To all, This is an open letter to all of my internet friends who support me in my battle against the tyrannical bureaucrats at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. I received a three month suspension without pay because I dared to speak out about my Department's armed raid to seize turtles. I bundled all of the newspaper articles concerning the turtle raid into one file and attached them to this message. Please circulate this widely, as I have an upcoming hearing where I will be confronting the bureaucrats face-to-face. Thanks to all for your support. Together we CAN take America back! W. David Kuehne Electronic Technician Pennsylvania, USA -------------------------- Attachments ------------------------------ Introduction: In May, 1995, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) conducted an *ARMED* raid on a man's home. His crime was breeding an "endangered species" of turtles without the blessing of NJDEP bureaucrats. I contacted a victim of this assault, Mrs. Albert, age 66. She said the family has spent nearly $35,000 in legal fees to try to get the turtles returned to the natural habitat that the Alberts constructed on their property. She said she was told by a state bureaucrat not to fight them in court "because we have 450 lawyers." It's no wonder New Jersey is a "tangled legal web of a mess." Clearly the government is no longer a "servant of the people." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Article 1 (The one that started it all) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Turtle Issue on Fast Track in Court The Times, Trenton, New Jersey, June 22, 1995 Emily J. Hornaday, Staff Writer --------------------------------------------------------------------- TRENTON - Turtles may move slowly, but they've been put on the fast track in court this week. A Superior Court judge has been asked to determine where some of the shelled creatures will live and who will take care of them. On May 18, officers from the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife of the state's Department of Environmental Protection raided the home of Douglas N. Albert Jr., 33, in Scotch Plains, Union County, and seized 26 bog turtles, which are on the endangered species list in this state. The officers who conducted the raid were armed and even wore flak jackets. One of them stepped on and killed one of the palm-sized turtles they were trying to seize. Albert, who says he purchased the turtles lawfully from a Florida dealer since the mid-1980s, has sued the DEP in an attempt to get the turtles back. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation now has the turtles and is conducting scientific studies at the Bronx Zoo in New York, according to court documents. Lewis Goldshore, Albert's attorney, said yesterday his client has raised turtles at his parents' home for most of his life, and has purchased and raised bog turtles for the past decade. Albert has created a quarter-acre habitat for the turtles that acts as an artificial marsh, Goldshore said. Albert, an amateur scientist, is interested in husbandry and has managed to get the turtles to breed in captivity, which is very difficult, Goldshore said. "It's really a labor of love", Goldshore said. The turtles are worth about $11,000 and Albert has spent "tens of thousands" more on the habitat, but is not suing the state for any money. "All he wants is the turtles back", Goldshore said. Bog turtles are not on the federal government's endangered species list, so they can lawfully be purchased in some states. In 1991 Albert voluntarily turned his turtles over to the DEP. He contends that he did so on the promise that the DEP would give him a permit for the animals. The DEP subsequently returned the turtles to Albert, who claims one of the turtles died and others became ill while they were in the DEP's custody. Paul Kalka, a zoologist with Fish, Game and Wildlife, has worked on the case since 1991. In court documents, he maintains that Albert failed to get the proper permit to have the turtles, and when Albert did apply for the permit he was turned down, so the turtles became the property of New Jersey. In court documents, Kalka said the turtles were returned to Albert in 1991 pending the final determination of their ownership. In 1993, the state became concerned that Albert was releasing some of them into the wild, which Kalka believes increases the risk of transmitting diseases and "establishing deleterious genes" in wild turtles as well as disrupting the social behavior of the indigenous turtles. In court documents, Kalka said Albert's home was raided because he believed Albert might release the turtles rather than hand them over to the state. "I considered Mr. Albert's treatment of the turtles to be a well intentioned effort by an amatuerhobbyist, lacking any legitimate scientific purpose", Kalka wrote. Goldshore said Albert rubbed the government the wrong way because it mistakenly believes only scientists can work with certain animals. "They see no place for the amatuer, self-taught scientist", Goldshore said. "This isn't a good guys-bad guys thing. The state is on the right side of the issue in wanting to protect the animals", Goldshore said. The turtles, which are about 3.5 inches long, have just come out of hibernation and are readying to lay eggs for hatching, Goldshore said. Goldshore said Albert does not know what happened to them after they were seized and is concerned for their welfare. "We want them back. They're acclimated to his habitat and that's where they belong", Goldshore said. No one from DEP could be reached to comment about the case yesterday. Goldshore said he believes the state should encourage people like Albert, rather than spending money on costly litigation to stop them. "I'm still hoping we can work something out", Goldberg said. Superior Court Judge Philip S. Carchman is expected to rule today. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Times, June 22, 1995 P.O. Box 847, Trenton, NJ 08605 Fax: 609-394-2810 Voice: 609-989-5454 <76666.1313@compuserve.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow up: Judge Carchman turned down Albert's request to have the turtles returned to his care. The turtles remained in custody at the Bronx Zoo. In his ruling June 23, Judge Carchman said his primary concern was for the welfare of the animals, and not in the interests of any of the litigants. "These turtles deserve full protection under the law," Carchman said. Carchman said the ultimate issue is not whether Albert purchased the turtles lawfully, but whether he has any right to have them in New Jersey. According to Carchman the Endangered Species Act, which protects 30 species in the state, must be read broadly to ensure the animals are protected. Goldshore had argued that because the turtles Albert bought in Florida are not indigenous to New Jersey they are not subject to this state's endangered species requirements. In ruling against Albert, Carchman said "indigenous" should be read the way the dictionary defines it: that animals that reside somewhere are indigenous. "These turtles clearly live in New Jersey now," Carchman said. According to Judge Carchman's logic everyone living in America is a "native-American." I guess "political correctness" doesn't apply to turtles. Either that or Judge Carchman has cabbage for brains! On October 13, 1995, the court reaffirmed that Mr. Albert had no legal property rights to the turtles because he could not establish that they were obtained legally. Can *YOU* establish that everything *YOU* own was obtained legally? If not, then any two-bit, tin-horn government agency can plunder your property at will. All citizens of the united States should be outraged at this abuse of government authority. Make sure that those who are entrusted with this authority are held personally accountable for these abuses. Demand that they obey the Constitution. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Article 2 (Is this how we save the earth?) --------------------------------------------------------------------- New Jersey Eco-Bully at Work The Trentonian, August 19, 1996 --------------------------------------------------------------------- In recent years, the N.J. Dept. of Environmental Protection: * Filed charges and threatened $50,000-a-day fines, based on a phoned-in complaint and without doing any investigation itself, against an East Amwell Township man for allegedly running an illegal waste disposal facility. Two and a half years later, the charges were found baseless - after the man spent most of his life savings defending his case. * Pounced on a small Hunterdon County firm and demanded huge fines for pollution in a company holding pond. Main cause of the pollution: droppings from migrating Canada geese. * Invoked an industrial cleanup law against a Medford man who restored antique furniture in his garage, forcing him to spend $100,000 on pollution test wells and engineering studies. The case was dropped after nearly bankrupting the man. * Demanded a $3,000 fine from nuns who run a small school in Gloucester County for a harmless paperwork error the nuns made on a DEP bureaucratic form. Embarrassed legislative leaders dipped into their campaign funds to pay the fine for the nuns. * Fined a Pemberton Township man $12,000 for disturbing the "successional cycle of vegetation," i.e., mowing the weeds on a vacant lot that DEP said included "protected freshwater wetlands." --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Trentonian, August 19, 1996 600 Perry St.,Trenton, NJ 08602,(609) 989-7800 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Article 3 (NJDEP strikes back!) --------------------------------------------------------------------- WORKER PUNISHED FOR DEP DIS The Trentonian, September 3, 1996 By Dave Neese --------------------------------------------------------------------- * William D. Kuehne used DEP Internet facilities to criticize a ham-handed turtle raid in 1995. A Department of Environmental Protection employee who lambasted the agency for its "police-state" mentality now faces a three-month suspension for daring to criticize the state. The employee, William D. Kuehne, 32, attacked DEP's Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife for staging an armed raid on one man's home to seize his turtles. The agency says Kuehne's comments about the 1995 raid were "highly derogatory" to the agency and "defamed" department bigwigs. The DEP has charged Kuehne with "conduct unbecoming a public employee." Kuehne has worked at DEP since 1989 and is a $34,537-a-year electronics technician in the agency's Bureau of Air Quality Monitoring. On April 1 he used a DEP computer to send his remarks ridiculing the turtle raid out over the Internet. As a result, he now also faces a departmental charge of "misusing public property." "It took maybe all of two minutes" to put the message out on the Internet, says Kuehne, and he did it during a break. "It didn't cost the department any money," he adds. Kuehne's boss, John Elston, administrator of the Office of Air Quality Management, says Kuehne is "entitled to his opinions on department policy." But he's not entitled to use "state facilities to express those views," adds Elston. Elston recommended less harsh punishment for Kuehne, a reprimand. He says Kuehne has been "counseled" and now appreciates that DEP "Internet facilities are to be used for work-related functions only." But according to Kuehne, other DEP officials weren't satisfied with just a reprimand and are now pressing for a 65-day job suspension without pay. A "Preliminary Notice of Disciplinary Action" issued on June 12 warned Kuehne he faces the possible long suspension starting on a date "to be determined." A three-month suspension, Kuehne notes, would be the same punishment that two DEP employees previously received for using hours of work time to circulate scores of dirty jokes about blacks, Puerto Ricans and women via the department's E-mail. "The message that the department is sending out here seems to be that criticizing the department is as bad as being a racist and sexist," says Kuehne. Kuehne says he's received good job performance ratings with DEP, although he's been lectured for arriving late. "I've taken the job seriously and tried to do the best I could," he says. "I've been conscientious. I've never been a troublemaker." Kuehne, who maintains DEP's equipment for measuring air pollution, says he's become increasingly concerned lately about DEP's overzealous and ham-handed enforcement tactics. And he says he's also become disturbed by the "radical" agendas of some environmental groups. Some of these groups, he says, want to undermine property rights - "or abolish them completely" - in the name of saving the environment. He says DEP has "many good, dedicated, hard-working employees." But the agency all too often has exhibited an "eco-fascist" attitude in its enforcement actions, he adds. The DEP Fish and Game Division's turtle raid at the Scotch Plains home of Douglas N. Albert Jr. in May 1995 prompted him to go public and attack his own agency, says Kuehne. Armed Fish and Game Division agents, wearing bulletproof vests, stormed Albert's home to seize 26 bog turtles the man had legally bought from a Florida dealer. Bog turtles are on New Jersey's endangered species list - though not on the federal government's list. DEP contended Albert needed a DEP permit to keep the turtles even though he acquired them legally from another state. After refusing to grant him the permit, the Fish and Game Division swooped in and seized the turtles. In storming Albert's property in the name of protecting the endangered species turtles, a Fish and Game agent accidentally stomped on one and killed it. On the outraged Internet message that now has him in trouble with his bosses, Kuehne commented: "If a state agency in New Jersey can invade a man's home to seize turtles, then you can bet that any state or federal agency can raid anyone's home at any time for any reason." "When I started working at DEP," he added, "I had no idea that environmentalism meant kicking in people's doors and seizing their property at gunpoint." That was an unfair exaggeration, DEP officials complain. In fact, they say, no doors were kicked in and no guns were drawn. Kuehne concedes his Internet tirade contained some over-heated verbiage. Still, he says, his main point remains valid - the turtle raid was a gross over-reaction of debatable legality. Superior Court Judge Philip Carchman later ruled the Fish and Game Division had authority to seize the turtles, even though Albert had legally purchased them. Albert's lawyer argued in the case DEP's endangered species rules applied only to species native to, or "indigenous" to, New Jersey. But Carchman ruled the term "indigenous" should be interpreted broadly. He held that since the turtles were now living in New Jersey, they should be deemed "indigenous" to the state. Lampooning Carchman's line of reasoning, Kuehne in his barbed Internet comments declared the judge surely has "cabbage for brains." Amy Collings, a DEP spokeswoman, says rules forbid her from discussing specific disciplinary cases while they're still pending. But she says DEP has "very strict" rules prohibiting the use of work time and equipment "for anything other than publicly funded state business." The agency, she adds, bases employee punishment on several factors, including "seriousness and type of incident and prior infractions." --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Trentonian, September 3, 1996 600 Perry St.,Trenton, NJ 08602 (609) 989-7800 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Time to "Give 'em Hell"! --------------------------------------------------------------------- SHAME ON YOU NEW JERSEY!!! NJDEP Contact information: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/ The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Robert C. Shinn, Jr., Commissioner E-mail: 401 E. State Street, CN 402 Trenton, NJ 08625 Telephone (609) 292-2885 Fax (609) 292-7695 ---------------------------------------------------------------------