How Many Constitutional Freedoms Do We Still Have?
Preface: While a lot of people talk about the loss of our Constitutional liberties, people usually speak in a vague, generalized manner … or focus on only one issue and ignore the rest.
This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right. Continue reading »
Slowly but surely the administration is making sure that both the US constitution, and its various amendments, become a thing of the past. In the name of national security, of course. And while until now it was the First and Second amendments that were the target of the administration’s ongoing efforts to eavesdrop on anyone, all the time, in order to decide who may be a domestic terrorist and thus fit for ‘droning’, coupled with an aggressive push to disarm and curtail the propagation of weapons in what some perceive is nothing more than an attempt to take away a population’s one recourse to defend itself against a tyrannical government, the time may be coming to say goodbye to the Fourth amendment – the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures – next. But only in close proximity to the border at first. According to Wired, “the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.”
More on America’s quest, by a very select few, to one by one extinguish its civil liberties from Wired:
The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.
The Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.
The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.
“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.
The memo highlights the friction between today’s reality that electronic devices have become virtual extensions of ourselves housing everything from e-mail to instant-message chats to photos and our papers and effects — juxtaposed against the government’s stated quest for national security.
The President George W. Bush administration first announced the suspicionless, electronics search rules in 2008. The President Barack Obama administration followed up with virtually the same rules a year later. Between 2008 and 2010, 6,500 persons had their electronic devices searched along the U.S. border, according to DHS data.
According to legal precedent, the Fourth Amendment — the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures — does not apply along the border. By the way, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s actual border.
A federal appeals court ruled that although illegal and unconstitutional the government can not be punished for violating the Fourth Amendment.
Our beloved federal court judges have signed off again on the erosion of yet another fundamental tenet of the United States Constitution.
This time federal judges ruled the government is completely immune from any possible punishment for violating the Fourth Amendment which is SUPPOSED to protect us against illegal search and seizure.
While fully acknowledging the government’s spying and collecting of personal information using warrantless wiretapping is completely illegal and in violation of the Fourth Amendment the courts have passed the buck saying this is issue for
congress to deal with.
While the ruling explicitly provides immunity to the federal government for illegally searching and seizing information without a warrant the ruling also grants implicit immunity for both state and local law enforcement officials to engage in the same kind of constitution trampling activities. Continue reading »
NaturalNews can now confirm that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment, conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County. Staging raids involving six vehicles and ten armed men, DNA conducted unconstitutional, illegal and arguably criminal armed raids on these two farms with the intent of shooting all the farmers’ pigs under a bizarre new “Invasive Species Order” (ISO) that has suddenly declared traditional livestock to be an invasive species.
The ISO also deems farmers who raise these pigs to be felons, and DNR officials were ready to make arrests on the scene and haul away these farmers to be prosecuted as hardened criminals.
Farmer forced to shoot his own baby piglets in cold blood
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have” - Thomas Jefferson
Something odd and not quite as planned happened as America grew from its “City on a Hill” origins, on its way to becoming the world’s superpower: government grew. A lot. In fact, the government, which by definition does not create any wealth but merely reallocates it based on the whims of a select few, has transformed from a virtually invisible bystander in the economy, to the largest single employer, and a spending behemoth whose annual cash needs alone are nearly $4 trillion a year, and where tax revenues no longer cover even half the outflows. One can debate why this happened until one is blue in the face: the allures of encroaching central planning, the law of large numbers, and the corollary of corruption, inefficiency and greed, cheap credit, the transition to a welfare nanny state as America’s population grew older, sicker and lazier, you name it. The reality is that the reasons for government’s growth do not matter as much as realizing where we are, and deciding what has to be done: will America’s central planners be afforded ever more power to decide the fates of not only America’s population, but that of the world, or will the people reclaim the ideals that the founders of this once great country had when they set off on an experiment, which is now failing with every passing year?
As the following video created by New America Now, using content by Brandon Smith whose work has been featured extensively on the pages of Zero Hedge, notes, “we tend to view government as an inevitability of life, but the fact is government is not a force of nature. It is an imperfect creation of man and it can be dismantled by man just as easily as it can be established.” Unfortunately, the realization that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and absolute central planning leads to epic catastrophes without fail, seems a long way away: most seem content with their lot in life, with lies that their welfare money is safe, even as the future is plundered with greater fury and aggression every passing year, until one day the ability to transfer wealth (benefiting primarily the uber rich, to the detriment of the middle class which is pillaged on an hourly basis), from the future to the present is gone, manifesting in either a failed bond auction or hyperinflation. The timing or shape of the transition itself is irrelevant, what is certain is that America is now on collision course with certain collapse unless something changes. And one of the things that has to change for hope in the great American dream to be restored, is the role, composition and motivations of government, all of which have mutated to far beyond what anyone envisioned back in 1776. Because America is now saddled with a Government Out Of Control.
Watch the two clips below to understand just how and why we have gotten to where we are. Also watch it to, as rhetorically asked by the narrator, prompt us to question whether the government we now have is still useful to us and what kind of powers it should be allowed to wield.
Washington — The Supreme Court refused Monday to limit strip searches of new jail inmates, even those arrested for minor traffic offenses.
Dividing 5-4 along ideological lines, the high court said jail guards needed the full authority to closely search everyone who is entering a jail in order to maintain safety and security.
We teach limited government under a constitution that secures unalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This first right means that one’s life cannot be taken by tyrannical government.
The two-minute videohere is Defense Secretary Panetta claiming US law allows assassinating Americans if government merely says an American is guilty of a crime. Acts upon what the leader says at any given time rather than limited power under law is the etymology of dictatorship. “Law” based on the dictates of a leader is exactly what Nazi Germany had; their word for leader was fuhrer. (”Führer’, not fuhrer.)
The 5th and 6th Amendments of the US Constitution promise that if the government is to seize you, let alone assassinate you, they have to follow due process to secure persons’ unalienable rights:
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury (that means a jury of one’s peers, not the dictatorship of “the leader”)… nor shall any person… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;…
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury…, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”
Department of Defense Chief Counsel Jeh Johnson spoke to Yale’s law school and repeated the claim of government authority to dictate any American as a “terrorist” or “terrorist supporter” and be assassinated. This is in Orwellian contradiction to 5th Amendment rights that government cannot deprive you of your life without the above explicit due process. Importantly, Mr. Johnson, the War Department’s top “legal” voice, had more to say: government-dictated assassinations cannot be legally challenged through US courts.
President Obama instructed Justice Department lawyers to defend unlimited warrantless searches in Orwellian violation of the 4th Amendment. Such searches could be claimed as evidence of “supporting terrorism” and then not subject to review after assassination.
The 2006 Military Commissions Act and 2012 NDAA “legislated” dictatorial authority to declare any person a “terrorist supporter,” seize such persons, and hold them indefinitely and without rights.
Texas lawmakers and federal agents came to a dramatic showdown last night, over a bill that would have prohibited Transportation Security Administration agents from conducting intrusive pat-downs. The Department of Justice circulated a letter that told the politicians if they went through with HB 1937, the TSA would cancel flights out of Texas.
Texas State Rep. David Simpson, who wrote the bill, put the ultimatum in more vibrant terms in a press release he issued today:
Either Texas backs off and continues to let government employees fondle innocent women, children and men as a condition of travel, or the TSA will cancel Texas flights. The Federal Government showed its willingness to bully the State of Texas if attempts to protect passengers from being forced to give up constitutional rights are not dropped.
“Under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, Texas has no authority to regulate federal agents and employees in the performance of their federal duties or to pass a statute that conflicts with federal law,” John Murphy, an United States attorney, wrote in the letter.
Reuters reports that the bill would have made “intrusive touching” a crime punishable by up to a year of jail-time:
The bill described “intrusive touching” as touching a passenger’s sexual organs, or “touching in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person.”
(NaturalNews) In what can only be called a ruthless threat of total economic warfare, the TSA has threatened to enforce an economic blockade of Texas if the state legislature passes its bill criminalizing the TSA’s lewd pat-downs that have agents reaching down the pants of innocent travelers (http://www.naturalnews.com/032401_T…).
Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick had sponsored the bill which initially earned widespread support throughout both houses of the Texas legislature, but as the bill neared final passage, the TSA sent a threatening letter to Texas explaining that if the law were passed, the TSA would block all flights to and from Texas cities.
The TSA threatens economic warfare against Texas
The gloves are off, folks. The TSA is now engaged in what can only be called an act of economic warfare against the state of Texas. This rogue agency, which is staffed with power-hungry pedophiles, perverts and porn distributors (http://www.naturalnews.com/030787_c…), is already asserting its false power and threatening one of the largest economies in the world — the state of Texas — with severe economic harm if its lawmakers don’t cave in to the TSA’s tyrannical demands.
Just to be perfectly clear what you’re witnessing here, the TSA is saying that if your state stands up for the Fourth Amendment rights of its own citizens, then the federal government will shut down all your airports and refuse to allow airplanes to take off or land in your state. This is a form of economic tyranny being conducted by rogue federal agents who are threatening to turn Texas into a no-fly zone.
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