CASS is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit educational organization, which means we are prohibited by law from lobbying for or against any legislation. We deeply honor the efforts of all who are trying to stop the spraying of urban and residential areas with toxic substances against the will of many. We offer analysis aligned with that stand. We encourage each person to decide for him or herself what to support, and to decide for themselves, not for others, if they want to have their persons and property sprayed.

Our efforts are designed to inform people of the laws, the facts, and the critical distinctions by which we can better safeguard the fundamental rights to safety and privacy which are already individually ours.

Our mission statement expresses our commitment to protect the right of each person not to be sprayed and that has been the central aligning principle of all our activities.

It is hard to imagine that citizens would have voluntarily agreed to be sprayed for years from airplanes with untested pesticides and other ingredients known to be health hazards. All of this for a moth that is managed easily and safely in other countries. This assault is unnecessary, profitdriven, ineffective, dangerous and in violation of our core human rights. Yet now, in the flurry of legislative bills from well-intentioned representatives, we find many of us trying to negotiate the terms of the spray without regard to the unconstitutionality of it.

By doing so, we unwittingly surrender our fundamental right to safety, and help to continue a pattern of supporting laws that strip away protections that we and all citizens naturally have. Human rights are not given by the state, so the state should not have the power to take them away. The state is created by the agreement of individuals to protect the rights we all have by natural law. (“We take these truths to be self evident.’) There is only one dissenting vote in a lynch mob, but the individual’s right to life and liberty, in a just civilization, has to supersede the will of the collective.

It is well documented that safe solutions to potential LBAM related crop damage issues already exist. By taking a stand to uphold our already existing rights, we put the pressure to address the trade problem back on to the Big Ag and Big Chem interests, through the USDA. Trade problems require trade reforms. Pest problems call for sustainable, safe and constitutional solutions. Humanity has survived thus far without surrendering to blanket spraying without consent. Why would we give up our ability to decide for ourselves to a bureaucrat, a politician or even a majority of those choosing to vote in the name of some hypothetical scenario which has never occurred?

Those of us who have made the commitment to get educated on the current LBAM issue are now in the precarious role of advocating for policies that have potential life and death consequences for millions of people. Agreeing to be sprayed under ANY conditions, with or without a vote, by an elected official or otherwise, is agreeing to risk the lives of fellow citizens, jeopardize the livelihood for our community members and forfeit rights of others that are not ours to give.

In the last 100 years there were more than 30 documented cases of US Government agencies, including the USDA, EPA, Army, Navy, CIA, Department of Defense and others, intentionally testing harmful chemicals covertly on human populations. At least sixteen of these involved aerial spraying. In addition to the Medfly/Malathion debacle, the USDA claimed safety for DDT chemical pesticides and fertilizer nitrates. Subsequently they have had to admit the extreme dangers of all of these and many more.

The Declaration of Independence and the US and CA Constitutions are not inspiring because of their strategy or compromise, but because of their integrity, their intuitive resonance with what each of us knows in our heart of hearts to be true. Hundreds of thousands of people in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas are starting to mobilize against this assault on our health, our environment and our rights. The nation and the world will be watching.

It is up to us to refuse to be violated, and to implement true, healthy and lasting solutions – for ourselves and for future generations.

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Summary and CASS Commentary
of Intended Benefits and Problems
with LBAM Assembly Bills