Charles Taylor: “I offer this amendment today in order to protect the most basic of our private property rights, the right to keep…”

“I offer this amendment today in order to protect the most basic of our private property rights, the right to keep Government bureaucrats or their agents from snooping on your land and then taking actions that could significantly devalue and regulate that land without ever letting the landowner know they are there or getting that landowner's permission at all. Most people think their land is an extension of their castle, that people do not have the right to come on it without their permission. The Constitution, they feel, gives them that protection and provides a way for the Government to enter their land after going through judicial channels if it becomes necessary. Now, last year, when this House debated H.R. 1845, the national biological survey bill, I offered an amendment that would require first of all that Federal agencies must comply with all State trespass and privacy laws when coming upon property.”