Natural News reports:
The US government’s assault against innocent American citizens continues to get more aggressive and just plain strange, with new reports of harassment against honest owners of ordinary lemon trees.Health Freedom Alliance(HFA) reports that officials from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) are now spying on people whom they suspect are in possession of ordinary lemon trees, and threatening them with excessive fines and even federal raids if they refuse to surrender the plants on demand.
Several years ago, Bridget Donovan, who has now been dubbed “The Lemon Tree Lady,” purchased a Meyer lemon tree from meyerlemontree.com. A resident of Wisconsin, Donovan purchased the tree legally and in full accordance with all federal and state laws regulating citrus transport, and had lovingly cultivated and cared for her indoor citrus plant for nearly three years.
Then, out of nowhere, Donovan received an unexpected letter from the USDA informing her that government officials were going to come and seize her tree and destroy it — and that she was not going to be compensated for her loss. The letter also threatened that if Donovan was found to be in possession of “regulated citrus” again, she could be fined up to $60,000.
The truly disturbing part about all of this is not just the fact that the government is threatening old women with prison and fines for growing lemon trees, but how the government knew the woman was growing a lemon tree in the first place.
How did the Feds know this woman had a tree in her house? The tree was INDOORS – so how could any Feds have possibly known about it?
Of course, the Feds must have searched her banking transactions to determine that she purchased such a tree. But what probable cause could the Feds have had to conduct such a search of her credit history to begin with?
The adjoining article notes:
They invaded her privacy, tracked her down through her purchases, and sternly warned they would get that tree one way or another. It appears she is on a “citrus watch list.”
The government is completely out of control. It is now targeting old ladies who threaten the citrus industry by growing their own lemons. It is randomly searching the credit history of innocent Americans for any possible violations of the millions of pages of US legal code. There is no other possible explanation.
Do you still think we live in a “free” country?
