Posted on 06/29/2004 9:27:45 AM PDT by ksen
Police state, ho!
by John Whitehead
6/28/04
With each passing day, America is inching further down a slippery slope toward a police state. Soon, we’ll have picked up so much momentum that there will be no turning back.
Incredibly, not too many people appear concerned. Bombarded by media images and a mind-numbing entertainment culture, people seem to be so distracted that they do not even realize that our civil liberties are slowly and stealthily eroding away.
Yet the signs of a police state are everywhere. They have infiltrated all aspects of our lives, from the mundane to the downright oppressive. We were once a society that valued individual liberty and privacy. But in recent years we have turned into a culture that has quietly accepted surveillance cameras at traffic lights and in common public areas, drug-sniffing dogs in our children’s schools, national databases that track our finances and activities, sneak-and-peek searches of our homes without our knowledge or consent and anti-terrorism laws that turn average Americans into suspected criminals.
In our post-9/11 world, government officials have effectively used terror and fear to subdue any public resistance to legislation like the Patriot Act, which embodies the heavy-handed empowering of government intrusion into our lives. Our police officers have become armed militias, instead of the civilian peacekeepers they were intended to be. Now, even average citizens—those that should have nothing to fear or worry about—are becoming unwitting targets of a government seemingly at war with its own people. Understandably, fear and paranoia rule the day.
Now with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, we have reached yet another milepost on our journey to a police state. A majority of the high court agreed that refusing to answer when a policeman asks “What’s your name?” can rightfully be considered a crime under Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute. Nineteen other states already have similar laws on their books. No longer will Americans, even those not suspected of or charged with any crime, have the right to remain silent when stopped and questioned by a police officer.
The case arose after Larry D. Hiibel, a Nevada cattle rancher, was arrested and convicted on a misdemeanor after refusing to tell his name or show identification to a sheriff's deputy. By requiring individuals to identify themselves on pain of arrest, this ruling turns Americans innocent of any wrongdoing into immediate suspects. Indeed, it is hard to ignore the similarity to the police states found in countries like China and North Korea. It can only be a matter of time before we are required to carry identification at all times. With all the talk of digital chips and national IDs, it may not even be so far-fetched to think that someday our slightest movements will be tracked by government satellites.
We are fast becoming the police state that Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) warned against in his June 2002 address to the House of Representatives. His words painted a chilling portrait of a nation willingly allowing itself to be monitored, tracked, fingerprinted and controlled. “Personal privacy, the sine qua non of liberty, no longer exists in the United States. Ruthless and abusive use of all this information accumulated by the government is yet to come.”
“It’s the responsibility of all of us to speak the truth to our best ability,” cautioned Paul, “and if there are reservations about what we’re doing, we should sound an alarm and warn the people of what is to come.”
Although the alarm has been sounded repeatedly from critics on all sides of the political spectrum, is anyone listening? If they were, every piece of legislation that tightens the government’s stronghold on American citizens would be considered an affront to freedom. And every court decision that weakens the right of each American to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures would be considered an attack against individual liberty.
Politicians love to boast about how far we’ve come since 1776. Yet sadly, we seem to have lost the love of freedom that laid the groundwork for the American Revolution. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have further confused the situation. In fact, it is common to hear both our elected officials and citizens state rather bluntly that it’s time to relinquish some of our freedoms in order to feel more secure.
This kind of sentiment was completely foreign to those who founded this country. Obviously, those who fought the arduous battles to preserve our freedom had a different concept of what a society should be and what it meant to be a good citizen.
Vested with the deep-seated belief that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, those who founded America took a courageous stand for their right to freely pursue life, liberty and happiness. And when their outcries were ignored by Great Britain, they declared that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government.” This led to the drafting of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
It has been said that on a sunny day in Philadelphia in 1787, just after the Constitutional Convention had finished its work, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Mr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?” “A Republic, madam,” Franklin quickly answered. “If you can keep it.”
I only hope that we have the wisdom and the courage to keep it.
I don't know. Does it matter? He was exercising what we thought was our Constitutional right to be silent and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
I do believe that alot of our rights are being slowly eroded but is it not largely due to the times we live in ?
That's really no excuse.
The Constitution lays out our rights as being inalienable. I take that to mean forever, not over a specified period of time.
So are you perfectly comfortable with a potential President Hillary exercising the powers the government has currently taken for itself?
Huh. And a GOP majority wasn't enough to convict him on articles of impeachment. More of the same won't change a thing.
It is long past enough if you believe in a free republic.
It is long past enough if you believe in a free republic.
We're facing a very different issue - but it is quite dangerous.
Thought I'd lower you blood pressure with this ping..;-)
That should show that just because someone has an "R" after their name doesn't mean they should automatically get our vote.
You can say that again. ;^)
Dangerous enough to shred the Bill of Rights?
Personally I think that the more we disregard the Constitution trying to fight the terrorists the more they win.
60 is needed for filibuster proofing the Senate. With 60 the judges would have been appointed.
And how many of the judges leading the charge towards a police state were appointed by Republicans?
Ping!
Another day and another defense of the suspension of rights. Seems to be a trend forming.
Please post my post that you responded to and your response together so that everyone can see how your response bears no relationship to what I posted.
Please document how the Patriot Act shredded the Bill of Rights. Most of the Patriot Act took laws that applied to criminal investigations and applied them to terrorist/national security investigations. If anything, keep much of the Patriot Act, as it applies mostly to suspected foreign agents, and look at some of its precursors that are more prone to target innocent American citizens.
Personally I think that the more we disregard the Constitution trying to fight the terrorists the more they win.
Personally, I think there are some problems with the Patriot Act that will not be solved with hyperbole and alarmism, but instead by sober, careful examination and reasoned debate. For example, some folks claim that that Patriot Act allows for warrantless searches without probable cause - however, a suspect must first be determined to have probable cause that they are a foreign agent. That standard is established through E.O. - but it should be legislated. But there is still a judicial hearing before the searches can take place.
Other parts of the Patriot Act are more in line with broader erosions in privacy. Others are good ideas - allowing roving wiretaps makes sense in an age when perps can just get another cell phone with ease.
Another day and another socialist 9th CC ruling overturned. Seems to be a trend forming. Two for Two last week. Doesn't look good for the medical marijuana scam case coming forward.
I am simply framing the debate. Too many folks run around acting as if the Founders never intended for national security issues to allow curtailment of rights. And that simply isn't true.
Once that matter is addressed, then we can look at the issues as to whether they make sense and whether the security benefits of a proposal or law outweight the incursions of rights, and what safeguards are needed, or if the law is just not right. But when the alarmists get going full speed, they tend to drown out reasoned debate.
60 to vote through Dubya's judicial choices without interference from Mrs. Clinton and her ilk.
They don't want to solve the problems, they want to dump the Patriot Act, Bush and Ashcroft.
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