Posted on 10/23/2001 8:48:28 AM PDT by sendtoscott
Will the War Kill the Bill of Rights?
by David Kopel, Fellow, Cato Institute
October 18, 2001
Late last week, Congress hurriedly passed massive "terrorism" bills that had never received committee hearings. Indeed, the House bill was only introduced on the morning that it passed - providing House members with no realistic opportunity to study the bill's tremendous implications. Both the House and the Senate bills grant vast powers to law enforcement that have nothing to do with counter-terrorism.
Because the House and Senate bills differ, a conference committee will be appointed, which will begin meeting very soon.
The House Judiciary Committee had unanimously passed an anti-terrorism bill, which awaited House floor action. But instead of bringing forward the bill that had received committee scrutiny, the House leadership (buckling to pressure from the administration) had a brand-new bill written and brought to the floor of the full House. The leadership moved so hastily that members were deprived of the opportunity even to read the bill before voting on it.
The House bill does include some sensible provisions to help the government fight terrorism, such as expediting the hiring of language translators for counter-terrorism work.
But there are also provisions that seriously infringe privacy, while offering little in the way of counter-terrorism. For example, the bill allows the government, without a warrant, to monitor every e-mail that a person sends and receives. Content access would, however, require a search warrant - although in practice the government would be on the honor system not to read content. Any state, local, or federal law enforcement officer could use the e-mail surveillance. And there is no requirement that this surveillance be connected to a terrorism investigation.
Currently, if the government wants to monitor a person's postal mail, the feds have to get a search warrant. Why should we lower privacy standards because the mail is sent electronically rather than by hand?
The House bill also allows surveillance of a person's Internet surfing. The government can capture the web address of every page that a person views-without a search warrant. This allows any law officer to find out intimate details about a person's politics, hobbies, and even sexual orientation. There is no requirement that this surveillance be related to counter-terrorism.
Significantly, the bill sunsets some (but not all) of the expanded government surveillance provisions after three years. This is a sensible recognition of the fact that the executive branch is asking for extraordinary wartime powers. If the war hasn't ended in three years, Congress is capable of enacting legislation to extend the powers.
The Senate bill-243 pages-is much worse than the House bill. The former's expansions of government power are permanent. Given that the bill will restrict the freedom of people born 50 years from now, it is inappropriate for the bill to be rushed through Congress only a few days after being written.
The Senate bill allows the government to conduct secret searches. This measure is not limited to terrorism cases. Rather, it would apply to federal government searches involving drugs, pornography, gambling, and everything else in the federal criminal code.
The federal government could covertly enter a person's house, copy the contents of his computer, and then break in the next month, and copy the hard disk again. To perform secret searches, the government would merely have to show that there "might" be an "adverse result" if the person found out about the search.
Of all the checks and balances in the Fourth Amendment, the most important is that the person who is searched knows that he has been searched. More so than any other person, he will have the incentive to complain (and, if necessary, to sue) if the search was in violation of the Constitution. Because judges don't come along when the police serve search warrants, judges have no practical way of knowing whether a search is conducted within the limits of the search warrant. In essence, secret searches put federal agents on the honor system.
While the solid majority of federal law enforcement agents are honorable, some are not. And the records of the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, and the rest of the federal law enforcement bureaucracy over the past decades demonstrate that when power can be used, some agents will abuse it.
Both the House and the Senate contain many laudable, and uncontroversial measures, such as providing assistance to the families of police and firefighters who died on Sept. 11. Congress would do better to quickly pass the measures that do not infringe civil liberty, and then take time to ensure that new restrictions on liberty are no broader than necessary, and that they apply only to terrorism investigations.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Now, boys and girls, let's review:
1. The People have unalienable rights endowed by their creator.
2. Governments have just powers (NOT rights) derived from the consent of the governed. These powers can NEVER legitimately infringe upon unalienable rights.
Now for a bonus question: Which political party holds that rights are a gift from their government and change with the fickle whim of the majority?
Unfortunately, 'conservatives,' just like liberals, only follow the Constitution when it's convenient.
The people who built this country wrongly assumed that the generations who would follow them would be of the same character as they themselves were. They were gravely mistaken.
Agreed.
That has never been more painfully evident than since last month.
The people who built this country wrongly assumed that the generations who would follow them would be of the same character as they themselves were. They were gravely mistaken.
I'm beginning to think they wasted their time, blood, sweat and tears on us. Most of the sheeple in this country aren't worth their sacrifice.
If I could travel back in time to speak with the Founders, I wouldn't know whether to warn them how the Constitution would be ignored and misconstrued, or to tell them not to bother writing a Constitution at all - go back to the pub and have another one because in the end no one really wants a Constitutional Republic.
My remark was about the Bill of Rights and not about the that part of the Constitution that states, "unalienable Rights... of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Big difference.
As you have already pointed out, our tax burden to support mandates and organizations that are unconstitutional have grown astronomically while our personal freedoms, liberties and responsibilities have shrunk proportionally while too many people have been asleep at the switch. My father used to say that things could always be changed at the ballot box, however, I don't see much of an option for that happening during the last couple of decades. I find myself having to vote for the lesser of two evils and, as we all know, the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Keep well.
Or do rights come from someplace else?
If you think that the "Bill of Rights" grants those rights, then you are totally clueless.
A cursory examination of the debates leading up to the formulation of the Bill of Rights will show that the staunchest defenders of rights were totally opposed to their drafting. This is due to the fact that they believed that people would think that those rights emanated from the document, and could thus be compromised away by successive generations.
I guess that this thread proves that they were correct.
You still need to change your screen name, bucko, and you continue to dishonor the esteemed name of Ronald Reagan.
I wanted to suggest that you take a "basic civics" course, but then I remembered that they don't teach such a thing anymore. Is it any wonder that one who would call himself "Reagan Man" would spout such inanities and not see just how far from RR's position he really is. A sign of just how bad things have gotten in our "young citizen indoctrination centers" when someone who thinks that he is emulating Ronald Reagan is actually 180 degrees opposed.
That's no excuse. I had a "publick edjumacation" too.
Unless I miss the mark altogether, you have had to do quite a bit to undue the damage.
(In other words, the educated among us know that they are responsible for the results.)
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
From where do you believe rights originate?
You started the name calling bozo. So by your own standards, your logic has failed. And I never said "unalienable rights come from the Bill of Rights", clown man. You need to get a grip on reality. The best place to start is to get off of whatever drugs your on. Get clean and then join us good folks in the human race. From your incoherent rhetoric, it's clear that won't be easy for you. So start early.
Remember, God helps those, who help themselves. Start helping yourself out. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. From reading your blatherings, you've been wasting your mind for far too long.
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