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.

Here We Go!!!!!

WHITE HOUSE SUED OVER FREE SPEECH VIOLATIONS in healthcare battle:
Doctor & patient groups say White House intended to shut up opponents

Washington DC -- The Office of the President and other White House officials are defendants in a free speech lawsuit filed by a prominent physician group, and a non-profit advocate for inner-city poor.
The White House has “unlawfully collected information on political speech,” thereby illegally using the power of the White House to chill opposition to its plans for health care reform, according to the complaint filed in District Court for the District of Columbia, by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) .
The lawsuit was prompted by the White House solicitation for the public to report any “fishy” comments to ‘flag@whitehouse.gov.’ Although the White House slightly revised its data collection procedure last week, the email address still exists, the illegal activity continues, and is part of an “unlawful pattern and practice to collect and maintain information” on the exercise of free speech, which “continues in violation of the Privacy Act and First Amendment even if the Defendants terminate a particular information-collection component due to negative publicity.”
The lawsuit outlines how the White House has employed a form of “bait-and-switch” tactic of accusing the Plaintiffs and other opponents of spreading misinformation about the Administration’s goals for health care reform, and thereby refusing to ‘come clean’ about its real agenda.
The lawsuit outlines that the White House knew that the data collection would chill free speech, and in fact, intended to do just that:
“43. As part of their effort to advance the White House healthcare reform agenda, Defendants have accused opponents (including Plaintiffs) of spreading misinformation on issues such as whether (a) health reform would provide public funding for abortions, (b) put “death panels” in place to deny care to the elderly or infirm, (c) amount to a government takeover of healthcare, and (d) increase healthcare costs..the Defendants and the administration have spread misinformation, semantics, and disinformation on these topics…..
“45. By denying and continuing to deny that healthcare reform legislation includes “death panels” that make individual life-or-death decisions on the elderly or infirm, the Defendants and the current administration have ignored and implicitly denied and continue to ignore and implicitly to deny both that their healthcare reform agenda involves rationing healthcare…”
“My hate mail started shortly after the White House issued the ‘fishy’ request,” said Kathryn Serkes, Director of Policy and Public Affairs for AAPS. “We were quite visible and vocal before then, so it doesn’t seem like a coincidence. Who did they share their data with? With whom might they share it?”
AAPS and CURE demand that the White House remove all information already collected, and further, be prohibited from collecting any personal data in the future.
NOTE: AAPS is a non-partisan professional association of physicians dedicated since 1943 to protection of the patient-physician relationship. CURE, founded by Star Parker, serves poor and inner-city communities through church, individual, and market-based solutions to poverty.
The case number is Civil Action No. 09-1621-EGS.
READ THE TEXT OF THE COMPLAINT

Something Fishy This Way Comes

Dear Mr. President,
I have seen some things that seem fishy and I wish to report the following items:

1. A man who is likely constitutionally ineligible to be president has taken office and has failed to produce a valid birth certificate to prove that he was born in the USA. I, however, needed an original birth certificate to get a driver's license.

2. This usurper has advanced policies designed to enslave the American population and promote the power of his People's Democratik Party, including among these policies a health care plan that will sacrifice older and sicker citizens for the good of the collective.

3. The health care plans already run by the federal government will go broke in nine years, but there is no plan to reform them because they are run by the state.

4. The plotters mentioned above want the government to take over health care for everyone to solidify absolute dependence on the government and assure their perpetual power. They want to eliminate the free market and destroy capitalism.

5. This politician promoted himself as a constitutional expert, yet we are not able to review his records from Harvard. Additionally, he was purported to be a great orator and a brilliant scholar, but he is not able to speak eloquently without a teleprompter and he cannot understand simple math. He is further not able to grasp the simplest of economic concepts, such as: a $3 trillion deficit is bad for the economy. Yet, he wants to run our health care system.

6. The individual in question is also an anti-Semitic racist who claims that opposition to his policies indicates racism on the part of others, though it merely indicates that his policies are abhorrent to the principles of liberty.

7. He is appalled by the waterboarding of terrorists but has conspired to increase the number of medical torture procedures in which the arms and legs of babies are ripped off in the womb, or pointed tubes are shoved into their brains, which are then sucked out. His health care plan promotes these barbaric procedures, and he is in favor of making it illegal for doctors to refuse to perform them.

8. He also has a friend who once bombed the Pentagon, and he supports an organization that has practiced widespread voting fraud and has shifted the Census to White House control in order to manipulate the results.

9. This man, with help from Vice-foot-in-mouth Joe Biden, Prime Minister Nancy Pelosi and Comrade Harry Reed, has conspired to undermine the Constitution of the United States, contrary to his oath of office. He has attempted to circumvent debate and rush legislation at blitzkrieg speed to prevent opposition to his unconstitutional policies. Those who oppose are labeled as an angry mob.

10. Finally, his administration has asked citizens to report things that sound "fishy." He was critical of the prior administration for wiretapping terrorists, but he has instituted a policy of having citizens report the activities of other citizens to the government. He has also actively attempted to manipulate and control the free press.

In summary, the man who now occupies the White House is an ineligible imposter whose actions indicate his intent to destroy this republic. He has shown himself to be petty, incompetent, paranoid and despotic. Are these things fishy enough for you? They certainly seem fishy to me. I have therefore carried out my duty and reported on the things that seem fishy as directed by your website. I do hope that you will look into these irregularities and let me know what you plan to do about them.