ACORN, Maryland WireTaps,Tripp,Criminal Orchid Production

Bunch of stuff this morning:

First, H/T to Steve Martin for this:
ACORN’s Mistake Invoking Linda Tripp in ACORN vs. O’Keefe, Giles and Breitbart.com
Marinka Peschmann,
Special to Canada Free Press Bio

Last week, Bertha Lewis, the chief-organizer at ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, cited Linda Tripp when she spoke about ACORN’s lawsuit against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and Breitbart.com at Washington’s National Press Club.

ACORN’s lawsuit accuses O’Keefe and Giles, whose pimp and prostitute undercover operation captured ACORN workers, on video counseling them on how to cheat tax laws among other potential crimes, of violating Maryland law that requires two-party consent for electronic surveillance. Breitbart.com, the news website, is also named as defendant for first posting the video.

“It is illegal, as Linda Tripp will tell you, to record someone in the state of Maryland without their permission. Just because we were embarrassed by these highly edited tapes, which don’t tell the whole story… doesn’t mean that these people didn’t break the law in order to embarrass and attack the organization,” Lewis said.

More…

Now we have the Federal government issuing secret warrants and Fish and Wildlife conducting raids on private citizens.

Criminalizing everyone

Needed: A 'clean line' to determine lawfulness

"You don't need to know. You can't know."
That's what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.

The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris' longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.

The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with - get this- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

That's right. Orchids.

By March 2004, federal prosecutors were well on their way to turning 66-year-old retiree George Norris into an inmate in a federal penitentiary - based on his home-based business of cultivating, importing and selling orchids.

Mrs. Norris testified before the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime this summer. The hearing's topic: the rapid and dangerous expansion of federal criminal law, an expansion that is often unprincipled and highly partisan.

Chairman Robert C. Scott, Virginia Democrat, and ranking member Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, conducted a truly bipartisan hearing (a D.C. rarity this year).

Read the rest at The Washington Times.