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Anonymous
Guest
For all you folks that are screaming about us losing our rights- and about the Constitution being infringed upon- heres one to sink your teeth into.....
How many of you have stood up and opposed this Bush USDA promulgated decree upon its citizens.... :???:
How many of you have stood up and opposed this Bush USDA promulgated decree upon its citizens.... :???:
August 17, 2009
NAIS Violates Constitutional Rights, Privileges of U.S. Cattle Producers,
Including – but not Limited to – the Expectation of Privacy
Billings, Mont. – As promised, R-CALF USA has launched a 12-day blitz of news releases to explain in detail many of the reasons our members oppose the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
With this effort, R-CALF USA hopes to bring to light many of the dangerous aspects associated with NAIS with regard to invasion-of-privacy issues, the likely acceleration of the ongoing exodus of U.S. cattle producers from the industry, as well as other concerns we believe USDA has not even begun to ponder.
In the fourth installment of our NAIS Opposition Blitz, we explore how NAIS violates rights and privileges of U.S. cattle producers that are protected by the U.S. Constitution, including, but not limited to, the expectation of privacy:
* Nowhere in the Animal Health Protection Act – the act cited by USDA as granting it authority to implement NAIS – is USDA expressly authorized by Congress to impose NAIS on every citizen who owns cattle. USDA’s mere claim that its actions relate to animal health does not grant it carte blanch authority to exercise such an overarching extension of federal power as embodied in NAIS on every cattle owner in every state. Further, and because Congress has never expressly authorized such an overarching extension of federal power as NAIS on the citizens of each state, Congress has never addressed how NAIS’ impositions would square with the notion of limited, express, and enumerated powers embodied in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. Nor has Congress addressed how NAIS and animal health are squared with the Fourth Amendment guarantee that people will be “secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. . .”
* NAIS does not differentiate between cattle or cattle producers who are of negligible risk for disease outbreaks (such as cow/calf producers with closed herds) from producers who are of higher risk for disease outbreaks (such as feedlots with 500,000 head capacity). Instead, NAIS treats every animal and every cattle producer as if they were the subject of a disease investigation, requiring them to register their property and their livestock with the federal government and to report the movements of their animals.
* NAIS subjects every cattle producer, whether or not they are the subject of a disease investigation, to the potential for government intrusion of and on their private property. For example, the NAIS registration form for South Dakota states that the registrant’s information (and perhaps their real property) may be accessed for not only disease traceback purposes, but also for “animal health surveillance purposes.”[1] Nowhere does the registration form define or otherwise limit the scope of animal health surveillance purposes, though producers are expressly subjected to perjury penalties if the government were to find, for example, that the registrant’s information was not correct. Therefore, producers have no assurance that NAIS would not subject them to unwarranted searches or other invasions of their constitutionally protected rights.
* Because Congress did not pass a statute expressly authorizing USDA to implement NAIS, nor has USDA ever promulgated a rule to implement it, U.S. producers have no way of knowing the full extent of USDA’s intrusion upon their lives and businesses. In addition, they do not know the penalties that they would be subject to for errors contained in the NAIS database or for failing to comply with any regulatory or policy requirement that USDA may later decide to impose.