BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING...

[SAXIS ISLANDER]

The following story is a little unsettling. Apparently Johnny Law can and will watch you anywhere regardless of who owns the property.

They can easily post a camera, watch you hunt without being there, and write a ticket for what they saw on the chip??

The following is a article from the Virginia Pilot Feb. 15, 2009.

Farmers beware: Big Brother may be watching.

Eastern Shore soybean farmer Steve Van- Kesteren learned that the hard way when he was charged with taking two red-tailed hawks, a violation of the federal Migratory Bird Act.

The evidence against him was a video recording showing him dispatching the birds with an ax.

Game wardens had put a hidden camera in a tree, pointed at VanKesteren's soybean fields, after receiving a complaint about protected birds getting caught in predator traps. The wardens had to walk or drive off a road, past a hedgerow, and travel about a quarter mile through one field and past a second hedgerow. VanKesteren said it appears they cut a swath through some brush to get to the tree.

VanKesteren took his case to the second-highest court in the nation, arguing his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches was violated.

While sympathetic, and even concerned about the video intrusion, two federal judges ruled against him, and a panel at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied his appeal.

"I don't like the installation of a video camera on somebody's property," U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith said during VanKesteren's appeal of the magistrate judge ruling finding him guilty.

"I don't think they can manage my farm from up in Richmond or Washington, D.C., where they come from," he said during a stroll through his fields last week.

"I think I can do a better job than they can," he said.

VanKesteren, 61, is semiretired but still farms much of his 500 acres around his Poplar Cove Road home in Onancock. He tends leased farmland as well, growing wheat and corn as well as soybeans.

He's lived in the same 18th-century house overlooking Onancock Creek his entire life. His father farmed the same lands, growing mainly spinach until he got fed up with Canada geese eating too much of the crop.

In his spare time, Van-Kesteren fishes, hunts and plants grasses, shrubs and trees in an ongoing conservation effort. He said he'd never been in trouble with game wardens before.

He'd been having a particular problem with foxes eating his crops, so he set up cage traps in several spots next to his fields.

In late 2006, someone - VanKesteren doesn't know who - called the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to report seeing a protected bird caught in a trap on VanKesteren's farmland.

A game warden, technically called a conservation police officer, went to the site and found a cage trap, about 2 feet high, with two caught pigeons. Pigeons are not protected birds.

In January 2007, the officer and special operations agents returned to the farmland, off Acorn Road with no homes in sight, and set up a hidden video camera.

The officers had to walk at least 400 yards across one field to get to a hedgerow where VanKesteren had set some traps. The area where the traps were set isn't visible from the road.

The camera was on for 21 days.

VanKesteren was recorded taking two red-tailed hawks, also known as chickenhawks, from the trap and whacking each in the head with an ax. VanKesteren admits he did it and says he had no choice.

"I didn't want to let them suffer," he said. "When you put a trap out you can catch just about anything."

He said when it was legal years ago to kill hawks he wouldn't do it because they benefit farmers by eating small rodents.

At one point in the video, VanKesteren walks right toward the camera, which was tied to a tree. He said he was probably a foot away and never noticed.

When confronted with the video by state and federal agents, VanKesteren said he caught the hawks inadvertently. He said it was an honest mistake and that he should have taken the birds to a veterinarian or obtained a permit to kill them, which he had done in previous years. (He said he gave up with permits because the bureaucracy became too complicated.)

"The defendant showed no remorse for the killings and asked the agents several times to drop the matter," federal prosecutor Dee Sterling wrote in a court brief, quoting from the earlier testimony of the agents.

An agent testified that the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries regularly uses surveillance cameras when investigating suspicious activity.

"With only five special agents in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it was extremely impractical to conduct live surveillance," Sterling wrote.

VanKesteren fought the case, initially on his own. He argued before a U.S. magistrate judge in Norfolk that the game wardens violated his constitutional rights against unlawful searches by entering his private property and videotaping his activities.

He wondered what would have happened if he 'd been caught on tape urinating near his field. Would he be charged with indecent exposure? What if he were having a romantic interlude in his fields?

After losing at the magistrate level and being ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, VanKesteren hired an attorney and appealed to Smith, the district court judge.

"As noted by other courts, hidden video surveillance invokes images of the 'Orwellian state' and is regarded by society as more egregious than other kinds of intrusions," James Broccoletti, Smith's attorney, wrote in his appeal.

Broccoletti argued the case before Smith in December 2007.

"We have not found any reported cases dealing with the installation of a video camera on private property," he told the judge.

"In open field cases, law enforcement officers are entitled to, and regularly do, go upon private property to conduct their investigations," Sterling responded. "No warrant is required, period."

Judge Smith, though, was clearly concerned.

"Assuming that you are right in that regard, can you still go onto somebody's private property and install a video camera?" Smith asked. "So we are just going to keep it rolling for 24 hours to see if we find something?"

If the camera were on a public street, there wouldn't be any problem, the judge said.

"The concern here is not the walking on, so much as the installation of a continuous running video camera," she said.

In the end, however, she ruled against VanKesteren, citing case law dating back to the 1920s that allows surveillance of open fields without a warrant.

Broccoletti took the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December but lost there too. The court, however, noted its concern as well.

"The idea of a video camera constantly recording activities on one's property is undoubtedly unsettling to some," the court wrote in its ruling issued last month.

"Individuals might engage in any number of intimate activities on their wooded property or open field - from romantic trysts under a moonlit sky to relieving oneself," the court continued. "But the protection of the Fourth Amendment is not predicated upon these subjective beliefs."

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries defended its use of cameras, stating that it is a common practice in any law enforcement agency.

"I would say law enforcement agencies have used cameras for as long as cameras have been around," said Julia Dixon, media relations coordinator for the agency.

"A lot of this investigative work is done in remote rural areas. It's a tool to help us gather information," she said, adding that she could not recall anyone challenging the practice.

"In general, usually when we have someone who's been charged, that's a very compelling piece of evidence to have. At that point they're not disputing the video," she said.

VanKesteren is considering appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, but that is an expensive venture.

In the meantime, he has removed the cage traps but has a number of foot traps set out to catch foxes and other predators. Birds cannot get caught in them.

"I'll tell you, this opened my eyes about how the government works," VanKesteren said.

He wondered what Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would think.

"What if those people had come to them and said, 'We're going to put you in prison for killing a chickenhawk'? " he asked. "I think they would have started another revolution."

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com

[anthony]

I'm thinking I know of a duck blind or two that may have the same survelliance next year. I have nothing to fear...I would never intentionally break the law.

On a serious note, that is a bit disconcerting and is reminscient of Orwell's "1984"

[WAHOONBOX]

AT LEAST NOW WE KNOW IT IS PERMISSABLE TO SET UP VIDEO SURVELLENCE AT THE GAME WARDENS HOMES AS WELL....

I THINK I WOULD LIKE ONE IN THEIR VEHICLE AS WELL....SO WE CAN MONITOR THEIR DAILY ACTIVITIES....


AND WHILE WE ARE PLAYING HOLLYWOOD...LET'S SET SOME CAMERAS UP AT THE SUPREME COURT BUILDING IN THE PRIVATE OFFICES AND SEE WHATS HAPPENING IN THEIR WORLD...

WHILE I AGREE THAT HE HANDLED HIS SITUATION WRONG....I THINK THE WARDENS WHO WENT TO THE TROUBLE TO DO WHAT THEY DID SHOULD BE SENT TO AFGHANISTAN WITH THEIR BIGTIME SPY TECHNOLOGY AND CAPTURE SOME REAL PERPS....









AND ONE MORE THING.......THE ASS WIPE THAT TURNED HIM IN. THAT PERSON IS PROBABLY A SO CALLED FRIEND OF THE FARMER....SOMEONE THE FARMER WOULD NORMALLY TRUST.......THAT PERSON IS A LOWLIFE SCUM BAG PIECE OF CHICKEN SHIT

[stressrelief 28.5]

I hate to have to agree with Box but I think hes right in this case.

[bigfish4me]

Funny, i thought the same thing.....i bet it was a buddy of his that dropped the dime, if not it was some one clearly trespassing on his land since none of the traps were visible from anywhere off of his property.

[Deep C]

I'm totally shocked. That to me is a direct invasion of privacy and HAS to violate rights somewhere along the line. Like a wire tap or other surveilance it should be required to obtain a warrant first. Further the arresting officers and or officers putting up the recording device on provate property should be prosecuted for tresspassing which they are in clear violation of.

The chicken shit who ratted the guy out should be dispatched with extreme prejudice...

[SAXIS ISLANDER]

Here's the link to the decision.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/...th/084110p.pdf

Does this farmer deny he killed the hawks? No. The issue I have is how the intel was gathered. Some old 1920 law based on bootleggin established that there is no expectation of privacy in open fields. But to have a state employee take it on him/her self to decide what or who should be monitored via camera is very unnerving. What if you and your significnat other decided to "take a roll in the hay" and that was caught on tape. Certainly most of us would expect some privacy in this case, expecially if on land we owned.

At a mimimum such zealous enforcers of the law should be required to have a judge's permission to post such a camera. This is vastly different from the cameras placed on public property such as streets, parking lots, alleys and similar places where there is no expectation of privacy. Private land should be handled different. I believe at a minimum a warrant should be required.

Very slippery stuff here... Very slippery....

Yes there are some who say that law enforcement should be held to a higher standard and conduct themselves often as such. I'll agree to some degree...but this is the same Virginia agency used taxpayer dollars to fund a AFRICIAN SAFARI a few years back, along with optics, clothing and equipment for the same.

It'll be interesting tosee if the accused here pushes the issue farther up the line or if cost will be a prohibitive factor in setting a new precedent.

I agree with Box...lets lojac their vehicles so we can track them.

[Capt-D]

Originally Posted by SAXIS ISLANDER

It'll be interesting tosee if the accused here pushes the issue farther up the line or if cost will be a prohibitive factor in setting a new precedent.

Another question is where are organizations such as the ACLU, who tout from so high above on their platforms about protecting the rights of individuals, in a case such as this? Or does this type of case fit within their agenda?

-D

[Rob Rondini]

i'll say it before and i'll say it again. some of our so called peace keepers are some of the biggest scum bags out there. i myself have a date with a certain dnr man next month.

[Reelin Sportfishing Charters]

wow, so you guys think it's ok to kill a bird of prey?

what the guy did was wrong. if he'd just released the bird's, even injuryed he'd be ok ( i think)

i guess i'm not really crazy about the camera issue, but the game wardens did have probable cause.

if the guy was inoccent, they would have not set up the camera. they suspected something was up.

would you guys have felt differently if it was a bald eagle?