Here's What Can Happen If You Innocently Make a Paperwork Mistake - America The Police State

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George Norris, a 65 year-old orchid enthusiast gets swat-teamed and thrown in jail for not having the correct paperwork. He sold an orchid to an undercover government agent that did not have the correct paperwork. The "penalty" was 10 years. He plea-bargained to less than 2 years just to get it over with.

Mr and Mrs Norris have had their life savings wiped out trying to defend themselves from this blatant crime perpetrated against them by the people who call themselves "government".

Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.

In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100.

“The Norrises’ nightmare didn’t end until George was released from federal supervision in December 2008. Kathy testified, however, that even after he came home, the man she married was gone. George was then 71. Serving two years as a federal convict – then years more defending unsuccessfully against the charges – took a severe toll on him mentally, emotionally and physically.”

“You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.

The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.

The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with - get this- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

That’s right. Orchids.

Mr. Norris ended up spending almost two years in prison because he didn’t have the proper paperwork for some of the many orchids he imported. The orchids were all legal - but Mr. Norris and the overseas shippers who had packaged the flowers had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty’s new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora.

Google Krister Evertson for another outrageous example of government tyranny.