Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds Read online

  The Freedom of Health Speech Act addresses the FTC’s violations of the First Amendment. Under traditional constitutional standards, the federal government bears the burden of proving an advertising statement false before censoring that statement. However, the FTC shifted the burden of proof to industry. The FTC presumes health advertising is false and compels private parties to prove the ads (and everything the regulators say the ads imply) to be true to a near-conclusive degree. This violation of the First and Fifth Amendments is harming consumers by blocking innovation in the health foods and dietary supplement marketplace.

  The Freedom of Health Speech Act requires the government to actually prove that speech is false before the FTC acts against the speaker. This is how it should be in a free society where information flows freely in order to foster the continuous improvement that benefits us all. The bill also requires that the FTC warn parties that their advertising is false and give them a chance to correct their mistakes before the FTC censors the claim and imposes other punishments.

  Mr. Speaker, if we are serious about putting people in charge of their health care, then shouldn’t we stop federal bureaucrats from preventing Americans from learning about simple ways to improve their health? I therefore call on my colleagues to stand up for good health and the Constitution by cosponsoring the Health Freedom Restoration Act and the Freedom of Health Speech Act.

  The same year I also introduced the Testimonial Free Speech Act, legislation that would prohibit the federal government from censoring an individual’s account of his experience with foods and dietary supplements. Hard as it may be to believe, the government is prohibiting individuals from sharing their stories of how they improved their health by using foods and dietary supplements.

  In 2011, armed federal agents raided the headquarters of Maxam Nutraceutics, a company that produces and sells nutritional supplements for people with autism spectrum disorder and Alzheimer’s disease. The raid was based on Maxam’s alleged failure (a failure Maxam CEO James Cole disputes) to comply with a warning letter from the FDA ordering Maxam to remove several “improper labels” from Maxam products. The labels in question were simply accounts from Maxam customers describing their experiences with Maxam products.

  That’s right—the federal government sent armed agents into a private business because the business posted customers’ testimonials.

  Restricting communication of individuals’ accounts of their experiences with foods and dietary supplements is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. The necessity for my bill showed how little respect the federal bureaucracy has for the Bill of Rights and the principles of a free society. If we are not even free anymore to decide something as basic as what we wish to eat or drink or what medicine to take—or allowed to discuss it with our fellow Americans—how much freedom do we really have left?

  During my presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, I could tell people were fed up. Americans are tired of a government that thinks it can dictate every detail of their daily lives. Citizens are tired of government getting in the way of hardworking people’s efforts to simply live free and prosperous lives. They are tired of a government that abuses them, quite literally, every single day.

  The liberty movement that has arisen in recent years, which rallied to support my presidential runs, helped get Rand elected to the U.S. Senate, and helped elect property rights and civil liberties champion Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) in the House, represents a new force in politics. It is a force that recognizes that government’s war on our liberties has long been a bipartisan effort. This is not simply about Republican versus Democrat, but about people who believe in the Constitution and individual rights versus the politicians in both parties who don’t. This isn’t about party, but about people who believe in limited government against those who seem to think it is unlimited.

  This is about liberty versus tyranny.

  Tea Party members are outraged by what our government has done to private property rights and how citizens are manhandled in our airports. Millions of young Americans flocked to my campaign rallies in the last four years to hear the message of liberty and how important it remains as they face an uncertain future. Countless independent voters and even some liberal Democrats are increasingly fearful of a government that continues to damage individual rights and civil liberties.

  It is the rising generation that gives me hope that we can turn the tide. There are more needless and harmful government regulations today than at perhaps any other time in our history. There are also more Americans unwilling to sit idly by and take this abuse than ever before.

  Rand has become one of the leading voices in the ongoing fight against our rogue regulatory state. No other U.S. senator in recent memory has done more to fight against the big-government politicians in both parties who consider the Bill of Rights little more than a list of suggestions. Thanks to Rand’s leadership on these issues, some on Capitol Hill, and especially in the Republican Party, have began changing their minds in a more liberty-oriented direction. Thanks to my many wonderful supporters and the movement they’ve created, it looks like more liberty-minded leaders could soon be arriving in Washington, D.C., to join this fight than ever before.

  The stories told in this book will horrify you. These stories are the reason Rand fights so hard to keep government off people’s backs and out of their lives. These stories are why the message of liberty continues to ring louder and clearer than ever, as the statists learn that the harder they push, the harder the American people will push back.

  When I first came to Congress in 1976, I did so because I believed the country was going down the wrong track. As bad as things were then, today it often seems like we’ve gone completely off track. The old saying that things must get worse before they can get better might be true, but the public outcry against a government that has truly gone mad—these horrible and atrocious government bullies—might be the final straw that helps restore constitutional government in our time.

  Introduction

  Ronald Reagan famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ ” Three decades later, American life is micromanaged at every imaginable level. Citizens’ basic day-to-day activities are subject to government scrutiny. We endure a federal government that has invaded virtually every aspect of our lives—from light bulbs, to toilets, to lemonade stands and beyond.

  Our federal government regulates everything and anything. How much water goes into your commode. How much water comes out of your showerhead. The temperature of the water in your washing machine. How many miles to the gallon your car must get.

  Americans’ privacy is violated at every turn. Since the implementation of the Patriot Act, your banking records, your credit card account, your gun registration, and your phone bill have become easy pickings for government snoops, who can do pretty much anything they like with your personal information without the hassle of having to get a warrant. The government can literally break down your door, seize your property, and even seize you, based on rules and regulations created by unelected bureaucrats with zero accountability.

  Congress has abdicated its constitutional role as the federal body that makes laws by allowing agencies like the EPA, FDA, USDA, and TSA to make their own laws through regulations and red tape. These agencies have assumed frightening new powers over the everyday lives of American citizens, giving these government entities free rein over you and me in ways unprecedented in our country’s history.

  Our ever-growing nanny state now includes an arsenal of unconstitutional and unprecedented surveillance and law enforcement powers. These government powers aren’t exactly subtle in action or intent. Does anyone think a government with thirty-eight armed federal agencies is kidding around? They’re not. They mean business.

  Your business.

  Everyone understands that some federal agents must be armed. But most Americans are surprised to learn that the Department o
f Agriculture, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency all have armed SWAT teams. Why do such agencies need small armies to enforce, supposedly, mere fishing and hunting regulations? Why do we need to arm government bureaucrats to protect the environment?

  The 1985 dystopian movie Brazil was a comedy about life under a totalitarian bureaucracy. In one scene, a man in full body armor with an automatic weapon is seen scaling a high-rise apartment building. Finally reaching a balcony, he climbs over the railing and knocks on the door. The voice inside the apartment asks, “Who is it?” The armed man answers, “The plumber.”

  In Brazil’s imaginary police state, the only way for this plumber to evade armed bureaucrats enforcing “regulations” was to arm himself.

  American dystopia didn’t come overnight. President Obama has introduced and implemented thousands of new regulations, many of which are needless and don’t make any sense. But we can’t blame President Obama for everything (though historians will allot him his fair share). The regulatory morass that now engulfs us came incrementally, accumulating over time to create the monstrosity we face today. Democrats and Republicans alike deserve blame.

  Many Americans remember the now infamous mercury-laden Chinese-made $4 light bulbs that were mandated by Congress in 2007—a mandate by a Republican Congress and signed into law by a Republican president. In the name of energy efficiency, Congress decided to ban incandescent light bulbs, which are now supposed to be phased out completely by 2014.

  But, as noted, the alternative to incandescent light bulbs isn’t much better.

  When I sharply questioned a Department of Energy bureaucrat about the light bulb mandate and consumer choice, my Democrat colleagues said that the ban on incandescent bulbs was beyond criticism because a bipartisan majority had passed it.

  Beyond criticism? Government overreach doesn’t become constitutional or morally right simply because both parties agree to it.

  I began my questioning of the DOE bureaucrat by asking, “Are you pro-choice?” She hesitated and then responded, trying to be clever, “For light bulbs!” I told her that she was not pro-choice. I told her that she was only for consumer “choice” if Americans were forced to “choose” from a list of government-approved light bulbs.

  The incandescent light bulb is no longer a choice—so decrees our government.

  When a Fish and Wildlife SWAT team raided the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 2009, seizing millions in property and padlocking their warehouses, it was not under any authority given by President Obama, but President Bush. Republicans and Democrats had joined together in a bipartisan fashion to make it a crime to break foreign laws and regulations.

  How did this happen in America?

  Since becoming a United States senator, I have been inside the halls of power in Washington, D.C., fighting to change this alarming and tyrannical direction America seems to be taking. It amazes me how many Washington leaders either don’t know or don’t seem to care that these things are happening. They think that I’m being an alarmist, when I’m hearing horror stories from my constituents and others that should be cause for concern to all Americans. Often I can find allies willing to help, but much more often I find politicians who only want to stand in the way of any changes to the status quo. Meanwhile, too many American citizens find themselves harassed and abused by their government with no hope of recourse.

  We have been asleep. Many of us have thought simply electing Republicans was enough to protect our privacy, property, and constitutional freedoms, but we failed to realize that it makes a significant difference what type of Republicans we elect.

  Understanding how we’ve arrived at this point would be much simpler if we could just blame those bad ol’ Democrats—but the story of regulatory overreach and abuse is unquestionably bipartisan. It is a story of congressional abdication of power, a Congress that allowed its rightful constitutional powers to be siphoned off by a runaway regulatory bureaucracy. This bureaucracy has become more powerful than any senator or congressman and in some instances even more powerful than the president.

  The stories in this book will shock you. First-generation immigrants jailed for moving dirt on their own land. A nurse separated from her small child and sentenced to eighty-seven months in prison—also for moving dirt on her own land.

  Though it might sound like it, these are not jokes.

  Did an arrogant and armed “wetlands police” arrive with the election of President Obama? No, this rogue government agency’s origins come from a seemingly responsible piece of legislation called the Clean Water Act. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush vowed that America would lose no “wetlands” under his watch (a vow he unfortunately kept better than his “no new taxes” pledge). Under the first President Bush, a government wetlands manual was created that essentially emboldened federal agents’ power, allowing them to seek out and punish private property owners for doing nothing more than moving dry dirt on dry land. The federal government had—however erroneously, illogically, or nonsensically—defined these dry areas as “wetlands.” It turns out that a wetlands is simply whatever an agency like the EPA says it is—no matter how many experts or even other government officials say to the contrary. In this book, you will read stories of property owners jailed for doing nothing more than committing the “crime” of moving dirt on their own property. Seriously.

  Going after agencies like the EPA or being critical of ridiculous laws and regulations is enough to invite accusations that you somehow don’t care about the environment. At the liberal website Think Progress, blogger Tonya Somanader wrote in 2011: “A steadfast enemy to the air he breathes, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is a never-ending source of attacks on environmental regulations and the EPA.”

  So there you have it. Because I “attack” government agencies, I must somehow be against the environment, say many on the Left.

  I consider myself a Crunchy-Con—that is, a conservative who likes, enjoys, and wants to conserve the environment.

  I compost. I built my composting bins from wood I salvaged from my kids’ old tree fort. I have a Giant Sequoia that I planted and am trying to cultivate in my yard in Kentucky. I have personally dug up and transplanted dozens of trees, some of which are now over thirty feet tall. One tree that I’m particularly proud of is a cherry tree that descends from the cherry trees of the tidal basin adjacent to the Jefferson Memorial, given to the United States by Japan’s Emperor Hirohito in the early 1900s.

  I am a biker, a hiker, a rafter and a kayaker. I believe no one has the right to pollute another person’s property, and if it occurs the polluter should be made to pay for cleanup and damages. I am not against all regulation. I am against overzealous regulation. Nor am I against all government. I often joked on the campaign trail that I was for $2.2 trillion worth of government—what we currently bring in in revenue—but certainly not for the $3.8 trillion of government we currently spend.

  Conservatives enjoy the environment as much as liberals. But conservatives differ from liberals in that we appreciate how industries restore and replenish the environment. We conservatives understand that man uses the environment to create the comforts of the modern world, and that regulations require a balancing act between economic growth, jobs and the environment.

  The Clean Water Act, like many regulations, started out with good intentions. It prohibited dumping “pollutants” into the “navigable waters” of the United States. Who could argue against that? The problem arose when environment courts began defining dirt as a “pollutant” and plain old backyards as “navigable” streams.

  Since at least the Great Depression, the courts have decided that pollution is to be controlled not by tort law and regional acceptance of norms, but through federal regulation. Some have argued that a robust tort law approach would actually have allowed less pollution or damage to the environment than a regulatory approach. This is not to say there should be no federal role—even strict originalist judges understand that the Constitution
allows regulation of activities that can indirectly affect innocent third parties if the activity in question involves interstate commerce. No one is saying there should be no federal role in environmental regulation—only that there has been too much federal regulation, much of it to the detriment of the environment.

  Often opponents want to depict the position of libertarians and conservatives on this issue as being uncaring about the environment, or the health consequences of pollution. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, many limited-government advocates point to how government regulation often exempts big business or big agriculture. Many of these regulations actually benefit big business and punish the small businessman or farmer, most of whom can’t afford lawyers to guide them through byzantine regulations and mountains of paperwork.

  Author Joel Salatin is a sustainable farmer who writes frequently about how overregulation has hampered and damaged the small farmer. Salatin’s belief in less regulation does not mean that he somehow accepts pollution. He simply advocates what many libertarians advocate: strict property rights and swift recourse if someone pollutes your land, your water, or your air.

  In fact, it has been argued that a property-rights approach would have prevented the pollution of Lake Michigan, Boston Harbor, and other sites where municipalities either directly dumped sewage and other pollutants, or issued licenses to private business that allowed those businesses to pollute.