Recall Orange County Sheriff Hutchens

Under new Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, Orange County increasingly resembles East Germany under the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit  (Ministry for State Security), or Stasi.

Like the Stasi, Hutchens has violated essential rights, such as spying on supervisors, intimidating citizens, and violating the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Her abuses demand an immediate recall.

Charges

The charges against her:

1. Intimidating citizens. As my former Register editorial page colleague Steven Greenhut wrote yesterday:

Based on a rumor that gun-rights activists would show up to protest her policies by carrying unloaded guns in holsters, the sheriff sent more than 20 deputies to the public board meeting, where they searched, watched, followed and questioned those residents who showed up to speak out against the sheriff’s new-and-not-so-improved plan to move up the expiration date of gun permits. The deputies targeted only those people who showed up wearing pro-gun-rights buttons or who appeared to be part of that group. The department told me that “only” three “subjects” (what an ironic term!) were searched or contacted, but I talked to CCW activists who said the number was higher. Many felt intimidated and monitored….

Regardless of the number of actual searches, the effect on the meeting was chilling….

I talked to a number of CCW supporters who attended the meeting, and they all felt picked on and intimidated.

As John Lott and other scholars have shown, in fact conceal-carry citizens are the most law-abiding for two reasons: 1) If you violate the law, you can’t get a conceal-carry license. 2. If you get such a license, you don’t want it taken away if you, so you don’t break the law. Hutchens’ intimidation is a police-state abuse of the first order.

Moreover, as Lott has proven, the more conceal-carry guns that are on the streets, the fewer crimes are committed because criminals don’t know which victim might be armed.

2. Violating the First Amendment “right of the people to peaceably assemble.” Harassing citizens at a public meeting is an especially egregious violation of civil rights.

3. Violating the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” As was noted by Founding Father Tench Coxe, this right was not just for hunters, or even for self protection, but for protection against a tyrannical government:

As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before
them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be
occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to
the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next
article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, agreed with that exposition, as noted in the book I linked to.

And last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller found that this was not a collective right, but an individual right.

4. Spying on elected leaders.  Greenhut describes what happened:

Sheriff Hutchens said she was upset after learning that deputies used the board room’s security surveillance cameras – usually operated by security staff – to not only scan audience members but to focus in on and, in fact, spy on two supervisors’ notes and one’s BlackBerry-like device. She has started an internal affairs investigation into the matter. In a case of damage control, she contacted the two supervisors after someone submitted a public records act request for the surveillance tapes that showed this abuse of the security cameras.

But she still defends what Supervisor Chris Norby calls the “1984-like” approach to security by pointing to instances in other communities where violence took place at government meetings and arguing that it’s her job, in her words, to “balance” the security of the board room with First Amendment rights.

Let’s pick apart this Orwellian language. First, the First Amendment gives the public the right to speak out. Any effort by government to stifle debate and criticism by using searches and intimidation is an affront to the Constitution. It’s not the government’s job to “balance” our rights; that’s totalitarian language. Its job is to protect our natural rights to life, liberty and property. Government has been granted, by the people, certain specific authorities but that does not give it carte blanche to behave in any manner it chooses.

As of today, Jan. 26, 2008, Hutchens refused to turn over the spy tapes to the board of supervisors, the people’s elected representatives. Writes Art Pedroza:

I spoke to [Supervisor Chris] Norby about this the on Saturday night, at the Judge Jim Gray retirement party.  Norby said that Hutchens’ people (ie. Jack Anderson) would not turn over the tapes.  Apparently the excuse is that Hutchens feels the footage includes security issues.  For example, according to Anderson, you could find out what spots at the County’s Board Room could be “blind spots,” by viewing the tapes.

Norby of course was flabbergasted by this stupid excuse.  Why would he, or Supervisor Nguyen, reveal that information to anyone?  Isn’t the security system supposed to protect the Supervisors?  Why would they move to undermine it?

Norby said it was not likely he would sit through six hours of tape.  Instead a staffer would get to do that.  But Anderson, and his boss Hutchens, simply would not allow Norby to take the tape.

This is more police-state indimidation.

Hutchens really a Fed

A big part of the problem with Hutchens is that she has no previous links to Orange County, especially no inkling that this is a country that treasures liberty far more than most places. Her previous job was as chief of the L.A. Sheriffs’ Office of Homeland Security. This 2003 L.A. Sheriff’s press release explained:

As Chief of the Office of Homeland Security, Chief Hutchens is involved with all aspects of local homeland security for the County of Los Angeles and commissioner on the Los Angeles County Emergency Preparedness Commission.

Additionally, she serves as the Department’s Emergency Coordinator and is the Department’s liaison to the federal government for all matters relating to homeland security and the ongoing anti-terrorism effort.

The Department of Homeland Security was the vaguely German-Stasi sounding new bureaucracy Bush imposed when he panicked after 9/11. (Germans refer to their “Heimat,” or homeland; American patriots refer to our “country.” Notes Wikipedia: “The specific aspects of Heimat — love and attachment to homeland and the rejection of anything foreign — left the idea vulnerable to easy assimilation into the fascist ‘blood and soil’ literature of the National Socialists.”)

Imposing the Department of Heimat Security was totally unnecessary and a major step toward a police state. We already were defended by the Department of Defense, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. The DHS also imposed federal hegemony over formerly independent local police and sheriffs, who now effectively are sub-departments of the DHS/Stasi.

Hutchens certainly has brought that mentality to her new job as O.C. Sheriff, as Greenhut explains:

This is the handiwork of a sheriff who, according to the Jan. 27 board agenda, wants to start a Homeland Security-funded Intelligence Assessment Center “to provide an integrated, multi-disciplined, information and intelligence sharing network to collect, analyze and disseminate information on all criminal risks and safety threats to law enforcement, fire, health, private sector and public stakeholders.”

Can we trust her with even more power to monitor and eavesdrop on O.C. residents? It’s a valid question that must be asked at that board meeting. But those who oppose the new center should not wear any buttons indicating their views, unless they want to be searched and harassed.

Recall Hutchens now

No, we can’t trust her.  At this point, we only can trust the people of Orange County and the recall procedure.

Last year, convicted felon Sheriff Mike Carona quit under a cloud of scandal. This year, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens must be recalled to get rid of her storm of tyranny.

In 1989, the East Germans ripped down the Berlin Wall, got rid of the Stasi, and restored freedom. In 2009, Orange County must rip down the Orange Curtain, recall Hutchens, and restore freedom.