them bait us into violence, instead, be there with cameras and instant streaming.

Record and stream everything. Use the technology we usually don't want to as our power. Google Plus, for example, allows instant uploading of all images and videos from a device without prompt so even if they take it and smash it, the media isn't lost.

This takes some thought and planning but a new wave of revolution of knowledge is intriguing me. Maybe we shouldn't shy away from Google Glasses?

[Luis Gonzalez]

I agree with this.  Mr. Bundy has no right to have his cattle on federal land.  But that does not justify the use of paramilitary force to evict them.  There is a big difference between can and should.  The government has definitely confused the two in this case.  The government has already gone through the process of filing court documents several times.  Mr. Bundy has ignored the results of those court hearings, so Judge Napolitano is wrong when he says the government should go back to just filing court documents.  There should be a next step that comes after the courts have decided the case, but that next step cannot be paramilitary force.  That would only be justified if Mr. Bundy had already fortified his ranch and started violence against the government agents first.

Breitbart has the best explanation of this issue, and it's not siding with Bundy.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/12/The-Saga-of-Bundy-Ranch

Included in the article is this:

The Bundy family patriarch has openly stated his willingness to use force against federal agents if they take his cattle off of the federal lands

So when agents came to take the cattle, as ordered y the Courts, where they supoposed to ignore Bundy's threats, or come showing such overwhelming force that it would make Bundy think twice about carrying out his threats?

The Breitbart article discusses the Harry/Rory Reid connection:

Despite the obvious partisan gain to be had if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s son Rory (a failed 2010 Nevada gubernatorial candidate) had somehow been involved in a “land grab” affecting the Bundy family ranch operation—the facts just do not pan out as such. Indeed, Rory Reid did in fact have a hand in plans to reclassify federal lands for renewable energy developments. Just northeast of Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base, plans were drawn by Reid allies to potentially develop 5,717 acres of land for such use. While it would be fair to claim that such activity was in Bundy’s relative neighborhood, the federal lands once leased by the family were more than 20 miles away, east of Overton, Nevada. Contrasting maps offered by InfoWars and those entered into federal court record prove such a theory to be a stretch.