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EPA Spying on Ranchers

Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid

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http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...nes-spying-on-ranchers-lawmakers-want-answers

"A Nebraska cattlemen’s group is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution-control flights over ranches, claiming it amounts to spying on citizens. EPA, meanwhile, says the flights are an effective way to quickly spot -- and stop -- pollution from manure lagoons and other waste at large livestock operations."


Ya just gotta love the gov't. I guess the EPA just wants to make sure all ranchers are walking in lockstep.


Wonder how they got a warrant to do this? Wonder who's next on the spy-in-the-sky's "lookie see" program? Maybe your backyard?
 
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Yeah making sure ranches are not dumping manure slurry into streams is making them frog march!

Get over it, given the underfunding the 'I hate gov' politicians engage in just how does the EPA monitor pollution? Drive to every ranch/pig operation/chicken factory?

It's called using technology to reduce costs. The tin foil crowd is free to disagree. FYI- I don't have a problem with them over flying my ranch, why would you have a problem with them flying over yours?
 
notquiteright said:
Yeah making sure ranches are not dumping manure slurry into streams is making them frog march!

Get over it, given the underfunding the 'I hate gov' politicians engage in just how does the EPA monitor pollution? Drive to every ranch/pig operation/chicken factory?

It's called using technology to reduce costs. The tin foil crowd is free to disagree. FYI- I don't have a problem with them over flying my ranch, why would you have a problem with them flying over yours?
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Well I'd agree, but did you see where they had a "warrant in hand" to do this? If not, then isn't this action unconstitutional?

I can see by you post it would be okay with you if they "monitored" your actions every now and again, without cause or warrant. But it wouldn't be okay in my book.


Just asking. :)
 
Billy the Kid said:
Well I'd agree, but did you see where they had a "warrant in hand" to do this? If not, then isn't this action unconstitutional?

I can see by you post it would be okay with you if they "monitored" your actions every now and again, without cause or warrant. But it wouldn't be okay in my book.


Just asking. :)
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do they need a warrant to park a car on a public street and watch you? nope.

the sky is the same thing, and a plane is very much like a car in this context. no warrant should be necessary to survey from a public location.
 
Billy the Kid said:
U.S. News - EPA planes spying on ranchers? Lawmakers want answers

"A Nebraska cattlemen’s group is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution-control flights over ranches, claiming it amounts to spying on citizens. EPA, meanwhile, says the flights are an effective way to quickly spot -- and stop -- pollution from manure lagoons and other waste at large livestock operations."


Ya just gotta love the gov't. I guess the EPA just wants to make sure all ranchers are walking in lockstep.


Wonder how they got a warrant to do this? Wonder who's next on the spy-in-the-sky's "lookie see" program? Maybe your backyard?
Click to expand...


These ranchers sound retarded.

Anything to bash the EPA. All the poor white trash will vote conservative until their kids are born with one eye because the Koch bros dumped crap into their water.

This country is doomed if regulators can't enforce rules.
 
ARealConservative said:
do they need a warrant to park a car on a public street and watch you? nope.

the sky is the same thing, and a plane is very much like a car in this context. no warrant should be necessary to survey from a public location.
Click to expand...



You could be right, if this just a fly by. But I believe this is surrvelance of specific ranches.

Maybe a "legal eagle" on the board can answer the question.
 
hazlnut said:
These ranchers sound retarded.

Anything to bash the EPA. All the poor white trash will vote conservative until their kids are born with one eye because the Koch bros dumped crap into their water.

This country is doomed if regulators can't enforce rules.
Click to expand...


Well that is another way of looking at the article.
 
I live in a remote cabin that must look like a good dope growing spot to the DEA. They hover over my house and garden area in the summer so close I can see their ****** faces. I give them both fingers and would love to point a gun at them but I don't like jails much. IMO, gov should have to have a warrent to search your property from the air weather it's searchig for pot or sewage lagoons or anything else.
 
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Billy the Kid said:
Well that is another way of looking at the article.
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Hey, I know, let's ban highway patrol from parking on overpasses with radar guns... because we wouldn't want to spy on big rigs.
 
Billy the Kid said:
Well I'd agree, but did you see where they had a "warrant in hand" to do this? If not, then isn't this action unconstitutional?

I can see by you post it would be okay with you if they "monitored" your actions every now and again, without cause or warrant. But it wouldn't be okay in my book.


Just asking. :)
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That is a bit extreme is it not? Do food safety inspections require probable cause warrants in your world too? Routine safety checks (health inspections) are the "price", in loss of freedom, that one must endure to get (and keep) a permit to serve food to the public. I assume, yet do not know for sure, that the EPA would overfly ranches only after detection of pollutants in a stream/river to attempt to find the source, not simply to waste time and tax money randomly flying around.
 
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Billy-
your being a bit extreme. If I had to guess the ranches in question you think are being 'picked on' have a history of pollution. I can see if my ranch had a history of violating laws/regulations/sheep's dignity :3oops: being under closer scrutiny.

Given the poor funding, vast areas to moniter, long distances from public roads and the difficulty in tracing pollution BACK upstream to the source, overflights make sense. Sounds to me the ranchers must have been caught pooching the local streams with cow poop and don't want to get caught again so they are trying to push back and make enforcing the pollution regulations as expensive as possible hoping the EPA will abandon enforcement.

I wonder if the ranches in question are in the Government handout program for agriculture? If so they most likely can be inspected anytime the local .gov ag agent wishes. My experience with 'em is they are waaaay too busy to just harass random ranchers.
 
I'm not the author of the article. So don't shoot me as the "bear" in this story.

I'm just asking if this is legal? I'm just asking is this survellence without a warrant?

Surely there are lawyers on site who can clarify this point.
 
Billy the Kid said:
You could be right, if this just a fly by. But I believe this is surrvelance of specific ranches.

Maybe a "legal eagle" on the board can answer the question.
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I am right. law enforcement can specifically stake out individual houses. they can take pictures, they can use magnification to get a better view. what they are doing is perfectly legal and should be.
 
ARealConservative said:
I am right. law enforcement can specifically stake out individual houses. they can take pictures, they can use magnification to get a better view. what they are doing is perfectly legal and should be.
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So, in your learned lawyer opinion, this is legal? Thanks.
 
Billy-
no worries, it is just you asked me a direct question about being monitored, and you seemed personally upset the EPA was forcing ranchers into 'lock step'. Not exactly a neutral stance.

If you don't own a ranch like I do then I tell ya what...

When I start to run, you just hop up and run too, until then sit tight and watch your sector, I got mine covered... ;)
 
I really dont get why people would be mad that the EPA is monitoring water an ensuring people dont end up drinking ****.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Highways are public areas, you have no expectation of privacy or private property rights against search and seizure.
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Is there an expectation of privacy from things I can see when I'm not even on your property? Is there an expectation of your privacy when you're standing out on your front lawn in easy view from the street?
 
The question that comes to my mind: What (Military?) Agency is doing the actual operation of the drones?
 
I'm a huge privacy rights advocate, and even I think this is stretching the paranoia a bit too far. I seriously doubt that this is neither illegal nor unconstitutional.

I did find this amusing, though...
"The same ends could be accomplished by picking up a phone, sending an email, talking to a producer in person," Kristen Hassebrook, the group's environmental affairs director, told msnbc.com.
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These same people are going to answer openly, cooperatively, and honestly? Really? Phfft! I don't think so.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
That is a bit extreme is it not? Do food safety inspections require probable cause warrants in your world too? Routine safety checks (health inspections) are the "price", in loss of freedom, that one must endure to get (and keep) a permit to serve food to the public.
I assume, yet do not know for sure, that the EPA would overfly ranches only after detection of pollutants in a stream/river to attempt to find the source, not simply to waste time and tax money randomly flying around.[/
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QUOTE]

Oh no, the government would never ever waste our tax dollars flying around for nothing, LMAO
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radcen said:
I'm a huge privacy rights advocate, and even I think this is stretching the paranoia a bit too far. I seriously doubt that this is neither illegal nor unconstitutional.
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The 4th amendment is not about privacy.The 4th amendment is about law enforcement needing a warrant in order to conduct a search and seizure. People flying aircraft over you property to look for something is a search.

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.
 
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Billy the Kid said:
U.S. News - EPA planes spying on ranchers? Lawmakers want answers

"A Nebraska cattlemen’s group is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution-control flights over ranches, claiming it amounts to spying on citizens. EPA, meanwhile, says the flights are an effective way to quickly spot -- and stop -- pollution from manure lagoons and other waste at large livestock operations."


Ya just gotta love the gov't. I guess the EPA just wants to make sure all ranchers are walking in lockstep.


Wonder how they got a warrant to do this? Wonder who's next on the spy-in-the-sky's "lookie see" program? Maybe your backyard?
Click to expand...
Just start shooting them down.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Oh no, the government would never ever waste our tax dollars flying around for nothing, LMAO
Click to expand...
We've been flying around Afghan for years, at $400 PrGal, just for the fun of it, so why not ranchers too?
 
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