Recently, we have all, undoubtedly learned of the NSA wiretaps where the Bush Admin claimed that it was perfectly permissible to wiretap on US Citizens and residents. He has now tried to perform an Orwellian "double-speak" and call it Terrorist Surveillance System. Of course, now that you re-name it, idiotic Americans will say "well, I am not a terrorist, so why should I worry." Why? Because it is just this type of behavior that formed this country.
Ever heard of the Boston Tea Party? Obviously most in the West have and it is from there that we get the famous quote "no taxation without representation." However, the story did not start nor end there. The tax they were referring to was based on the Navigation Acts and from there the Governor of Colonial Massachusetts, Sir Francis Bernard, issued a general writ or a Writ of Assistance which permitted the government to look anywhere for contraband. Bernard was attempting to enforce the British Navigation Act and was concerned about smuggling, thus his concern was legitimate. However, the Colonists still were upset about these actions and the increasing power that was being wielded by the British masters. Eventually, Britain implemented the famous Stamp Act and this led to a period of martial law for nearly ten years as the British used the powers in the Stamp Act (essentially a taxation policy) to further restrict people. The general writs were essentially warrentless. The authority had the ability to search whatever they wanted to with no oversight what so ever. Of course, many who voiced their disdain were thought, to the British to be treasonous. How much further does one need to move semantically to equate the British resistance to terrorists? Normally, I would not boldly lay such a claim as the normal and usual aim of terrorism to elicit fear upon its audience, whereas resistance to the British is not 100% analogous. However, that definition is fluid. When Bush the NSA's powers, he's justifying it based on people who would do us harm. Thus, there is the necessary linkage. To the British, all who opposed the British were deemed revolutionaries. Do we need to examine that word? Well here it is :revolutionist: a radical supporter of political or social revolution. They were radicals. They were not for the status quo, on the contrary, they wanted a total upheaval and government such that the world had never witnessed before. While rooted in the great philosophers of the day, including Voltaire, implementation had never happened on a grand scale before.
Just recently, during a press conference with the NSA, a fumbling reporter asked whether or not these NSA searches violated the 4th Amendment of the Constitution. The officials stated that the fourth amendment merely requires that there be no "unreasonable searches." While the 4th Amendment does use such terminology, such a statement is not only incorrect, but it is purposefully misleading. Sometimes I think the Bush Administration forget that some people can read. So for those who have never actually read it, here it is:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
Thus they are forgetting a little statement PROBABLE CAUSE. As generally referenced above, our founding father, would have, of course, thought about seditious or treasonous acts as this was a NEW Republic, thus the environment was ripe for the possibility. You do not see an exception to this amendment that says "..but upon probable cause, save for the acts of sedition or treason..." It is not there! Why? Because as Franklin has succinctly put it "he who gives up liberty for security, deserve neither." Personally, to me, the fact that Bush & Co. are doing this means that they are blatantly violating the very premise of our Constitution. It is just this type of governmental power that led to our revolution. History has shown time and time again, that people do not like live under tyranny. Individuals can argue that I am merely being paranoid, however the slippery slope has come and gone and we are going down this path that we may not be able to recover from. We have found out that the Department of Defense has spied on Vegens, peace movements, women's rights movements, because they constitute a 'credible threat.' I say that the only one who is guilty of treason is Bush. he took an oath to uphold our Constitution and he has done everything in his power to thwart justice and bring shame and dishonor upon our country. Bush keeps harping on the fact that we live in different times. Not so. Human behavior is human behavior. There have always been terrorists. There has always been spying and I would argue that it is easier today to monitor than pre-computer. I have no difficulty in spying on terrorists phone calls. That is what the FISA courts were designed for. Bush keeps on saying "they were created in 1978" thus rendering them quaint and inapplicable. Our U.S. District courts were created in 1789 and it seems to me they still work. FISA permits the US to spy on terrorists with probable cause and since 1978, there has been only 4 times that the court has rejected a request. Interestingly enough, it was created during the Carter Administration, a president the neo-cons love to hate and believe was soft on security. I don't have any issue in the US Attorney presenting information to the FISA court saying this is why we believe this is a bad guy. At least you have some oversight. Bush this week has said if he wanted to break the law, why tell Congress. Bush knows that because of the partisan politics they are but a rubber stamp for any measure. Congresses consent is not enough to make something legal. It would be like Bush deciding, on his own, to remove the 14th Amendment and having Congress say "sure... go ahead." That is not the way our Constitution works. When Bush took the Oath, he did not say uphold the laws of Congress, rather he swore an oath to uphold the CONSTITUTION. It was HIS oath. Thus it is HIS responsibility to comply with the Constitution.
It is not as if we are being revisionists here. The right wing Neo-Cons seem to suggest that such an interpretation is some left-winged notion from the 1960's, it isn't. In Boyd v. U.S., 116 U.S. 616 (1886) the court stated:
The principles laid down [by Lord Camden] affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach further than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its adventitious circumstances; they apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life. It is not the breaking of his doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense; it is the invasion of this sacred right which underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden’s judgment. Breaking into a house and opening boxes and drawers are circumstances of aggravation; but any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man’s own testimony, or of his private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of a crime, or to forfeit his goods, is within the condemnation of that judgment. In this regard the fourth and fifth amendments run almost into each other. Can we doubt that when the fourth and fifth amendments to the constitution of the United States were penned and adopted, the language of Lord Camden was relied on as expressing the true doctrine on the subject of searches and seizures, and as furnishing the true criteria of the reasonable and unreasonable character of such seizures?... The struggles against arbitrary power in which they had been engaged for more than 20 years, would have been too deeply engraved in their memories to allow them to approve of such insidious disguises of the old grievance which they had so deeply abhorred.
John Lennon was correct when he wrote the revolutionary song "Power to the People." The Philippines took that and used it as their mantra to force a brutal and corrupt dictator out of power using "people power." While I have commented in the past that the Philippines takes this to the extreme and it renders their country unstable, there are times when it is called for. Today I say that we need to get active. Get involved. We need to vote the bastards out of office.
Separation of Powers- there is a movement to say that the judicial branch should not determine the constitutionality of law. My rhetorical question is, who's power is it? If the Congress was to pass a law to limit speech, by this logic, all the judiciary could do would be to enforce it. Why have a Constitution if you are not going to enforce it? The only way it is enforced is through the concept of separation of powers, a concept that is seemingly lost on the Bush Administration. They have idiots like Bork who claim that Marbury v. Madison was improperly decided. Never once do they bother to learn that the US took the concept of separation of powers from Baron de Montesquieu, a political philosopher who wrote extensively in the 1750s. This way no branch would have more power than the other. One does not need to go very far to determine this was our founding fathers intent. The president appoints judges, who are, in turn, confirmed by the Senate. The House may impeach the president. The president my veto, and the judiciary enforces and acts as arbiter of constitutionality. It is full logical. To remove the judiciary from deciding the constitutionality completely removes all reason and it is an impossible concept to reconcile with the rest of our constitutional history.
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