November 19, 2012 — What does it take to launch a full-fledged congressional investigation, with subpoena power and criminal indictments, into this defiant and downright corrupt agency that continues to put fishing families out of work?
A NOAA promotional video — showing, believe it or not, enforcement agents boarding boats to ensure that “level playing field” — hails them for knowing that “fair and effective enforcement is vital to managing our nation’s fisheries and integral to protecting marine resources and their habitats …” and even dare to suggest that “the vast majority of fishermen follow the rules and count on us for help.”
Since when did the federal government start producing such blatant works of fiction?
OK, we believe Bruce Buckson, NOAA’s second-year law enforcement director, would like to be able to tout his agency in that fashion. But the reality is, there remains no sign whatsoever that he or NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco have taken legitimate steps in addressing the heavy-handed tactics used by agents and prosecutors that led to the agency and its parent Commerce Department being cited by its own Inspector General, issuing a Cabinet-level apology to fishermen and doling out more than $600,000 in reparations for excessive enforcement in 2011.
For Buckson and NOAA in general to spend even a dime on this kind of bogus PR when they and the Commerce Department continue to refuse release of the so-called Swartwood II report – a 550-page follow-up report delving deeper into 66 additional cases of excessive NOAA enforcement — is beyond hypocritical. It has reached the point at which it must be considered a criminal obstruction of justice.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times