Quote:

---

When Sheriff DeMeo took office in 2003, he told his deputies that illegal cattle seizures were prohibited and that any federal agents attempting to confiscate cattle would be arrested. Shortly thereafter, the BLM arrived at Hage's ranch to perform a seizure. The Sheriff's Deputy told the federal agents that there would be no seizure or taking of cattle, per DeMeo's decision based on the Constitution. The Deputy was told that the BLM federal agents intended to arrest DeMeo and use armed force to take Hage's cattle. Sheriff DeMeo advised the federal agent that their SWAT team would be faced with Sheriff DeMeo's SWAT team if they proceeded.

Sheriff DeMeo also explains that his deputies are empowered to refuse unlawful orders, if the orders violate the US Constitution, the Nevada State Constitution, local laws or policy.

Sheriff DeMeo said that while Nevada is more than 90% federally managed, these Public Lands are actually owned by The People and the federal government is limited in their authority under the Tenth Amendment and states' rights.

Sheriff DeMeo studied the Constitution in New Jersey when he was a police officer, as it was a requirement for promotion. He said that because nearly every encounter with the public involves some aspect of respecting the Constitution, he has added additional study of the Constitution to the Nye County Sheriffs training academy curriculum that was in place before he took office.

Additionally, he has given his deputies decision making authority based on the Constitution, the Nevada State Constitution, local laws and policy. They are empowered with the right to refuse unlawful orders. Sheriff DeMeo issues Empowerment Cards to his deputies which set policy for deputies when they are in contact with the public and allows deputies to make field decisions as long as they do not violate the respective Constitutions, State Law and Policies.

http://www.morphcity.com/home/80-constitutional-sheriff-tony-demeo
http://www.infowars.com/constitutional%C2%A0sheriff-tony-demeo/

Download Nye County Sheriff Empowerment Card (PDF)
http://www.morphcity.com/images/stories/pdfs/Nye_county_sheriffs_offic
e_employee_empowerment_card.pdf

---

Quote:

---

TONOPAH, Nev.: A decades-long battle between an American ranching family and the United States government over water rights and cattle grazing on federal lands appears to have ended June 6, when a D.C.-based federal judge ruled in favor of the family and awarded more than $4.2 million in compensation – plus 17 years of interest and attorney’s fees and costs -- to the estates of the late Nevada rancher and property rights advocate Wayne Hage and his first wife, Jean Nichols Hage.

The total is expected to be about $12.4 million.

While Hage and his work crew (which included 15-year-old Wayne, Jr.), were out on the range rounding up cattle, “the USFS came in: automatic weapons, flack jackets, snipers – the whole works – as if we were dangerous criminals. The USFS confiscated over a hundred head of my cattle at gun point. But when they tried to sell them, no one in Nevada would buy them because they knew they were stolen. The Forest Service, a federal agency, was engaged in cattle rustling! They had stolen my cattle and were trying to steal my land as well.”

On Sept. 26, 1991, the Hages filed a “taking” case in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, demanding just compensation for the property taken, as provided by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1979, one year after the family purchased the ranch, the Forest Service allowed the release of non-indigenous elk on one of the allotments. The elk competed with the cattle for forage and water and broke down fences. However, instead of controlling the elk, the Forest Service fined Hage for not maintaining the fences and reduced the number of cattle he was allowed.

The harrassment intensified. The Forest Service used helicopters to scatter the cattle, making it impossible for Hage to collect them in time to avoid a trespassing penalty. He was cited (and fined) for “maintenance failure” when he missed a single staple along hundreds of miles of barbed wire fence.

In one 105-day period in the early ‘80s, the Forest Service sent Hage 40 certified letters and personally visited him 70 times, citing him each time as being in violation of a bureaucratic regulation.

Perhaps the most capricious action was to demand the Hages maintain the irrigation ditches with nothing but hand tools.

“The hand tools requirement prevented all effective ditch maintenance, as it cannot be seriously argued that the work normally done by caterpillars and back hoes could be accomplished with hand tools over thousands of acres,” Judge Smith wrote in his recent ruling.

Such a requirement, he declared, “was based solely on hostility to Plaintiffs.”

Sadly, because the 17-year lawsuit dragged on so long, neither Hage, nor two other leading participants in the ongoing battle, are able to taste the fruits of victory. The rancher who had fought so long and hard, died at his home at Pine Creek Ranch, exactly two years ago to the day – on June 5, 2006 -- from a sudden recurrence of the cancer which he thought he had overcome.

His first wife Jean, who fought at his side from the very beginning, suffered a fatal heart attack and stroke in 1996, brought on by the stress of the case.

Hage’s second wife – former U.S. Representative Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, a property rights champion -- whom he married in 1999, perished tragically in a single-car accident in October 2006, just four months after the death of her husband.

http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news50.htm

http://www.prweb.com/prfiles/2008/06/09/621174/HageFinalDecision6605.p
df

---

Quote:

---

Arizona Sheriff: ‘Our Own Government Has Become Our Enemy’

Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government.

Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.

“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.

The sheriff was referring to the law suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the state’s new immigration law.

“So who has partnered with the ACLU?” Babeu said in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com. “It’s the president and (Attorney General) Eric Holder himself. And that’s simply outrageous.”

Last week, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton placed a temporary injunction on portions of the bill that allowed law enforcement personnel during the course of a criminal investigation who have probable cause to think an individual is in the country illegally to check immigration status. The state of Arizona filed an appeal on Thursday with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Our own government has become our enemy and is taking us to court at a time when we need help,” Babeu said.

“If the president would do his job and secure the border; send 3,000 armed soldiers to the Arizona border and stop the illegal immigration and the drug smuggling and the violence, we wouldn’t even be in this position and where we’re forced to take matters into our own hands,” Babeu said.
Dever said the federal government’s failure to secure the border and its current thwarting of Arizona’s effort to control illegal immigration within its borders has implications for the entire country.


“The bigger picture is while what’s going on in Arizona is critically important, what comes out of this and happens here will affect our entire nation in terms of our ability to protect our citizenry from a very serious homeland security threat,” Dever said. “People who are coming across the border in my county aren’t staying there. They’re going everywhere USA and a lot of them are bad, bad people.”

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), about 250,000 people were detained in Arizona in the last 12 months for being in the country illegally. Babeu said that that number only reflects the number of people detained and that thousands more enter the country illegally each year.

The CBP also reports that 17 percent of those detained already have a criminal record in the United States.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/70324

---