DEA Raided This Woman's House After She Shopped At A Garden Store

[The Straight Story]

Angela Kirking never thought shopping for garden supplies would lead to agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration waking her up with guns drawn, but that's what happened last October.

"I bought a bottle of organic fertilizer, a 16-ounce bottle," said Kirking, a 46-year-old face-paint artist. "Three weeks later I was raided by DEA."

The DEA is refusing to answer questions about the law enforcement operation targeting an Illinois garden store that has netted Kirking and at least 10 other people. But Kirking and her lawyer contend it's a case of misplaced priorities and federal overreach. They're asking why the DEA is treating ordinary customers of a garden store selling hydroponic equipment as if they were major drug dealers.

The Oct. 11, 2013, raid on Kirking's house, first reported by Patch, involved four DEA agents and five Shorewood, Ill., police officers, according to a police report. Its alleged yield from Kirking's art room, whose entrance is guarded by beads: 9.3 grams of marijuana, or less than one-third of an ounce.

Now Kirking's defense lawyer, former Will County (Ill.) prosecutor Jeff Tomczak, is trying to have the search warrant and the two misdemeanor charges it produced thrown out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/12/dea-marijuana-garden-store_n_5128771.html

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. "The DEA is refusing to answer questions"

Screw the goons.

[progressoid]

2. Phew. Thank Gawd those guys were dispatched to stop such a heinous criminal.

I feel much safer now.

[DustyJoe]

3. OMFG

Its alleged yield from Kirking's art room, whose entrance is guarded by beads
.
.
LOLOLs I want me some of these pitbull guard beads.

[Logical]

4. Well, they did find pot in her trash. Valid warrant. Not sure they did anything wrong......

what we need to do is stop going after pot at all. Obama could change this easily.

Isn't there real dangerous drugs we can go after?

[jberryhill]

27. The result doesn't render the warrant "valid"

[Logical]

28. They found pot in the trash before they got the warrant. That is probable cause for the warrant. nt

[Downwinder]

5. Think I'll try to find a hydroponic store

just to give then a little business.

[Major Nikon]

11. I'm doing hydroponic vegetable gardening this year

Now all I need is Sgt Stedenko rifling through my garbage.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Code name Hard Hat

HARD HAT!!!!

[Major Nikon]

20. Lardass!!! Lardass!!!

[OnionPatch]

6. I'm confused.....how did they even know what she bought?

Are the stores giving information to the cops? Are the cops checking people's credit accounts? WTF?

[RainDog]

10. The Drug War made the 4th amendment obsolete

here are just a few of the things done to protect us from reefer madness... hmmm, or is it reefer madness itself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/31/the-drug-war-exception-to-the-fourth-amendment/

Police routinely watch garden centers and follow people who purchase items from the same. For all you know, they have someone in them working undercover.

Cause, really, gardeners are no better than terrorists, right?

[Warren DeMontague]

13. She was arrested for 1/3rd of an ounce of marijuana.

Clearly, the face painting artist is a dangerous drug criminal.

So much for that shit about "the DEA doesn't run around arresting pot smokers", huh?

[RainDog]

15. but she's a scary gardener!

the next thing you know, she'll be talking up hermaphroditic plants! it's the end of civilization!!!!!

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Some of those face paint jobs freak me out

I can see why the authoritahs might be concernened.

[RainDog]

17. ...

[Warren DeMontague]

18. It's nice to see Juggalos developing some art literacy

So, there's that.

[RainDog]

19. face painting is a gateway to luche libre

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I always knew you were a closet

libretarian!

[RainDog]

23. watch it, buddy

you know I have a temper when people start labeling me falsely.

although some have correctly called me a librarian in the past...

btw, there are a million versions of this and they are all awful in their own way. so glad I was in another sort of librarianship.

[nationalize the fed]

22. This has been going on since the '90s

Operation Green Merchant

The DEA believed that High Times magazine, pot seed merchants, indoor pot growers, pot journalists and hydroponics equipment manufacturers were a criminal conspiracy worthy of a nationwide takedown.

Operation Green Merchant was the DEA's comprehensive attempt to destroy pot magazines and hydroponics and indoor marijuana growing industries. To understanding the US government's bizarre attack on this legitimate, multi-faceted industry, realize that DEA ideology brands the hydroponics industry as the indoor marijuana industry, and vice versa.
http://cannabisculture.com/articles/4557.html

Also: NSA, DEA, IRS Lie About Fact That Americans Are Routinely Spied On By Our Government: Time For A Special Prosecutor

It seems that every day brings a new revelation about the scope of the NSA’s heretofore secret warrantless mass surveillance programs. And as we learn more, the picture becomes increasingly alarming. Last week we discovered that the NSA shares information with a division of the Drug Enforcement Administration called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The DEA uses the information in drug investigations. But it also gives NSA data out to other agencies – in particular, the Internal Revenue Service, which, as you might imagine, is always looking for information on tax cheats.

The Obama Administration repeatedly has assured us that the NSA does not collect the private information of ordinary Americans. Those statements simply are not true. We now know that the agency regularly intercepts and inspects Americans’ phone calls, emails, and other communications, and it shares this information with other federal agencies that use it to investigate drug trafficking and tax evasion. Worse, DEA and IRS agents are told to lie to judges and defense attorneys about their use of NSA data, and about the very existence of the SOD, and to make up stories about how these investigations started so that no one will know information is coming from the NSA’s top secret surveillance programs.

“Now, wait a minute,” you might be say...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennifergranick/2013/08/14/nsa-dea-irs-lie-about-fact-that-americans-are-routinely-spied-on-by-our-government-time-for-a-special-prosecutor-2/

All this while the Feds hold a patent on the main ingredient in pot

But we're all just supposed to shut up and go along. Don't rock the boat. You'll be called a Conspiracy Theorist or a Truther or a Racist.

[hobbit709]

36. Pay cash, don't use your plastic. No records.

[Initech]

7. Hey Republicans: this is what big government really is!!!!

Big government is a highly militarized police state with misplaced priorities like this. It's not medicare or medicade, it's a complete war on anybody who's not a member of the upper 1%.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

8. Fuckers! nt

[kath]

9. Sing it with me- In the la-and of the fuh-reeeee, and the home of the brave.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Typical.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. I thought getting high on liquid fertilizer went out with Morning Glory seeds and Lava Lamps.

[Major Nikon]

29. Amateur hydroponics is the domain of pot growers

It's vividly apparent if you ever wander into a hydro store. Shelves are filled with fertilizer pre-mixes with names like "Sensi Grow". I remember back in the day the Stedenko types were staking out head shops. I guess not much has changed in the past 30-40 years.

[Snarkoleptic]

25. There was a NW suburban Chicago "brew and grow" store

where the authorities installed a utility pole-mounted surveillance camera that looked like a typical grey transformer cylinder.
They would then follow patrons back to their homes, imply they were growing cannabis and press for a warrantless search.

Brian Kuehling, a 35-year-old software salesman from Cary, said neither he nor his wife got an exact explanation for why agents appeared at his door asking to search his house. Kuehling, another customer of the store who was once followed home, said the agents, who found beer brewing supplies but nothing illegal, mentioned the store during their search.

This story is from 1993, so it's been the MO for quite a while.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-03-24/news/9303240430_1_hydroponic-equipment-operation-green-merchant-store-last-week/2

[agbdf]

26. Liberals too are concerned about the occasional excesses of government!

I'm happy to see that some of my fellow Democrats are also outraged over the violation of this woman's rights. Attacking government has become the rallying cry of the RW. However, we too should be concerned when legitimate intrusions, like this incident, occur.

[roody]

30. Sarcasm?

[agbdf]

34. No, not at all

No Sarcasm. I am a proud liberal and occasionally like to remind people that for years, liberals where advocating for the rights of individuals under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of Constitution while more conservative minded folk seemed happy to live in a world with those abuses when they thought it suited them.

[davidn3600]

32. Oh...but we are not a "police state" to some in here

[seveneyes]

33. Guess who could help reel the DEA in right now

Yes, our Democratic President and his administration. The bigger question is, why has he not done it?

[kath]

37. You hater, you! Why would you say that?

[sorefeet]

35. Why would anyone want to work for the DEA

Ya got to wonder. It takes a loser not to know that your job is one of the most corrupt in the country. You are not needed in ANY form what so ever. You are a WASTE of tax payer money. You cause more harm and cost more money that could be totally eliminated from the American language. You are as useless as any right wing radio hack. And your mamma is so proud of her brave little man for fighting all them bad drug dealers. Does she know that you are working WITH the Mexican drug cartels, to keep a flow of meth, just so they can justify their job. Does your mamma know who the real drug dealer is????? It's a God damned fucking GAME people. When the president can literally change it all, with a swipe of the pen and he doesn't????? Then it's a fucking corporate game. The PTB pulling strings.