August 11, 2007
by Steve Osborn

I didn't think National Animal Identification System (NAIS) would ever come up for a vote. However...

Here is a letter I sent to my alleged representatives for DownsizeDC.org. I am also including a couple of links. One is Department of Agriculture's (DOA) site on the wonders of NAIS and the other is the NoNAIS site which analyzes the thing. I read the act in Hobby Farms a couple of years ago and couldn't believe it. Believe it!

One of my best friends, who has been a small farmer, and is also somewhat of an historian, tied it right in with the Soviet Collective movement. As he said, when Russia decided to take absolute control of the people, one of the first things they did was order that all food and all methods of production be turned in to the government. That done, it was easy to control the population. Cooperate or starve. Anybody who was suspected of holding out was, at the least, ransacked and their property destroyed in the search. If anything was  found, they were usually shot.

The DOA's NAIS site extols how this will protect the farmer from animal borne diseases, etc. If you read the Act, you will find it micromanages small farmers to extinction. With the exception of large agribusiness farms, every cow, horse, duck, turkey, goose, pig, chicken, you name it, must be microchipped and its movements tracked and reported on. Any animal that meets any other animal off premises, a full report of the contact is to be made and the other animal or animals id'd. If you are riding your horse off your property, everything you meet must be listed and reported on.

All hay, for instance, must have each bale identified with a number. Records are to be kept of who cut the hay, loaded the hay, transported the  hay, to whom it was sold. And so on and so on infinitum. All agribusiness has to do is fill out a form saying we raised x hundred head of cattle and sold them to slaughterhouse 5. Requirement met.

Here are two sites. DOA's NAIS site and the NoNAIS site. Well worth reading, especially the NoNais site.
http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/index.shtml
http://nonais.org/

Read Executive Order (EO) 10999 (allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.)

E.O. 10998 (allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.)

E.O. 11000 (allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.)

In fact, it you look over this site, which is now a bit dated, you will find below the main article, a list of EO's covering the martial law powers.

Oh, I forgot EO 11921 - allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."

NAIS is just one thing being introduced to facilitate this, and, I am sure, to get rid of the small farmer and hobby farmer, as they tend to be independent and hard to control.

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Here is a copy of my letter for DownsizeDC.

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Please do everything in your power to stop the Department of Agriculture from implementing or promoting the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

My personal comment to you:

When I first read about the NAIS program, I thought the obvious stupidity and cupidity of it would prevent it from ever being considered as law. Obviously I underestimated congress.

The people that are going to be hit by this are the already beleagured small farmer, the hobby farmer, and the personal pet owner, such as equestrians. It has nothing to do with animal health, but rather tracking every potential food or work animal so that, should martial law be declared, all can be picked up by the government, which already has executive orders regarding the confiscation of all food stuffs and resources by the government.

This was used when the Soviet Union collectivized agriculture. Everyone was supposed to turn in all of their food, animals, stored crops, etc, to the collectives. If it was suspected that someone was holding out food for himself and family, the Red Army sent in a company to tear apart the farm to see if they were holding out. Anything found, even a chicken, pig, or small store of preserved food was confiscated and the farmer went to a gulag or was shot on site as a counter-revolutionary.

NAIS will force people to spend endless amounts of time and money tracking the movements of their own animals, recording whom they meet, should they take their horse on a trail ride, tracking the movement of the hay from their fields, recording who handled the hay, who transported it, where it is stored, to whom it was sold.

READ the entire NAIS Act before you even consider voting on it. Put yourself in the place of the small farmer. As usual, Agribusiness is not effected by this, but they will increase their holdings as small farms are driven out of business.

Reject NAIS, it is regressive, offensive, and UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

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As usual, I doubt that common sense and rationality will have much of an effect on the Democans and the Republicrats, but we've got to keep trying. We are really standing on the slippery slope at the edge of the abyss.

Yours for peace and sanity in our time.

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Stephen M. Osborn [send him email] is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.