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

by Rand Paul

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  I dedicate this book to my mother and my father…

  From the age of eleven, I followed my father everywhere. I listened to every speech and interview, thousands of them. Are individualists born or nurtured? I think I was both. But for every avenue that my father and I share—medicine, politics, biking, to name a few—there exists a quieter yet equally powerful influence without which I would not be who I am and this book could not have come forth. That force comes from my mother. Mothers never get enough credit. So, Mom and Dad. Here’s to you—a million thanks.

  Foreword by Ron Paul

  The sole purpose of government is to protect our liberties. But today we have a government that has too often become the enemy of liberty. The Constitution is supposed to restrain and limit the government’s power. But every day our government behaves as if it has no limits on its power.

  How our government regularly abuses American citizens and ignores their rights would’ve outraged our Founding Fathers. They did not fight a revolution against a tyrannical government in faraway England simply to implement the same kind of government on their own soil. As Benjamin Franklin famously said and our Founders knew well, those who trade liberty for security get neither.

  Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.

  Rand has compiled stories in this book that sound as if they took place under a tyrannical dictatorship, not in the world’s self-proclaimed freest nation. Our government now throws people in jail just for trying to make improvements to their own property. It seizes materials from private businesses and issues draconian fines. It gropes and humiliates travelers as standard policy. Washington, D.C., even tells us what kind of milk we can and cannot drink.

  What we can say, do, or think has somehow now become the government’s business. It’s as if the Constitution and the Bill of Rights never even existed.

  The ways in which government abuses us is rampant. Rand will tell you the story of the Sackett family, who took on the Environmental Protection Agency in a case of blatant federal agency overreach and abuse of private property rights. Without any proof or reason, and no chance for appeal, the EPA determined that the Sacketts’ small single-home lot was a “protected wetland.” The Sacketts were ordered to halt construction already under way, to remove all of the work already done, and to plant trees and shrubs consistent with a wetlands environment. After making these costly changes, the Sacketts then would have to wait several years for the EPA to decide if they would be allowed to use their own property. Refusal to comply with these outrageous and arbitrary commandments would result in daily fines greater than the value of the property!

  My own district in Texas is no stranger to these issues, and has suffered from similar government decrees not unlike those imposed through elastic definitions of “wetland.” Again, with no evidence to support their decision, the EPA arbitrarily determined Matagorda County to be an “Ozone Nonattainment Region,” meaning its air quality is substandard. In fact, the population in the county has been decreasing and the small quantity of emissions reported from it has actually declined in recent years. The Texas agency charged with environmental protection disagrees with the EPA. Yet Matagorda County, like the Sacketts, finds itself at the mercy of the EPA. New business and construction will be stymied until the Washington masters are satisfied.

  Unless Congress does something about this, EPA bureaucrats will continue to inflict potentially devastating economic consequences on communities like Matagorda County and people like the Sacketts. Destroying the economy is no way to save the environment. A thriving economy and a fair judicial system that respects property rights and the Constitution provide the best protection for the environment.

  Unfortunately, our government currently has about as much use for justice or fairness as it does for the Constitution itself. Just take a look at what it currently thinks about the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

  We are not “secure” in any reasonable sense if an agency like the EPA can target innocent citizens and ruin their lives. We are certainly no longer protected from “unreasonable searches,” an act the Transportation Security Administration now considers standard practice. Rand was stopped and harassed last year by the TSA, something he recounts in this book. Much worse are the horror stories he tells of Americans being abused in a much harsher manner, all in the name of “safety.”

  The growing revolt against invasive TSA practices is encouraging to Americans who are fed up with federal government encroachment in their lives. In the case of air travelers, this encroachment is quite literally physical. Fortunately, a deep-seated libertarian impulse still exists within the American people, and opposition to the implementation of the TSA full-body scanners and groping searches proves that such sentiment is gathering momentum.

  Rand and I both have introduced legislation to get rid of the TSA and limit its ability to harass citizens. I introduced legislation based on a very simple principle: Federal agents should be subject to the same laws as ordinary citizens. If you would face criminal prosecution or a lawsuit for groping someone, exposing them to unwelcome radiation, causing them emotional distress, or violating indecency laws, then TSA agents should similarly face sanctions for their actions.

  This principle goes beyond TSA agents, however. As commentator Lew Rockwell has noted, the bill “enshrines the key lesson of the freedom philosophy: the government is not above the moral law. If it is wrong for you and me, it is wrong for people in government suits.… That is true of TSA crimes too.” The revolt against TSA also serves as a refreshing reminder that we should not give in to government alarmism or be afraid to question government policies.

  Certainly, those who choose to refuse the humiliating and potentially harmful full-body scanner machines may suffer delays, inconveniences, or worse. But I still believe peaceful resistance is the most effective tool against federal encroachment on our constitutional rights, which leads me to be supportive of any kind of “opt-out” or similar popular movements.

  After all, what price can we place on our dignity, personal privacy, and physical integrity? We have a right not to be treated like criminals and searched by federal agents without some reasonable evidence of criminal activity. Are we now to accept th
at merely wishing to travel and board an aircraft give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminality?

  Also, let’s not forget that the TSA was created in the aftermath of 9/11, when far too many Americans were clamoring for government protection from the specter of terrorism. Indeed it was congressional Republicans, the majority party in 2001, who must bear much of the blame for creating the Department of Homeland Security and TSA in the first place. Congressional Republicans also overwhelmingly supported the Patriot Act, which added to the atmosphere of hostility toward civil liberties in the name of state-provided “security.”

  But as we’ve seen with the TSA, federal “security” has more to do with humiliation and control than making us safe. It has more to do with instilling a mindset of subservience, which is why laughable policies such as removing one’s shoes continue to be enforced. What else could explain the shabby, degrading spectacle of a line of normally upbeat Americans shuffling obediently through airport security in their stocking feet?

  Computer security specialist Bruce Schneier has called much of what government agencies like the TSA do “security theater,” which means all the harassment and abuse of innocent citizens is intended to give the illusion of safer travel while nothing is really being done to make this a reality.

  And consider what the TSA actually does on a regular basis. The press reports are horrifying: ninety-five-year-old women humiliated; children molested; disabled people abused; men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas; involuntary radiation exposure. If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents. Unfortunately, in this case the perpetrators are armed federal agents.

  The requirement that Americans be forced to undergo this appalling treatment simply for the “privilege” of traveling in their own country reveals much about how the federal government feels about our liberties. The unfortunate fact that we put up with this does not speak well for our willingness to stand up to an abusive government.

  Many Americans continue to fool themselves into accepting TSA abuse by saying, “I don’t mind giving up my freedoms for security.” In fact, they are giving up their liberties and not receiving security in return. Consider some of the stories we’ve heard: An elderly cancer victim was forced to submit to a cruel and pointless TSA search, including removal of an adult diaper, yet a Nigerian immigrant somehow managed to stroll through TSA security checks and board a flight from New York to Los Angeles—with a stolen, expired boarding pass and an out-of-date student ID as his sole identification! He was detained and questioned, only to be released to do it again five days later! We should not be surprised to find government ineptitude and indifference at the TSA.

  At the time the TSA was being created I strongly opposed federalization of airline security. As I wrote in an article back in 2001:

  Congress should be privatizing rather than nationalizing airport security. The free market can and does produce excellent security in many industries. Many security-intensive industries do an outstanding job of maintaining safety without depending on federal agencies. Nuclear power plants, chemical plants, oil refineries, and armored money transport companies all employ private security forces that operate very effectively. No government agency will ever care about the bottom-line security and profitability of the airlines more than the airlines themselves. Airlines cannot make money if travelers and flight crews are afraid to fly, and in a free market they would drastically change security measures to prevent future tragedies. In the current regulatory environment, however, the airlines prefer to relinquish all responsibility for security to the government, so that they cannot be held accountable for lapses in the future.

  What we need is real privatization of security, but not phony privatization with the same TSA screeners in private security firm uniforms still operating under the “guidance” of the federal government. Real security will be achieved when the airlines are once again in charge of protecting their property and their passengers.

  If the TSA is busy fooling us into believing it is keeping us safe from terrorists, other government agencies also try to make us believe they are protecting us from ourselves. The Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture are perfect examples of supposedly well-intentioned government run amok.

  In this book, Rand tells the story of Dan Allgyer. After a yearlong undercover sting operation, armed federal agents acting on behalf of the FDA raided the business of this Pennsylvanian Amish farmer to prevent him from selling his unpasteurized milk to willing, fully informed customers in Maryland. Federal agents wasted a whole year and who knows how many of our tax dollars posing as customers in order to catch Allgyer committing the “crime” of selling his milk. He was not tricking people into buying it, he was not forcing people to purchase it, and there had been no complaints about his product. These were completely voluntary transactions, but ones that our nanny-state federal government did not approve of, and so they shut down his business. The arrogance of the FDA and so many other federal agencies is simply appalling. These types of police-state raids on peaceful businessmen have no place in a free society.

  The FDA claims its regulatory powers over food safety give it the authority to ban the interstate sales of raw milk, but this is an unconstitutional misapplication of the commerce clause.

  The drafters of the Constitution separated powers between the legislative executive, and judiciary branches as a means of protecting the people from concentrations of power. Today the separation of powers, for all practical purposes, no longer exists. If the executive branch feels hamstrung by the fact that our framers placed lawmaking authority in the legislative branch, they simply make their own laws and call them “regulations.” We all know how the EPA uses such bogus regulation authority to harass, hinder, and shut down countless other legitimate businesses. Sadly, Congress has been far too lax for far too long as the executive branch continues to encroach on its areas of responsibility and thereby undermine our system of government.

  Most Americans understand that if you don’t want to drink unpasteurized milk you simply do not buy it. But the federal government solution is predawn raids that destroy the livelihoods of honest, hardworking families.

  I was outraged by this raid and the many others like it, and introduced a bill to allow the shipment and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption across state lines. This legislation would remove the unconstitutional restraint on farmers who wish to sell or otherwise distribute, and people who wish to consume, unpasteurized milk and milk products.

  Americans have the right to consume these products without having the federal government second-guess their judgment or thwart their wishes. If there are legitimate concerns about the safety of unpasteurized milk, those should be addressed at the state and local level. Many Americans have done their own research and come to the conclusion that unpasteurized milk is healthier than pasteurized.

  Citizens doing their own research on what they put into their bodies, learning about what they eat, drink, or take for medicinal purposes—this information is often blocked by agencies like the FDA, a clear violation of the First Amendment.

  In 2011, I gave the following speech on the House floor:

  Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce two pieces of legislation restoring the First Amendment rights of consumers to receive truthful information regarding the benefits of foods and dietary supplements. The first bill, the Health Freedom Restoration Act, codifies the First Amendment by ending the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to censor truthful health claims. The second bill, the Freedom of Health Speech Act, codifies the First and Fifth Amendments by requiring the Federal Trade Commission to prove that health claims are false before it takes action to stop manufactures and marketers from making the claims.

  The American people have made it clear they do not want the federal government to interfere with their access to dietary supplements
, yet the FDA and the FTC continue to engage in heavy-handed attempts to restrict such access. The FDA continues to frustrate consumers’ efforts to learn how they can improve their health even after Congress, responding to a record number of constituents’ comments, passed the Dietary Supplement and Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). FDA bureaucrats are so determined to frustrate consumers’ access to truthful information that they are even evading their duty to comply with four federal court decisions vindicating consumers’ First Amendment rights to discover the health benefits of foods and dietary supplements.

  FDA bureaucrats have even refused to abide by the DSHEA section allowing the public to have access to scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in treating diseases by claiming that every article concerning this topic is evidence of intent to sell an unapproved and unlawful drug.

  Because of the FDA’s censorship of truthful health claims, millions of Americans may suffer with diseases and other health care problems they may have avoided by using dietary supplements. For example, the FDA prohibited consumers from learning how folic acid reduces the risk of neural tube defects for four years after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended every woman of childbearing age take folic acid supplements to reduce neural tube defects. This FDA action contributed to an estimated 10,000 cases of preventable neural tube defects!

  The FDA also continues to prohibit consumers from learning about the scientific evidence that glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate are effective in the treatment of osteoarthritis; that omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of sudden death heart attack; that calcium may reduce the risk of bone fractures; and that vitamin D may reduce the risk of osteoporosis, hypertension, and cancer.

  The Health Freedom Restoration Act will force the FDA to at last comply with the commands of Congress, the First Amendment, numerous federal courts, and the American people by codifying the First Amendment prohibition on prior restraint. Specifically, the Health Freedom Restoration Act stops the FDA from censoring truthful claims about the curative, mitigative, or preventative effects of dietary supplements. The Health Freedom Restoration Act also stops the FDA from prohibiting the distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease. The FDA has proven that it cannot be trusted to protect consumers’ rights to make informed choices. It is time for Congress to stop the FDA from censoring truthful health information.