Posted on 04/03/2014 3:27:21 PM PDT by Kaslin
What if the National Security Agency (NSA) knows it is violating the Constitution by spying on all Americans without showing a judge probable cause of wrongdoing or identifying the persons it wishes to spy upon, as the Constitution requires? What if this massive spying has come about because the NSA found it too difficult to follow the Constitution?
What if the Constitution was written to keep the government off the people's backs, but the NSA and the president and some members of Congress have put the NSA not only on our backs, but in our bedrooms, kitchens, telephones and computers? What if when you look at your computer screen, the NSA is looking right back at you?
What if the NSA really thought it could keep the fact that it is spying on all Americans and many others throughout the world secret from American voters? What if Congress enacted laws that actually delegate some congressional powers to elite congressional committees -- one in the Senate and one in the House? What if this delegation of power is unconstitutional because the Constitution gives all legislative powers to Congress as a whole and Congress itself is powerless to give some of its power away to two of its secret committees? What if the members of these elite committees who hear and see secrets from the NSA, the CIA and other federal intelligence agencies are themselves sworn to secrecy?
What if the secrets they hear are so terrifying that some of these members of Congress don't know what to do about it? What if the secrecy prohibits these congressional committee members from telling anyone what they know and seeking advice about these awful truths? What if they can't tell a spouse at home, a lawyer in her office, a priest in confessional, a judge when under oath in a courtroom, other members of Congress or the voters who sent them to Congress?
What if this system of secrets, with its promises not to reveal them, has led to a government whose spies have intimidated and terrified some members of Congress? What if one member of Congress -- Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia -- wrote to then-Vice President Dick Cheney and voiced fears that totalitarianism is creeping into our democracy? What if he wrote that letter in his own hand because he feared he might be prosecuted if he dictated it to a secretary or gave it to his secretary for typing? What if he was terrified to learn what the spies told him because he knew he could not share it with anyone or do anything about it?
What if the NSA's chief apologist in Congress -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California -- took to the only safe place in the world where she could reveal what she learned from the spies and not be prosecuted for violating her oath of secrecy and there revealed a secret? What if that place is the Senate floor, and what if, while there, she revealed that she approved of the NSA spying on all Americans but disapproved of the CIA spying on her staff? What if it is unlawful and unconstitutional for the CIA to spy on anyone in the United States -- whether private citizen, illegal alien or member of a Senate staff?
What if the equality of the branches of government is destroyed when one of them spies on the other? What kind of a president spies on Congress? What kind of members of Congress sit back and let themselves become victims of spying? What if Congress could stop all spying on all Americans by a simple vote? What if Congress could stop the president from spying on its own members with a simple vote? What if Congress is afraid to take these votes?
What if secret government is unaccountable precisely because it is secret? What if the people's representatives in government have a moral obligation to reveal to their constituents that the president's spies are spying on all of us, and they -- members of Congress -- have not lifted a finger to stop it? Would we all vote differently if we knew the secrets the government has shared with a select few but kept from the rest of us? What if your own representatives in the House and the Senate are lying to you because of fear of the consequences of revealing secrets?
What if the NSA chief claimed to a congressional committee -- one of those with which he secretly shares secrets -- that all this spying has stopped 57 terror plots? What if the next day he changed that number to three plots? What if he has declined to say what those three plots were? What if a federal judge found that all this spying has not prevented any identifiable plots?
What if all this spying doesn't work? What if the NSA has too much data about all of us? What if the president knowingly declined to uphold the Constitution and instructed his spies to do the same? What if the NSA is so accustomed to spying on all of us all the time that it lacks the ability to obtain probable cause and to identify the persons upon whom it needs to spy? What if the government's culture of secrecy and spying has taken on a life of its own? What if even those who started it are afraid to stop it?
What if the NSA missed the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the Ft. Hood massacre, the Times Square bomber, the Boston Marathon bombers, the coup in Kiev and the Russian invasion of Ukraine? What if the NSA wasted its time spying on Aunt Tillie in Des Moines and the Pope in Rome and Chancellor Merkel in Berlin, instead of Vladimir Putin in Moscow?
What if secrecy has replaced the rule of law? What if that replacement has left us in the dark about what the government knows and what it is doing? What if few in government believe in transparency? What if few in government believe in the Constitution?
What do we do about it?
This really brings to light the importance of an Article V convention. The government did not become this abomination overnight. It took over a hundred years, perhaps over 200 years, to evolve into this untenable thing.
While the convention itself can prune an enormous amount of this unconstitutional growth, it must include a mechanism that will permanently cut off excess growth, in an orderly manner.
The federal government itself is incapable of performing this function, so it must be carried out by the individual states in a collective body. While something of this sort was conceived in the constitution, with the US senate, it was destroyed by the 17th amendment.
But the basic fault was that even senators more responsible to their states are still not inclined to do this function. Instead, it should be a judicial function.
Not of a federal court, but of a body of state courts, with judges appointed by the states, whose purpose it is to protect the power of the states, not of the federal government.
So think of recreating the senate, but with state judges instead of senators. In fact, with judges having six year appointed terms in parallel with each states senators. And very clear that legislatures cannot abrogate (or “democratize”) the responsibility for these appointments.
Typically, when we think of federal courts, their function is to determine constitutionality of the laws. But this would not be the case with this assembly, as it would be redundant.
Instead, they would determine jurisdiction of cases already heard by the federal courts of appeal. After the constitutional arguments have been made, they could say that this issue is not a federal or constitutional issue and should be returned to the state of origin for a verdict.
The other function of this body would be to have original jurisdiction over lawsuits between the states and the federal government. This means that if a state sued the feds, for example, the other states would decide who should prevail. Thus placing state interests over federal ones.
In any event, with these two things, this body would carry out a perpetual pruning mechanism to limit federal growth.
“...the importance of an Article V convention...”
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Good Post.
Capital punishment; I don't want to be paying to keep such oath-breakers alive, healthy, and well-fed,
Proof reading is generally prudent. Not sure what your point is in this instance.
“If”? It has for many years now. Where have you been?
Better to have them somewhere where we know what they are doing for the next twenty years than lying and screwing the American people outside the law and underground.
Amendment IV
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.
Apparently that is not clear enough.
What if my aunt had balls? She would be my uncle.
"What if" s of this nature spawn revolutions...or possibly "civil" wars. No matter, they all end badly.
5.56mm
By my model, unless an article V convention repealed the 17th amendment, the senators would never agree to its repeal, because they like being “free agents”, working solely for the federal government.
So what I am proposing is to create a Second Court of the United States. Superior the the US courts of appeals, but inferior to the SCOTUS. It would be the only other court directly incorporated into the constitution.
Importantly, it would be like a judicial version of a permanently seated constitutional convention. Majority decisions could be appealed to the SCOTUS, but 2/3rds decisions would require an exact, not extrapolated, quote from the constitution to reverse them. And 3/4ths decisions could be nearly interpreted as changing the constitution in their seriousness. The SCOTUS could not overturn such a decision.
It would also be a huge help in busting up the judicial bottlenecks that exist today. That is, the courts of appeals now send more than 8,000 cases to the SCOTUS every year, even though it can only hear a few dozen, so most cases are stuck with their courts of appeals decision.
And many of those cases are very frivolous, local and state cases that have been “federalized” by some federal judge for his entertainment. This, too, represents a huge power grab by the federal government. Often these cases are very redundant as well, such as the infamous “Bong Hits for Jesus” case that has been accepted by the SCOTUS, *twice*.
In any event, the Second Court could read the lower court constitutional rulings, and still decide that it was a state, not federal matter. So they would decide jurisdiction, not constitutionality. And a hundred state judges would be able to plow through 8,000 cases a year.
The other power of the Second Court, to hear lawsuits between the states and the federal government, would make for effective nullification, if other states agreed. States could sue the federal government over longstanding abuses, and the court could order them stopped.
The founding fathers were wise in understanding that written rules will be undermined even before the ink is dry, so it is necessary to have competing groups of people in contention, which is why the constitution is filled with any number of checks and balances.
The 17th amendment upset this balance of power, so perhaps an Article V convention can restore it. And a Second Court of the United States can hang on to those gains.
“What if secrecy has replaced the rule of law? What if that replacement has left us in the dark about what the government knows and what it is doing? What if few in government believe in transparency? What if few in government believe in the Constitution? “
Uh I think thats what everybody is ticked off about.
“What are we going to do about it”
Well unless something changes soon we will all find out. Because something will be done about it.
“What do we do about it?”
That’s tricky. The one person who controls all of these agencies is the president. Since they are part of the executive branch, he could put a stop to all their improper activities by sending out a memo.
Of course, even if you elect a candidate who promises to do that, and follows through, without action from congress, or the courts, there is nothing stopping the next president from starting it all up again.
Good food for thought.
Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy . . . censorship. When any government, or any Church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything-— you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
Robert H. Heinlein - Revolt in 2100.
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