Our founding fathers drafted our Constitution just before the state triumphed. Its language and the wording of the Bill of Rights belong to an earlier era. If Thomas Jefferson and his committee were writing the Declaration of Independence during these gender-neutral times they would have undoubtedly substituted "persons" for "Men" in their most memorable sentence, "all Men were created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." However, Jefferson was not equating "men" with "citizens." The founding fathers did not conceive of rights only in territorial terms as we do today. Jefferson would be shocked if he were told that we now consider his "Men" as being only citizens or legal residents of the United States. There were no citizens of the United States of America on July 4, 1776, only persons residing in a new land. When the United States was established, many persons had no wish to become its citizens. Loyalists, Indians, French, Spaniards, African Americans, and women were included in a territorial state that took two centuries to grant all of them their full legal rights as "persons."The word "citizen" is not even used in the "Bill of Rights." "Persons" have these rights. The matter is not simply semantic. In law words are important; in human rights they are crucial. The fifth amendment decrees that no "person" shall be convicted without presentment or indictment in times of peace and that no "person" shall be subject to double jeopardy. This language reflects earlier jurisprudence when the right of due process was not restricted to citizens. The French jurist who coined the maxim, "Innocent until proven guilty," would be puzzled that today we embrace the maxim but find reasons to violate it. For him, it meant "no one, absolutely no one can be denied a trial under any circumstances. And that everyone, absolutely everyone, had the right to conduct a vigorous, thorough defense." Following this logic to its inexorable conclusion, these jurists even argued that if the devil himself were to be judged, he must be granted all the rights of due process.
If we take rights seriously, we may see that the equivocal language of our Constitution furnishes a vehicle and a formidable legal argument for recognizing the rights of all persons, even illegal immigrants, terrorists, and other enemies of the state. In our most recent confrontation with the issue, politicians who had turned their backs on Haitians, Cubans, Mexicans and others whom the INS had routinely deprived of their rights of due process have suddenly discovered religion in the person of a six year old boy. I hope these politicians continue to embrace due process for all persons in the future. After all, when we take the rights of any human beings away, we undermine the absolute guarantee of all of our rights for each of us.
http://www.spinninglobe.net/dueprocess.html
If we take the Preamble to the Constitution seriously, we may see that the Constitution does not secure the blessings of liberty to anyone but those Persons OF THE UNITED STATES, and CERTAINLY NOT, to foreign enemies of the United States who have invaded and squat furtively among us.
When you have a document that is framed right up front in this context, you have to be pretty intellectually dishonest and idiotic, to not understand that the "persons" referred to in the Bill of Rights are Persons of the United States. To say as the above quote says, that you agree with, that foreign terrorists are protected by the 4th Amendment - is a laughable absurdity, and deadly wrong, as it is a recipe for 911, and the destruction of divine - not just man-conceived, but DIVINE rights to individual lives and property, which our government is supposed to protect for people OF THE UNITED STATES.
"If we take rights seriously, we may see that the equivocal language of our Constitution furnishes a vehicle and a formidable legal argument for recognizing the rights of all persons, even illegal immigrants, terrorists, and other enemies of the state. " - quoted proudly by Luis Gonzalez from http://www.spinninglobe.net/dueprocess.html
May God help the People of The United States secure the blessings of His endowed liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
American Lives are more important than getting a search warrant for a foreigner's computer.