From the June 2001 Idaho Observer:

What are the coveted spoils of McGuckin tragedy -- the land or the children or both?

By The Idaho Observer

On the surface it would seem that the county has moved against JoAnn McGuckin to save her children from what the state alleges now to be substandard conditions related to her paranoid distrust of government. Our investigations are indicating that the prize of the patient process to remove the McGuckins from their home is 40 acres of lake-front property that could eventually be sold in five-acre parcels for $100,000 each to high-end purchasers.

Counties in Idaho have incentive to foreclose upon peoples' property because, according to state law, once a property is seized by the county for back taxes and resold at public auction, any funds over and above the taxes due can be placed into the county's general fund.

But what about the children?

In the eyes of the state franchise of the child protection industry, children are of tremendous value. James Brown, Ph.D, a sociologist whose life and career were ruined by false allegations of child abuse, used his skills as a researcher to get to the bottom of the national child protection industry. What he uncovered should cause parents to be extremely concerned about children who are placed into the protective custody of the state.

For every child that a state agency is able to remove from the home comes the potential of up to $100,000 federal child adoption subsidy per year per child, Dr. Brown said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 25 percent more single mothers, 62 percent more single fathers and 72 percent more unmarried partners in the U.S. since the 1990 census. The epidemic of broken families has been used to justify an exponential expansion of the child protection industry. Thousands of children are removed from their homes each day. As many as 80 percent of those children are removed on heresay. In the absence of evidence an estimated 600,000 American children are curently in state custody. See story page 7.