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NSA AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
Issues of idiocy are piling up so quickly that my buffer overfloweth. The one about the NSA and its spying on American Citizens is one of the more recent.
The fact that both Obama and Holder consider themselves “Constitutional Scholars” is simply more proof of our original observation that the purpose of a Constitutional Scholar today is to look for loopholes. The fourth amendment is a case in point. By the way, Holder recently said the “due process” does not necessarily mean “judicial.” He was wrong.[i]
There is no way that the collection of every bit of information possible on every American citizen is justified or legal. The fourth amendment makes this quite clear and a brief article on that amendment is printed below.
An observation was make earlier about the nonsense over Iraq and writing a new constitution to the effect that we might as well just give them ours as we no longer use it. Of course, all countries currently busy writing new constitutions are quite eager to avoid all of the problems caused by our constitution. There is good reason for this.
Our constitution was written and adopted by people in quite different circumstances and with quite different views of the world than those that have existed during the last Century. We pay lip service to it, as well as the Declaration of Independence, but for less than half of Americans would have the courage to sign the Declaration of Independence today as it sounds “subversive”. Well, it was. So is our Constitution and it is intended to be that way. We have to consider the times in which these documents were written and the movements that were going on.
We can forget about George Washington except that he set the precedent of not serving one term after another ad infinitum.
Thomas Jefferson started to edit the Bible, taking out the nonsense passages. He read the Koran and had correspondence with Moslem scholars. In fact, when our version of Al Quaeda’s school of biblical interpretation protested an Arab representative taking his oath of office, and Jewish politician pointed out that she was allowed to take her oath on the Torah. He took his on Jefferson’s copy. Jefferson also had an affair with his black maid/slave, took her to Paris with him, and let her stay according to her wishes.
Jefferson also said that the U.S. should have a revolution every twenty years or so, a call heeded by the Confederacy and quashed by Lincoln. We might be better off today if we had just let them fester, but that is besides the point.
Franklin was in the newspaper business. We’ve had the Old Farmer’s Almanac drummed into us since childhood, but he was adamant in freedom of the press. Years later, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was criticized for not doing much research, especially on freedom of speech, and he said, he did have to. He would take out a copy of the Bill of Rights, read the first amendment, and ask in a statement echoed later by the feminists, “It says ‘no law’[ii], what part of ‘no’ is so hard to research?” later, pecking away at the first amendment, “the court said you can’t holler ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” More pecking continues, but you can’t redefine “NO”. It is illegal. It is immoral. It is almost fundamentalist.
These people who wrote the constitution, in short, were the victims of colonial oppression and wanted out. Other writers of the time included Voltaire, Rousseau, and DeSade, certainly not conservatives. This was late 18th and early 19th Century philosophy. The French Revolution came next. Kant was upsetting people. He had already written the Critique of Pure Reason. Schopenhauer was expanding on it. Hegel was about to come around.
When the British tried to stop us, they would occupy people’s houses, search and seizure. There was no way we wanted anything like that to happen – ever! Keep out of my business. That is what the Fourth Amendment means![iii]
When the Government does this, it is breaking the law. It is no place to accuse Snowden, Ellsberg, Manning, and numerous others that they need to be punished as all of the people are bound to protect the Constitution from its enemies, foreign and domestic.[iv]
All of this started with the Magna Carta[v], but that is going too far back and the whole issue gets very hairy, a problem the late 18th Century figures attempted to eliminate.
[i] Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person. Typically, "Due process" means 1) NOTICE, generally written, but some courts have determined, in rare circumstances, other types of notice suffice[citation needed]. Notice should provide sufficient detail to fully inform the individual of the decision or activity that will have an effect on his/her rights or property or person. 2) right to GRIEVE (that being the right to complain or to disagree with the governmental actor/entity which has decision making authority) and 3) the right to APPEAL if not satisfied with the outcome of the grievance procedure. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual person from it. When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due-process violation, which offends against the rule of law. [Note taken from Wikipedia and, as everyone knows, “Wiki” comes from the ancient Greek, meaning “Internet”.]
[ii] Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ]Italics mine.]
[iii]Fourth Amendment
Main article: Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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.[69]
The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring anywarrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and seizure (including arrest) must be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer who has sworn by it. The amendment is the basis for the exclusionary rule, which mandates that evidence obtained illegally cannot be introduced into a criminal trial.[82] The amendment's interpretation has varied over time; its protections expanded under left-leaning courts such as that headed by Earl Warren and contracted under right-leaning courts such as that of William Rehnquist.[83]
[iv] Pick an oath, any oath.
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