Ok since most of ya don't believe that the feds can do whatever they want, I'll share pieces and parts of my experience with 'em.
Years ago I worked for a dealer in Arkansas that was hit. I was under an M5040 pulling the pan; owner was having issues with getting it started, ether'd it to start it when cold, course that bent the rods and broke the ring lands. I'm pulling bolts while the pan's dangling and some dude is hollering for me to get out from underneath. I'm figuring it was a customer needing something since I was a working service manager. I said "hold on a minute". Then a few seconds later I see the business end of a rifle and knew at that moment it was time to let the pan go and get out from under it. Trust me, you would too.
So this person had 16 others with 'im. We had 12 employees including the bosses. They lined us up facing away from the front windows of the building, execution style, at gun point. They were behind us, none of us could see their faces and at one point I questioned them "who are you and what do you want?". Response, and directly quoted, "you be quiet and WE will ask the questions.". This went on with their questions and our cooperation for about 4 1/2 hours. Our personal belongings were taken; including cellphones, knives, CC weapons, all of the landlines were shut down and they had some little box that plugged inline between the phone and the cord. Each of the 11 computers was unplugged, all of the network cables removed, and then a box of some sort was installed inline with the network cables. They had some sort of USB device, a box roughly 2" wide and maybe 3" long that they had plugged into each computer, I assume to search the drives? I don't know. I'm a tractor mechanic not an IT guy. After things calmed down a little bit, we (most of us with the exception of the office ladies who were still hysterical) started to ask questions. My coworker said "when do I call an attorney?" Person in a dark colored windbreaker says "you can call them but it won't do any good.". I then said, "I need to call the police.". Another person (female) said "you can't call them". So at this point, as someone whose scared and unable to make heads or tails of the situation, I said "identify yourselves or free us". The one big female agent pulled it's jacket back a little and on the upper left chest area read "police". On the back, I just caught a glimpse "IRS POLICE". So at this point I know who they are, and I know that they never read us any rights so I'm detained by police illegally; we were never placed under any type of arrest, yet if we tried to leave or walk away from our execution-style lineup, we were forcefully told to either sit down and shut up or they would take "further action". Also, since we were not under arrest, we all became belligerent in the questioning of why they were there and when we were to be released. There was no direct answer; only that "we will ask the questions and you will answer them". I had to pee something fierce after drinking tea in the morning before work, and I told the agent in front of me of it. Agent says "you will go when I allow you to". So I'm thinking I'm just going to have to pee in my pants (work clothes). I told agent of it and agent agreed with 2 others that it would be ok to let me go to the bathroom. I get to the bathroom door, supervised of course, I reach around to close the door, nope. Agents (2 of them) said leave the door open. So I stood there and peed with 2 agents one female one male watching me. You ever had someone stare at your junk while you're peeing? Aint no fun. Went back to line while being questioned with the others. An hour later one of the office ladies had to poop. Accompanied by 2 male agents, she did her thing in the bathroom while the agents were watching her, during and after, she was bawling her eyes out. She was just 17 years old at the time. VERY sharp minded; did her job EXCELLENT. The other office lady was 37 fixing to be 38 in a couple days; same experience, she had to pee but was accompanied by agents. She actually was scared so much that she peed on herself during the raid. She quit a few weeks after and I don't blame her. So by now things have calmed down somewhat and we got to actually speak to the agents. Turns out that the agents were flown in from all over the country. One of the female agents was from California, another from Washington State. One of the male agents was from Boston, Mass. Another from S. Carolina and one from Alabama. So my boss's wife was out there with us answering questions and told the agents (as a whole) that since were were not arrested and not read any rights, they had no right to hold us against our will. The response from the blonde female agent was "We are the federal government, we can do whatever we want.". --That is a direct quote, by the way.
Just so you people know, the IRS "police" were after records, had zero to do with taxes (people think that the IRS is all about taxing). Absolutely nothing to do with taxes. Because of the ongoing ordeal, I can't talk too much about what they were after--but you can look at the video in the link and you will see the experiences that 2 local companies (one of which I worked for) went through, and it was not just those two....there was Gibson, and a slew of others, who went through EXACTLY the same crap. In our case, NOTHING was proven, boss plead guilty to ONE (of many) counts, because they were SET UP for it. I was on the showroom helping another customer when the undercover agent made the statements that set us up for it. Basically it has to do with the amount of money and how it's handled. The agent (an african-american male) came in, walked over to her directly (passed me and the two salespeople right up, as if he knew she was there), walked up to her and said "I want to buy this motorcycle right now with cash and no paperwork.". Keep in mind, this was a $14,400 motorcycle so there HAD (legally) to be some paperwork to be filed. She advised the agent of such but the agent said no, I will pay you $9900 in cash right now, and will have my girlfriend bring the rest tomorrow at which time I will take delivery. That is a setup and a lot of you know why. The man handed her a bunch of $100 bills on the spot, he didn't even know if the woman was a salesperson or what. Of course if you are handed $10k in cash, you hold it before giving it back, and the smell and feel of cash is alluring, so she says "lets go into the office and do a bill of sale and fill out the warranty registration.". At that point they walked off and I was still helping another customer on the showroom.
Watch this video. It'll give you a half way idea of what the feds will do, how they treat people, and their lack of caring and respect for the same people that pay their wages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFALonjLay0
Jan Morgan actually ran for governor, didn't have a chance, but I'm glad she put the video out there. I asked her to edit out my parts which she did respectfully. I'm not a media person, I hate the press, I hate the way they do things, but this video that Jan did was on point, every.single.detail was exactly reenacted, to the tee.
So I spoke with a former owner of a diesel shop up the road who also got hit; they were looking for records of "deletes", basically wanted all of their work orders for the last 2 years. They had deleted a bunch of fleet trucks for the gas/oil companies (F250/6.4), I think they had 33 of them done. The Feds fined them about $10k for each one directly, and then fined the company (who owned the trucks) roughly that much for each truck that was modified, then fined the shop's owner a ton of money--he had to close up shop and sell everything he owned to pay for part of the fines. He now lived in a rented trailer house and is unable to travel, vote, own a firearm, leave the country, can't serve on a jury, lost parental rights, can can never work in that industry again. A felony conviction strips you of a lot of rights some of which are listed above. All because of "delete kits" which he had proof and signed agreements that they (owners) would not use them for on-highway use. It doesnt' matter, those signed work orders are as worthless as the paper they're written on, apparently.
Sounds far-fetched don't it? I WENT THROUGH IT, and those are my experiences. The fed has ALL jurisdiction, and they will make up the rules as they see fit at the time, and "there is nothing you can do about it"--again a direct quote from a federal agent (when I was raided).
I still sometimes have a hard time during sleep; have nightmares of raids, etc by heavily armed agents. I haven't asked any doctor about it but I have talked to my dad & brother about it, they have same thing but theirs is from war, PTSD.
