George F. Will:
The huge humpback whale whose friendliness precipitated a surreal seven-year — so far —federal hunt for criminality surely did not feel put upon. Nevertheless, our unhinged government, with an obsession like that of Melville’s Ahab, has crippled Nancy Black’s scientific career, cost her more than $100,000 in legal fees — so far — and might sentence her to 20 years in prison. This Kafkaesque burlesque of law enforcement began when someone whistled.
Black, 50, a marine biologist who also captains a whale-watching ship, was with some watchers in Monterey Bay in 2005 when a member of her crew whistled at the humpback that had approached her boat, hoping to entice the whale to linger. Back on land, another of her employees called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to ask if the whistling constituted “harassment” of a marine mammal, which is an “environmental crime.” NOAA requested a video of the episode, which Black sent after editing it slightly to highlight the whistling. NOAA found no harassment — but got her indicted for editing the tape, calling this a “material false statement” to federal investigators, which is a felony under the 1863 False Claims Act, intended to punish suppliers defrauding the government during the Civil War.
A year after this bizarre charge — that she lied about the interaction with the humpback that produced no charges — more than a dozen federal agents, led by one from NOAA, raided her home. They removed her scientific photos, business files and computers. Call this a fishing expedition.
She has also been charged with the crime of feeding killer whales when she and two aides were in a dinghy observing them feeding on strips of blubber torn from their prey — a gray whale.
To facilitate photographing the killers’ feeding habits, she cut a hole in one of the floating slabs of blubber and, through the hole, attached a rope to stabilize the slab while a camera on a pole recorded the whales’ underwater eating.
So she is charged with “feeding” killer whales that were already feeding on a gray whale they had killed. She could more plausibly be accused of interfering with the feeding.
Nice colleagues. nice employees….this story is so dumbfounding one can hardly gather words to describe this – jaw dropping – I’d say? Black doesn’t sound like she is a unscrupulous scientist, and we know they are out there…Climate change ring any bells?
Was all this really necessary – Seriously??. Sounds like a lot of petty stuff to me.
Our Government certainly needs to be on a lot shorter leash…I continually feel the power being welded by this Government is spinning out of control…a lot of things are spinning out of control…
This government has shown time after time that laws and even the Constitution are mere pieces of paper to be circumvented. The only way to restrain a Leviathan that can print its own money is to restrict the amount of money it can spend. Then passing more laws will force it to make choices as to which laws it wants to enforce and which it must give everyone a “waiver” for. (like ObamaCare right now)
There are various ways of doing this, but we must move on every possible front to restrain Leviathan. Time is getting very short before it is too late.
THE GOVERNMENT ARE EXCHANGING SERVICES BY USING THE LAWYERS TO SCAM PEOPLE OF GOOD FAITH NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG, AND THE LAWYERS FORCE THE CITIZENS TO HIRE LAWYERS TO DEFEND THEIR CASE, SHE SPEND YEARS AND HER MONEY TO FIGHT IT, 100,000 IS ENORMOUS FOR A BUSYNESS TO SPEND FROM HARD WORK, NO MATTER WHAT BUSYNESS,
WHAT A CORRUPT WAY TO TREAT THE GOOD BUSYNESS OWNERS,
YOU MIGHT BE NEXT SURELY, BECAUSE THEY HAVE THOUSANDS OF PAGES AND YOU HAVE MORE CHANCE TO FALL IN THE TRAP, THEY ARE WATCHING YOU LIKE IF YOU WHERE A FLY,
AND FOR THEM YOUR FREEDOM IS LIKE FLY READY TO BE WHACK BY THEIR RESTRICTIONS,
THIS IS PART OF THEIR COMMUNIST AGENDA, NO ONE WHO HAS ACHIEVE IS IMMUNE FROM THOSE PUBLIC EMPLOYEES PAID FROM THE PEOPLE’S POCKET TO SEARCH FOR ANY EVEN MINOR ERRORS, THE UNION’S STYLE THUGS TO TORMENT THOSE THEY CHOOSE,
remember that lawyer paying thousands of dollar a handicap man to get in a busyness and come out and report some inadequate provisions wich had preventing him to enter the store, then the lawyer show up to intimidate the owner and end up making a deal with the owner which would have cost
tremendous fees to hire a lawyer, gave thousands of dollar hand to hand to save more money, it was made public and the lawyer when ask if it was illegal said this is as usual busyness with a smurf on his face,
how can you not shoot those corrupt criminals on sight.
ILoveBeesWare#3 Hey Bees! You are correct in your assertion this Leviathan is constantly breeding and spewing corruption…small businesses, Americans, and in this case a scientist are getting the screws put to them…and this President talks of fairness…how fair is it to continually ‘go after’ people in such a way…many who are law abiding and just trying to make a livelihood for themselves…
Even though ‘they didn’t build their business’ and Ofraud did…perhaps they should be sending their lawyer bills and fines to Ofraud for payment…
Huge reason(s) why we need smaller Government…
FAITH7
HI,
YES the PEOPLE ARE DOWN BECAUSE OF THE GOVERNMENT IMPOSITION,
and seem to close in slowly but surely, on the busyness, resulting on a character breakeage, consisting of the busyness owner becoming unsure and de-stabilyze as how he should fix the un-fixeble without recourse to a costly lawyer, it change the sureness of managing his creativity which is impaired by the new problems he get from GOVERNMENT GOONS DICTATING HIS MANAGEMENT,
NO WONDER THEY CLOSE BY THOUSAND
BYE