Cliven Bundy, a rancher in Nevada, was raided by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) this month. Bundy didn’t pay cattle grazing fees to BLM and hasn’t since 1993. Why? because he refuses to acknowledge the United States has the constitutional authority to own public land in the state of Nevada (or any state). Bundy underwent 20 years of litigation with BLM. Ultimately, federal courts entered civil money judgments against him, which he did not pay. What was a civil judgment, however, blew into something quite larger.
The Court never entered any writs or orders of seizure, forfeiture or assistance, but BLM took it upon themselves to raid Bundy’s ranch and take his cattle by force to satisfy the court’s judgment. In this process, BLM brought what can only be described as a military attack on Bundy and his family to enforce something the federal court never ordered, including positioning snipers around Bundy’s property, thereby violating Bundy’s due process and civil rights.
While BLM was raiding Bundy’s ranch, concerned citizens arrived from across America at Bundy’s ranch to protest BLM’s tactics. BLM violated their first amendment rights of speech, association, and redress of grievances by creating a “free speech zone” three miles away from Bundy’s ranch, making ineffective their protest. BLM also threatened these citizens with threat of death if they crossed lines BLM arbitrarily drew to keep these protesters away from the scene. Yet again, BLM took their authority beyond the point of constitutionality.
There are many federal bureaucracies –more than most people realize. More frequent today, these bureaucracies are literally arming themselves and using military-style force they are not authorized to use against citizens, and they are violating many civil rights and due process of the people. This can be very intimidating for the people who are targeted by the government. Many times, they don’t know what to do and what their rights are in these situations. Thus, they need to be armed with attorneys who know the Constitution and their civil rights. Otherwise, more than likely, the targets of bureaucracy will be dominated and will, in the end, lose to their forceful and unconstitutional tactics. Don’t let this happen to you.
