A former Capitol Hill lawyer and White House official says Congress, bureaucrats and activist judges are destroying American's constitutional liberties.  In his new book, Warriors for the West:  Fighting Bureaucrats, Radical Groups, and Liberal Judges on America's Frontier, author William Perry Pendley reveals the inside truth about government bureaucracy and its stranglehold on Americans' constitutional liberties and the rule of law.

Recently, Perry Pendley spoke with CFIF Corporate Counsel & Senior Vice President Renee Giachino about his new book and the work of his organization, the Mountain States Legal Foundation.  What follows is excerpts from the radio interview that aired on "Your Turn - Meeting Nonsense With Common Sense" on WEBY 1330 AM, Northwest Florida's Talk Radio.

GIACHINO:  My first guest this afternoon serves as president and chief legal officer of Mountain States Legal Foundation and has litigated against the United States at the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal courts of appeal.  He is a former Marine officer, Capitol Hill lawyer, and Reagan Administration official.  He is an author, having written War on the West: Government Tyranny on America's Great Frontier and It Takes A Hero: The Grassroots Battle Against Environmental Oppression.  He was born and raised in Wyoming, he currently lives in Colorado's Rocky Mountains.  He joins us this afternoon to discuss his latest book, Warriors for the West:  Fighting Bureaucrats, Radical Groups, and Liberal Judges on America's Frontier.

Please welcome Mr. William Perry Pendley.  Mr. Pendley, thank you so much for joining us.

PENDLEY:  Renee it is great to be with you.

GIACHINO:  Mr. Pendley, please tell us about Mountain States Legal Foundation.

PENDLEY:  Mountain States Legal Foundation is a non-profit public interest law firm created in 1977 by the late Joe Coors who also created the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.  It is involved exclusively in litigation on behalf of people who cannot afford to hire attorneys to fight for constitutional liberties and the rule of law.  Of course we have a website at www.mountainstateslegal.org.

We have done a series of things which I lay out in the book - a list of cases that we have had in the last 10 or 15 years, including 3 trips to the U.S. Supreme Court in challenging racial preferences.

GIACHINO:  While I have you, because you are our Supreme Court expert of the day because you have been fortunate enough to have argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, which not a lot of people can say they have done -- Today, history was made with the confirmation of our 110^th Justice - Samuel Alito.  What changes do you see for the court and do you think we will see more sensible environmental decisions?

PENDLEY:  I believe that we will see some change.  One of the things that distinguished Justice O'Connor's jurisprudence over the years was defender liability.  She developed tests of her own that she applied in unique ways from case-to-case and instance-to-instance and frankly no one could ever tell where she was coming from.  For example, she ruled in my favor against racial preferences by the government saying that the federal government could not award contracts on the basis of race and then turned around and ruled in favor of Michigan Law School with regard to it discriminating against law students.  So I think that we are going to have a little more steady hand from Justice Alito. 

Another area that people have not talked about and I talk about it in my book is this whole issue of the Establishment Clause.  Justice O'Connor was a great foe of any sign of faith or any demonstration of faith in the public square.  She came down consistently with the most liberal justices on the Court in that regard.  I don't see Justice Alito being there and I think we are going to see some changes there with regard to what governments can do to prevent people from demonstrating their faith and to see signs of faith in the public square.

GIACHINO:  Okay, one more question about the Supreme Court and then I want to turn the conversation to your wonderful book - Warriors for the West.  On the topic of the U.S. Supreme Court, can you please share with us your thoughts on the Kelo decision - perhaps touching on the shocking case that you highlight in your book on how Congress orders the seizure of private land for recreations, but when land owners seek what they are entitled to under the Constitution - that is "just compensation" -- the federal lawyers stonewall them?

PENDLEY: Yes, they do.  Of course you are talking about two different issues as I know you know.  One is the just compensation that one is entitled to under the Fifth Amendment - every person is entitled to that when the government seizes property.  The Fifth Amendment says private property will not be taken for public use without just compensation.  And you would like to think that when the government seizes property the government falls over itself to make sure that people get paid.  That is not my experience.  My experience - I represented a farming family, hog farmers, down in Marthasville, Missouri, and we fought for 13 years to get them paid for a mere 12 acres of land that the government had seized for a bike trail.

Now the other issue that comes up in the Kelo decision is what is the issue of public use?  Historically, most of us thought that public use meant that the government would use it - it would be a hospital or highway or military base.  In fact, as Justice Thomas said in his dissenting opinion in Kelo "public use has always meant that the public gets to use it."  And so we never have seen the public use doctrine used to allow governments to seize property - say take it from a mom-and-pop espresso stand and hand it over to the Starbucks Corporation.  We thought that would never happen.

Well in the Kelo decision that is exactly what happened.  And a lot of us had great hopes that the Supreme Court would do the right thing in that case because just one year before the Supreme Court of Michigan had turned around and reversed itself on this whole issue.  And a lot of us thought the U.S. Supreme Court was going to do the right thing.

Now Justice O'Connor was on the right side there.  She wrote a wonderful dissenting opinion, as did Justice Clarence Thomas.  However, I need to point this out, unfortunately Justice O'Connor had gone the wrong way back in 1987.  And in 2005 Justice Kennedy embraced Justice O'Connor's 20 year-old opinion and said Justice O'Connor was right back in 1987.

GIACHINO:  You know it reminds me of situation several years ago when my organization received a telephone call from a very angry landowner whose property included part of the C&O Canal and for many, many years an easement was given for them to run the boats up and down the C&O Canal and even for a small train that ran at some point.  Well since then the railway has shut down and the C&O Canal is no longer used as a means of major transportation and so she has been farming that land and using that land.  And then all of the sudden the state department of recreation wanted to come in and make it a bike path.

PENDLEY:  This is what is permitted under the federal Rails-to-Trail Act.  You are talking about thousands and thousands of people throughout this country who have tucked away somewhere a deed from a railroad and the deed says that for a dollar and other consideration in hand we have an easement across your property and for railroad purposes and if the railroad ever goes away you get your land back.  Well Congress jumped in and said "not so fast."  Whenever these railroads go away, those Johnny-on-the-spot environmentalists go in there and demand that the property not go back to the landowner but that they want it for a trail.  What a surprise to all of these landowners.

The issue of whether Congress can do this is over.  That decision was issued years ago.  But now the question is whether these landowners get paid for it.  And that is the battle that we have been in and other landowners across the country find themselves in.

GIACHINO:  Right, and it is a very unfortunate situation.  First and foremost, they are being told that their private property is essentially being turned over to the government for the Rails-to-Trails and guess what we are not even going to pay you for it.  So there is no just compensation.

PENDLEY:  That's right.  The contract that they had has no meaning.  Congress has robbed their contract.

GIACHINO:  Okay, let's now turn to your most recent book, Warriors for the West.  Let me set this up a little for the listeners.  Throughout the book Mr. Pendley documents many very important battles, many of which happened in the great expanse of the western front, but these are important battles that everyday Americans, heroes in their own right, have undertook in the name of liberty.

Let me just touch briefly on one story and then ask you to expand upon it.  In the first chapter you write about the harrowing story of John Shuler who killed a grizzly bear on his own property in self-defense and to protect his property, sheep and home and was later held liable under the Endangered Species Act.  Facing fines of up to $5,000, he appealed.  Mr. Shuler spent 8 years in litigation over the matter, with legal costs exceeding $225,000.  This obviously was a terrible ordeal for Mr. Shuler and his family.  What is equally as sad is the horrible consequences of the hard stance of the government in this case.  Can you share with the listeners the follow-up story you write about involving another individual under attack by a grizzly?

PENDLEY:  Absolutely.  And it really is startling.  I say that after 8 years and $250,000 - now we paid that and our client didn't pay a penny, we won.  But in the end, the federal government won because it has established this terrible precedent that when faced with a $5,000 fine, a person who could not afford $250,000 in attorney's fees, is left with no choice but to pay the fine. 

It also had this other terrible circumstance, which is what you were talking about, involving a hunter named van Fleet who went hunting in Wyoming and when he heard the sound of a grizzly bear coming and he turned around and looked and saw it coming he had a powerful hunting rifle and incredibly enough he laid the hunting rifle down and took a can of pepper spray off his belt and tried to use that.  The bear went right through the pepper spray and tore him up.  He spent weeks in the hospital. 

Subsequently I spoke with him because when the media interviewed him he said he put his gun down because he wanted to do the right thing and he did not want to lose his hunting license.  So I asked him if he really said that and he said that he did.  I asked him what he meant by that and he said he had heard all about my client John Shuler and the 8 years ordeal he went through and I didn't want that to happen to me.  What a remarkable thing - a man standing there facing the most fearful killing machine in America fears his government's action against him more than he fears the grizzly bear.

GIACHINO:  It's a sad situation.  It's sort of that slippery slope.  People think that it is just that one man's battle with our government when in the end he wins but we all lose because we have people putting their guns down and being maimed by grizzly bears because they are afraid that they are going to have to pay a $5,000 fine or fight and spend $250,000.

PENDLEY:  Essentially what the federal government has done here is repeal from the Endangered Species Act the self-defense provision.  It is as if Congress never wrote it in because when the government enforces it the way that it does and simply says you can claim self-defense but we are going to take you to court for 8 years and make you spend $250,000, it is as if that provision was never written in the law.

GIACHINO:  To read the chapter in the book Warriors for the West on that issue it is unbelievable -- the mental gymnastics they put that person through because he took his dog out there with him and then could it be self-defense.

PENDLEY:  You are absolutely right.  The first layer of litigation which we were involved with before an administrative law judge that guy said John Shuler was scared he was going to get killed but he never should have gone outside.  He said he was at fault because he never should have gone outside.

And then the next layer that we were at before an administrative panel that said he had the right to go outside but he took his dog with him and when his dog saw him he went on point and that provoked the bear and escalated the conflict.

And then the worst of all was when we got in federal court and the federal government said if John Shuler had killed another human being he would have had a right to a self-defense claim.  However, because he killed a grizzly bear we believe grizzly bears are entitled to a higher standard because they are incapable of sapient thought.  You could not make this stuff up.  Will Rogers used to say "I don't tell jokes, I report the news."  He had it right.

GIACHINO:  That is just one of the many, many wonderful stories included in this book, Warriors for the West.   And one thing that I want to point out to the listeners is that we don't very often hear about most of these cases.  These cases don't make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.  And they don't make it there because our government, which is usually on the other side of these cases, has an unlimited pocket-book and will spend anything that it takes to get the case and keep it in the lower court and then get it thrown out on procedural grounds.  It is really an atrocity because it has an impact on all of us through that slippery slope.

We have a caller on hold.  Let's go ahead and take the call.

CALLER:  The last statement he made about what is happening just cements my opinion about D.C. and the justice we have in this country.  My question is how much land has the U.N. taken from America right now?

PENDLEY:  Well you are talking about these designations of lands as part of U.N. program.  We don't have land that belongs to the U.N. but they fall under the management auspices.  For example, several years ago back in the early days of the Clinton Administration, there was a proposal to develop a world-class mineral deposit north of Yellowstone National Park.  I am talking outside the park, not inside, and we had these internationalists called in - these U.N. people, to come to Montana and advocate that these lands be designated part of a U.N. protection zone.  And in fact the National Park Service urged it.  So we do have that overlay.  But that is the least of our concerns.

The biggest of our concerns is that the U.S. government owns a third of the land, most of it in the West, and we do have, like you said when you started your question, we really don't have a U.S. Department of Justice, we have a U.S. Department of Litigation.  And maybe that works for private attorneys to be zealous in their advocacy, but I always thought that Justice lawyers were supposed to do justice.

CALLER:  What happened to common sense?  It just has no bearing anymore.

PENDLEY:  I agree with you.

CALLER:  I just wanted to bring up that U.N. stuff and you said that there were international people coming to our country and staking their claim, sort of.  Is that right?

PENDLEY:  Well, it was the U.N. people coming in and listing Yellowstone National Park because of this mine that was going to take place outside of the park, as one of the world's endangered sites.

CALLER:  You are talking about foreigners aren't you?

PENDLEY:  Exactly.

CALLER:  Okay, so now we have foreigners coming into our country and telling us how we should use our land.  Correct?  Under the U.N. emblem, right?

PENDLEY:  That's right.  It's ridiculous but it does not have much effect.  I will tell you what does is the west - basically the eight mountain states, that has become a free play zone for Senators and Congress members all around the country.

Today, Justice Alito was confirmed.  Senator Chaffee from Rhode Island said he could not vote for him because Chaffee is such a pro-environment Senator.  Well, what he means is that he wants to shut down activity in the west.  It is a great opportunity for him.

GIACHINO:  We have time for one more quick call.  Go ahead, it's your turn.

CALLER:  To me both major parties are keeping the power in the federal government and not in the states.  I wonder who you voted for president.

PENDLEY:  (laughing).  Well I don't know, I'm kind of down on politicians right now after I finished writing this book.  I got so eaten up writing all these stories.  One of the frustrating things for me was that every single official, whether in the executive or legislative or judicial branch, takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution.  And you find so often, and my experience in all of these cases, is that these officials say we'll let the courts decide whether it is Constitutional or not.  They are basically shrugging their duty and responsibility and that is extremely frustrating.

We had one case, it's in Chapter Two of my book "Lying, Cheating Bureaucrats", where bureaucrats committed outright fraud.  Scores of bureaucrats committed the fraud and we took it to the U.S. Congress and said please get involved with this and put an end to it and they said they would not because it was involved in litigation.

CALLER:  I wonder what your thoughts are if your own state were able to run things instead of the federal government.

PENDLEY:  Here's the thing.  As I said earlier, a third of the land is owned by the federal government and most of that land is in the western states.  So you will have a state like Wyoming where half of the land is owned by the federal government, and as a result of that any time rural counties want to engage in economic activity or recreational activity it is "mother may I" with the federal government.  And these decisions on not made on the basis of local need or local interests.  They are made from national headquarters in New York and San Francisco by these national environmental organizations - what I call these radical organizations, that say these westerners don't really know what they need and so we will decide what ought to be going on on these federal lands.

GIACHINO:  Mr. Pendley, I apologize that we need to end this segment.  I want to make sure that the listeners know the book is called Warriors for the West.  It is a wonderful book that talks about issues not just relating to the west but many issues involving illegal immigration and the First Amendment being a shield and not a sword. 

Mr. Pendley, thank you very much for your time this afternoon and for writing the book.