A friend had taken me up to his Uncle Jim’s property, which was located about an hour drive from Redding in Northern California. It was three hundred acres of stream, hills, and woods out in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing for miles. Nothing. The nearest town, if you can call it that, was a 30 minute drive away. If my memory serves me correctly, it consisted of a feed shop, a gas station, and a small mom and pop's market.

We knew the property was pretty isolated and so we brought our compound bows and a few handguns. I jump at every opportunity to shoot without having to pay some kind of range fee since I live in a VERY urban part of the state. If I want to shoot where I live, I either have to pay range fees or make an hour drive to my Aunt and Uncle’s place in Morgan Hill.

After breakfast, we set up this little makeshift bow range and starting shooting. Soon after we began shooting, I noticed that a helicopter was flying around over our general area. It wasn't a UH60, UH1H, or any other military-type chopper. It appeared to be some civilian variety and we couldn't make out any markings on it. We just went back to what we were doing.

similar helicopter paid for by DHS grant

After an hour of shooting, my friend and I hopped on a 4-wheeler and drove around the property for a few hours. When we returned to the camp, Jim informed us that an "Agent" had stopped by. My response, "What do you mean, an Agent?"

"Well, one of those Department of Homeland Security Agents stopped by. He wanted me to let you guys know that their chopper had spotted you and you've been labeled as a hunting group. He also wanted me to tell you that he called the Department of Fish and Game and let them know you guys were out here. They are going to keep an eye on you and if they see you shoot anything, you'd better have tags for it or they’ll send the Game Warden out here and you'll be arrested for poaching."

I asked, "What the hell is the DHS doing way out here? Shouldn't they be looking for terrorists?"

Jim said, "They are always out here. One of their Agents stops by a few times a week (he named the Agent but I don't recall the name. It was obvious by the way Jim referred to this Agent that he had some sort of regular contact with him). I think they are worried about terrorists setting up training camps out here."

A few hours later, a Warden from Fish and Game stopped by and had a little chat with us. He told us that one of the DHS Agents had called him to let him know we were out here. He did notify us that poaching was a problem out here. He didn’t outright threaten us but alluded to the fact that we would be in big trouble if they caught us poaching. He mentioned typical punishments dished out to those found guilty of poaching, one of which was losing hunting rights permanently. I’d have told him why we were really up there but hey, it was none of his damn business, government employee or not.

We went on with our weekend and noted that the chopper was in the air pretty much the entire time we were there. It would disappear for a little while and then reappear again. I'm sure it stopped every once in a while to refuel or give the pilot a break for lunch but it was in the air quite a bit. It was even flying around during the night at times. It occurred to me at the time that they must be employing two pilots, full time, to keep the chopper in the air for that length of time every day.

Throughout the remainder of our weekend, the Warden and DHS Agent both stopped by multiple times to talk to the Jim. Conveniently, my friend and I were away from the camp every time they chose to “visit.” I can truly say that thanks to their interference, they put a damper on my mood that weekend.

How wrong is this? This whole situation could be compared to having a Police Officer sit out in front of your house and look through your windows with binoculars for most of the day. He might need to keep an eye on you in case you decide to break the law and start beating your spouse. Regardless of whether or not we are on PRIVATE PROPERTY, they are obviously allowed unlimited spying as long as it's done from the air.

Is this the mission of the DHS? Was the department created to keep track of hunters in northern California and to spy on law abiding citizens just in case we do something wrong? Most people believe that combating terrorism is the main focus of the DHS. Wrong.

On May 27th, 2007, Scott Bronstein, a CNN Senior Investigator Producer, posted an interesting story about the DHS on CNN.com.

As it turns out, terrorism is not the focus of the DHS. Per Scott Bronstein in his article, “Of the 814,073 people charged by DHS in immigration courts during the past three years, 12 faced charges of terrorism, TRAC said.”

Bronstein’s article does not mention the DHS’s conviction rate, which would probably cause further damage to DHS’s reputation of catching terrorists. If their conviction rate is anything close to the DOJ’s terrorist conviction rate (39 out of over 400, per Dan Eggen and Julie Tate, Washington Post, June 12th, 2005,) that would mean they convicted one of the 12 brought up on charges. With us coming up on the DHS’s 5th birthday, and an annual budget of approximately 44.6 billion, that would bring the cost of that conviction up to an estimated 223 billion dollars. I pretty much already knew that DHS was a complete and utter waste of 223 billion but Bronstein’s article (among others) has only verified it.

It's pretty obvious that there are no terrorists in the US, especially not in Redding. The only terrorists in the US are Bush and Dick. They’ve been terrorizing America through their war on our civil liberties and our livelihood by creating huge, bureaucratic cabinet departments like the DHS that waste taxpayer dollars and violate our privacy.

www.keenefreepress.com/mambo/index.php