The story from a couple of years ago on TCJ:

Tennessee landowner removed a game camera secretly strapped to a tree on his private land by wildlife officials in order to monitor his activity without apparent sanction or probable cause. Repeat: Hollingsworth’s residence was searched by U.S. government and state officials, dressed to the nines in assault gear, seeking to regain possession of a trail camera—the precise camera they had surreptitiously placed on his private acreage after sneaking onto his property at night, loading the camera with active SD and SIM cards, and zip-tying the device roughly 10’ high up a tree—all without a warrant.

Here’s the update:

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) said Mr. Hollingsworth was illegally baiting. He plead his case and got his hunting license suspended or revoked. Then he filed suit in federal court, alleging his privacy rights were violated and that TWRA had no warrant. A federal court threw out the case. Hollingsworth said the government will bleed the average person of resources and time; there’s no real way to fight this.

You have no right to privacy on your own property, and no warrant is needed to surveil you. TWRA and US Fish and Wildlife are doing this to others as well, that’s according to the news source. It’s not some conspiracy theory.

If you can’t find any (Christian, White, Nationalist, Gun Owning, Heterosexual, Freedom Loving, Family Men) terrorists, then make some.

Agents are reportedly being pressured by their superiors to juice the data. The FBI is instructing its agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’, Republican Representative Jim Jordan has claimed, citing agency whistleblowers. Jordan argued that the FBI may be inflating the statistics to satisfy the Biden administration’s crackdown on the supposed threat of homegrown terror.

This news should not be a shock. If you knew history, you would know this was coming.

Via David Codrea, this report on invasion of privacy.

Seated at his kitchen table, finishing off the remains of a Saturday breakfast, Hunter Hollingsworth’s world was rocked by footsteps on his front porch and pounding at the door, punctuated by an aggressive order: “Open up or we’ll kick the door down.”

Surrounded on all sides of his house, and the driveway blocked, Hollingsworth was the target of approximately 10 federal and state wildlife officials packing pistols, shotguns and rifles. And what was Hollingsworth’s crime? Drugs, armed robbery, assault, money laundering? Not quite.

Months prior, in 2018, the Tennessee landowner removed a game camera secretly strapped to a tree on his private land by wildlife officials in order to monitor his activity without apparent sanction or probable cause. Repeat: Hollingsworth’s residence was searched by U.S. government and state officials, dressed to the nines in assault gear, seeking to regain possession of a trail camera—the precise camera they had surreptitiously placed on his private acreage after sneaking onto his property at night, loading the camera with active SD and SIM cards, and zip-tying the device roughly 10’ high up a tree—all without a warrant.

Can the government place cameras and monitoring equipment on a private citizen’s land at will, or conduct surveillance and stakeouts on private land, without probable cause or a search warrant? Indeed, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. Welcome to Open Fields.

The vast majority of Americans assume law enforcement needs a warrant to carry out surveillance, but for roughly a century, SCOTUS has ruled that private land—is not private. Fourth Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” expressed in the Bill of Rights only apply to an individual’s immediate dwelling area, according to SCOTUS.

However, SCOTUS’ Open Fields doctrine has been bucked in Mississippi, Montana, New York, Oregon and Vermont through protections granted by state constitutions, and for many American landowners, the more they discover about Open Fields—the more questions they have regarding the bounds of government power.

[ … ]

In 1924, Hester v. United States set up the Open Fields framework and said the U.S. Constitution does not extend to most land: “the special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects,’ is not extended to the open fields.” Significantly, Open Fields is translated beyond its literal sense, and basically is defined as general acreage: woods, fields, farmland, barren ground, and more.

Further, in 1984, SCOTUS gave additional strength to Open Fields in Oliver v. United States: “open fields do not provide the setting for those intimate activities that the Amendment is intended to shelter from government interference or surveillance. There is no societal interest in protecting the privacy of those activities, such as the cultivation of crops, that occur in open fields.”

Do as we order you or we’ll break your property down!  This is the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and likely other local LEOs, and certainly federal officers (because the article says so).

The Supreme Court let you down.  They did it a long time ago, and they reiterated their treachery later.  That doesn’t surprise anyone.  But the state is taking advantage of that, and while that should not surprise anyone, it’s something to fight.

Land of the free.  You must have the king’s permission to hunt the royal forests, and do everything his way.

We certainly need a reset in America, a complete do-over.

I had previously mentioned that I would not weigh in on Cliven Bundy.  I usually like to read my homework very carefully.  I don’t know Cliven Bundy and he doesn’t know me.  I know little about his family and his history, but fortunately for us, this has all been made very easy.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with tortoises or grazing fees.  Dana Loesch has done a good job of explaining it, and by now it has made its way to several other venues.  It has to do with evil, greed, cronyism, nepotism, and malfeasance in office.

There are several takeaways from this affair.  First of all, the main stream media is dead.  The reports of conditions on the ground were given to us by blogs, alternative media, email and social media like Facebook and Twitter.  The main stream media still hasn’t caught up.  Perhaps in a month of two some large news publication like The New York Times or The Chicago Tribune will come out with an expose on Harry Reid’s evil in this affair, but don’t bet on it, and even if they do, it will be a month too late.

This death has been a long time coming, but it is finally here.  The only thing anyone needs the main stream media for now is to cite their ridiculous editorials for the purpose of ridicule.  The collectivists and the press have been like two ticks and no dog – both of them parasites.  Eventually parasites have to perish.  Unfortunately for us, many more parasites are in cahoots with the collectivists, but that’s for another time.  Right now, don’t lament the death of the main stream media.  They deserve it.  Good riddance.  You can write their obituary and bid them farewell.  They’re done.

Next, Mike Vanderboegh has harped on a theme, that being “We won’t fire the first shot.  We will shoot in self defense.”  Sure enough, it almost came to that, but not quite.  The militia who did show up held their composure and did remarkably well.  No one took wild shots, no one escalated the situation, but a strong message was sent.

That said, this is far from over.  The BLM is still very active, and for those who are of like mind, i.e., the notion that the federal government owns land is morally abominable, there are many miles to go before we rest.  In fact, this wasn’t even a skirmish.  It was a prelude to coming attractions if the federal government doesn’t check its own power (something not likely to happen).  There are many federal agencies (DOJ, ATF, EPA, BLM, DHS, DEA, etc.), and together they can successfully trample rights just about anywhere over just about anything they wish.

Next, while I do like my AR-15, for the men who were providing overwatch and security for the protesters, I wondered if I was in that position which weapon I would want?  My answer?  My scoped, bolt action rifle.  Leave the squad rushes and advance through fields of fire to the U.S. Marines on base at Camps Lejeune and Pendleton.  Such would have been folly in a situation like this.  One commenter remarked concerning a previous article that a sniper is anyone firing from a clandestine position.  I don’t buy it.  If that’s true, I can arm my mother and stick here in a hole and call her a sniper.  Skilled shooting would have been at a premium if this had escalated to an engagement.

Finally (and there will be many more observations we will be able to make as this all sinks in), since the roots of this are so easily explained, the judgment is just as simple.  Tyrants wish to usurp God’s authority.  Thus their lusts and desires for rule over others runs antithetical to the economy and administration of the Almighty.

The halls of tyranny are the abode of demons and haters of God.  But God will not be mocked.  Tyrants and those who enable them will lose their souls, but even before that, time isn’t on their side.  Tyrants will be held accountable both in time and eternity.

Every high thing must come down
Every stronghold shall be broken
He wears the Victor’s crown
He shall overcome
He shall overcome

Be of strong heart and good cheer.  You are not on the losing side.

By now, almost everyone is aware of the controversial acquittal of Casey Anthony in Orlando, Florida.

Unlike many people (and despite being a lawyer by trade), I did not follow this case and I have been only casually following its results.

But there are two, critical points that need to be made and understood here.

First, in our system of criminal justice, the State must prove its case.  This is such a fundamental concept for the American system that it is almost embarrassing to mention.   Nonetheless, it seems that many people in the media and protesters outside of the courthouse have forgotten that all-important concept.   But this idea that the State must prove the guilt of the accused, and prove it beyond a “reasonable doubt” to a jury of peers is the key stone that protects us from arbitrary oppression by the State.  The Founding Fathers considered this an essential bulwark of liberty.   So when the jurors in the Casey Anthony case explain that they could not convict Ms. Anthony because the State had not proven the allegations, that is an extremely serious charge and one that indicates that the system is working.

The fact that the public perceives that “justice” was not carried out illustrates: (A) that the public is never shy about condemning people without all the facts that were available to the jury, and; (B) that the public has lost sight of this key responsibility of the State to prove its case.   As Americans, we must accept that there will be cases where, for whatever reason, the State cannot meet its burden to prove guilt and a criminal may escape punishment for a crime committed.   That is the serious price of liberty, however, and until someone devises a better method to protect us from the oppressive force of the State, we run a grave risk when we undercut that protection by demanding the condemnation of persons that the State could not prove were guilty.

Which brings me to my second point, as illustrated by this article in The Daily Mail.

A juror in the Casey Anthony trial has told how she received death threats and has been unable to work since she was cleared of murder.

The woman, known only as juror number 12 left her job and went into hiding fearing co-workers would ‘want her head on a platter’.

Her husband said before leaving she told him: ‘I’d rather go to jail than sit on a jury like this again.’

And this:

One, Jennifer Ford, 32, said there was not evidence to convict the 25-year-old mother.

She said: ‘I did not say she was innocent, I just said there was not enough evidence.

‘If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be.’

The nursing student told ABC news: ”Everyone wonders why we didn’t speak to the media right away.

‘It was because we were sick to our stomach to get that verdict.

Another, Russell Huekler said the jury only saw evidence that Anthony was a good mother.

He said: ‘‘The first number of witnesses were Casey’s friend and every time that they said they saw Casey with Caylee, it was a loving relationship and no one provided evidence to the contrary.’

When we reach the point that jurors cannot serve without fearing for their lives if they dare to hold the State accountable for proving guilt, the jury system collapses.  At that point, jurors compelled to serve will become little better than rubber-stamps for the State, voting to convict out of fear of mob violence and the complete disruption of their lives.   And when the State can count on guilty verdicts, no matter how sloppy or non-existent the evidence, the door is wide open to tyranny.   And, lest anyone think that tyranny cannot happen in these United States, just look at the Fast and Furious/Gunwalker scandal for a sample of government run amok.