Bryan Fischer
Idaho man locked up in case of government tyranny
By Bryan Fischer
Lynn Moses, a Driggs, Idaho man, entered the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon yesterday at 2 p.m. in an unfolding story of government tyranny.
Mr. Moses lost his wife to an unexpected heart attack 1 ½ years ago, and suspects that the stress created by this abuse of federal power is responsible. And yesterday he was forced to leave his 17-year-old daughter Whitney at home in tears, who will now have to experience her senior in high school without the companionship of either of her parents, both of them taken from her by the repressive power of the central government.
No mom or dad to host her and her friends on her 18th birthday, no mom or dad to take pictures of her and her date on the night of her senior prom, and no mom or dad to proudly watch her graduate from high school.
As I wrote last Friday, in a story also featured yesterday on WorldNetDaily, Moses is being locked up for maintaining an intermittent stream bed as a flood control channel, as he has been required to do by Teton County officials since 1980.
(Since the EPA stepped in, no maintenance has been done on the channel for the last three years. A 35-foot section of the bank recently washed away, threatening another subdivision in the area, erosion that Moses tells me could have been prevented if he'd been allowed to continue his work. The mitigating work that the developer did to stop that erosion is now causing erosion on the opposite bank.)
The EPA prosecuted him for violating the Clean Water Act, even though the EPA has no jurisdiction over intermittent streams and Teton Creek only has water in it for less than two months out of every year.
And the more you know, the worse things get. On the day Moses was sentenced to federal prison, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Rapanos decision, in which the plurality opinion written by Antonin Scalia clearly prohibits the federal government's jurisdiction over intermittent streams under the Clean Water Act.
In fact, eight months after the Rapanos decision came out, the Corps of Engineers revised its written regulations regarding application of the Clean Water Act. The revised regulations authorize federal jurisdiction only over streams which have continuous flows for at least three months a year.
Teton Creek has never, even a single time since the diversion of irrigation water over 100 years ago, had flowing water for that long, and rarely has flowing water for as long as two months in any given year. This year, for example, despite significant snowpack and strong flows, the Creek had water in it for considerably less than two months.
If either the Corps or the EPA wants to exercise jurisdiction over an intermittent stream which has flowing water for less than three months a year, they must issue a "Jurisdictional Determination" produced by the Corp's District Engineer, who has to show that the stream bed, despite its intermittent flows, has some significant connection to the waters of the United States. No "Jurisdictional Determination" has ever been issued with regard to Teton Creek.
Bottom line: if these written regulations, done to conform to the reigning Supreme Court ruling, had been in place when this sorry saga began, it would have been abundantly clear that Mr. Moses was right every single time he refused to accept federal jurisdiction over the stream bed, and that the federal government had no legal right to prosecute him.
Moses has filed what is called a "2255" habeas corpus request with Federal Judge Lynn Winmill. A "2255" is authorized by a provision in federal law which enables a defendant to ask for reconsideration on the basis of new evidence, evidence which has emerged since his trial. These written regulations, produced eight months after the trial by the Corps' field technicians rather than the cubically-challenged bureaucrats at the EPA, make it evident that no charges should ever have been brought against Moses in the first place.
In Moses' appeal before a three judge panel of the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, the EPA's attorney admitted to the Court that she had never seen a "Jurisdictional Determination" from the Corps with regard to Teton Creek.
The 9th Circuit had Scalia's plurality opinion (he wrote for four of the five justices in the majority) in hand when they denied Moses' appeal, but rejected it in favor of citing Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion because it — despite representing the view of just one of the nine Supreme Court justices — gave them the fodder they needed to make sure Moses went to prison.
One of the three judges was incensed that permission had even been granted in the first place to divert water for irrigation, and wanted to know who was responsible for that outrage so the court could hold the miscreants responsible. She was so unfamiliar with the facts of the case that she didn't even know that the irrigation diversion had been done over 100 years ago. (She apparently was sorely disappointed that she couldn't find anybody to punish for that.)
Moses occasionally hired others to help him with stream bed maintenance. The 9th Circuit's opinion is so disgraceful that the judges refer to Moses and his "minions," as if they were writing an Op-Ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle.
So Moses was deprived of one of the "unalienable rights" granted to him by his Creator — the right to liberty — yesterday at 2 p.m. We went to war with the Crown of England over abuses less egregious than this.
When I asked Lynn yesterday morning, during his last few hours of freedom, what people could do to help, he said the most critical thing is to get the information about his case — especially the IVA's Friday Update (link below) into the hands of as many people as possible, including Congressmen, Senators and Governors. His point: if the guys who need votes to retain office begin hearing from enough of their own constituents, they might start to say, "What's going on here?"
And I can guarantee that if they start asking that question, they are not going to like the answer.
Idaho Values Alliance: Feds send man to prison for protecting homes
© Bryan Fischer
Lynn Moses, a Driggs, Idaho man, entered the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon yesterday at 2 p.m. in an unfolding story of government tyranny.
Mr. Moses lost his wife to an unexpected heart attack 1 ½ years ago, and suspects that the stress created by this abuse of federal power is responsible. And yesterday he was forced to leave his 17-year-old daughter Whitney at home in tears, who will now have to experience her senior in high school without the companionship of either of her parents, both of them taken from her by the repressive power of the central government.
No mom or dad to host her and her friends on her 18th birthday, no mom or dad to take pictures of her and her date on the night of her senior prom, and no mom or dad to proudly watch her graduate from high school.
As I wrote last Friday, in a story also featured yesterday on WorldNetDaily, Moses is being locked up for maintaining an intermittent stream bed as a flood control channel, as he has been required to do by Teton County officials since 1980.
(Since the EPA stepped in, no maintenance has been done on the channel for the last three years. A 35-foot section of the bank recently washed away, threatening another subdivision in the area, erosion that Moses tells me could have been prevented if he'd been allowed to continue his work. The mitigating work that the developer did to stop that erosion is now causing erosion on the opposite bank.)
The EPA prosecuted him for violating the Clean Water Act, even though the EPA has no jurisdiction over intermittent streams and Teton Creek only has water in it for less than two months out of every year.
And the more you know, the worse things get. On the day Moses was sentenced to federal prison, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Rapanos decision, in which the plurality opinion written by Antonin Scalia clearly prohibits the federal government's jurisdiction over intermittent streams under the Clean Water Act.
In fact, eight months after the Rapanos decision came out, the Corps of Engineers revised its written regulations regarding application of the Clean Water Act. The revised regulations authorize federal jurisdiction only over streams which have continuous flows for at least three months a year.
Teton Creek has never, even a single time since the diversion of irrigation water over 100 years ago, had flowing water for that long, and rarely has flowing water for as long as two months in any given year. This year, for example, despite significant snowpack and strong flows, the Creek had water in it for considerably less than two months.
If either the Corps or the EPA wants to exercise jurisdiction over an intermittent stream which has flowing water for less than three months a year, they must issue a "Jurisdictional Determination" produced by the Corp's District Engineer, who has to show that the stream bed, despite its intermittent flows, has some significant connection to the waters of the United States. No "Jurisdictional Determination" has ever been issued with regard to Teton Creek.
Bottom line: if these written regulations, done to conform to the reigning Supreme Court ruling, had been in place when this sorry saga began, it would have been abundantly clear that Mr. Moses was right every single time he refused to accept federal jurisdiction over the stream bed, and that the federal government had no legal right to prosecute him.
Moses has filed what is called a "2255" habeas corpus request with Federal Judge Lynn Winmill. A "2255" is authorized by a provision in federal law which enables a defendant to ask for reconsideration on the basis of new evidence, evidence which has emerged since his trial. These written regulations, produced eight months after the trial by the Corps' field technicians rather than the cubically-challenged bureaucrats at the EPA, make it evident that no charges should ever have been brought against Moses in the first place.
In Moses' appeal before a three judge panel of the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, the EPA's attorney admitted to the Court that she had never seen a "Jurisdictional Determination" from the Corps with regard to Teton Creek.
The 9th Circuit had Scalia's plurality opinion (he wrote for four of the five justices in the majority) in hand when they denied Moses' appeal, but rejected it in favor of citing Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion because it — despite representing the view of just one of the nine Supreme Court justices — gave them the fodder they needed to make sure Moses went to prison.
One of the three judges was incensed that permission had even been granted in the first place to divert water for irrigation, and wanted to know who was responsible for that outrage so the court could hold the miscreants responsible. She was so unfamiliar with the facts of the case that she didn't even know that the irrigation diversion had been done over 100 years ago. (She apparently was sorely disappointed that she couldn't find anybody to punish for that.)
Moses occasionally hired others to help him with stream bed maintenance. The 9th Circuit's opinion is so disgraceful that the judges refer to Moses and his "minions," as if they were writing an Op-Ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle.
So Moses was deprived of one of the "unalienable rights" granted to him by his Creator — the right to liberty — yesterday at 2 p.m. We went to war with the Crown of England over abuses less egregious than this.
When I asked Lynn yesterday morning, during his last few hours of freedom, what people could do to help, he said the most critical thing is to get the information about his case — especially the IVA's Friday Update (link below) into the hands of as many people as possible, including Congressmen, Senators and Governors. His point: if the guys who need votes to retain office begin hearing from enough of their own constituents, they might start to say, "What's going on here?"
And I can guarantee that if they start asking that question, they are not going to like the answer.
Idaho Values Alliance: Feds send man to prison for protecting homes
© Bryan Fischer
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