What rights have we lost over the last several years? HELP!

10/2/02

[mtngrl@vrwc]

I was talking to a friend last night and we were discussing whether or not the second ammendment would be harmed if say...certain types of guns were banned. I say that it would start us down the slippery slope of losing our right to bear arms. She says, "The whole 'don't give the government an inch or they'll take a mile' doesn't seem to ever happen."

Actually her main argument was that the Constitution was a flexible document and that the founding fathers knew that things would change and wanted the Constitution to be able to change along with the times.

When I began to list things rights that we have lost in the last several years, she wanted specifics. Some of the things I brought up to her were:

1. We have lost the right to rent our homes to whomever we want.
2. When schools started accepting federal money, the local schools lost their right to make decisions for what is best for their own community.
3. Smokers lost their right to smoke in their offices, restaurants, bars, and in some cases (parental custody cases) their own homes.
4. Employers in some cases have lost the right to hire and fire based on merit.
5. California is forbidding parents to homeschool.

[mtngrl@vrwc]

What I really need are examples where specific amendments to the Constitution have been affected. Thanks in advance for any help you are able to give me. I am off to work, but will check back in tonight.

[JohnGalt]

I would stop using slippery-slope arguments as a means of debate. Regardless of their merit, they are rather unconvincing.

9/11 and school shootings are the results of fire arm/culture regulation.

[ffrancone]

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[mtngrl@vrwc]

Some of the best minds in the world can be found reading Free Republic, so I thought this would be a good place to ask for help.

Maybe this has been done before, but I thought maybe if we made a list of the rights we have been losing incrementally, the enormity of it all would hit us hard.

[freeeee]

I would stop using slippery-slope arguments as a means of debate. Regardless of their merit, they are rather unconvincing.

"We would never make seatbelts mandatory, we just want to make auto manufacturers install them in all cars."

"We want kids to have to buckle up, but we'd never make adults do so."

"We need adults to buckle up, but don't worry, you won't get pulled over just for that, and it won't count against your insurance rates..."

It seems you are correct, slippery slope arguments aren't convincing...

[mtngrl@vrwc]

I would stop using slippery-slope arguments as a means of debate. Regardless of their merit, they are rather unconvincing.

You might be right, but that's exactly the way it happens. One can't exactly come right out and say, "Hey, let's do away with that pesky second ammendment." But they can weaken it by disallowing one type of firearm after the other, and by putting fear in everyone's hearts each time some crazy nut uses a gun in the commission of a crime.

[mtngrl@vrwc]

Great example, Freeeee.....

[Cacophonous]

The Tenth Amendment--delegating all authority to the States not specifically Constitutinally authorized to the Federal government--has been ignored for years.

This is not insignificant. Schools, welfare, unemployment compensation, highway funding, and billions of other Federal program dollars would be found to be unConstitutional if the Tenth were used as a measure.

[freeeee]

Actually her main argument was that the Constitution was a flexible document and that the founding fathers knew that things would change and wanted the Constitution to be able to change along with the times.

That's why they included an amendment process. Note, this process is purposely difficult, so that the fickle whims of the majority do not tyrannize he minority.

What she suggests is flat out ignoring the Constitution, which is exactly like having no Constitution at all.

[mtngrl@vrwc]

The Tenth Amendment--delegating all authority to the States not specifically Constitutinally authorized to the Federal government--has been ignored for years.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Hey Jim Rob, you are probably the best person I can think of to ask about this subject. You are an advocate of strictly following the Constitution. ;-)

[mtngrl@vrwc]

One other example I gave her was that income tax was not in the constitution and the right we have to keep the money we earn is quickly disappearing.

Also, Janet Reno sent armed people into the home of the family of that little Cuban boy, Elian Gonzales, and took him out of that home by force. She said he was here illegally so she didn't have any problem with it. I asked if the family whose home was broken into were illegals. She said no, but that they were warned. They were told to hand over the kid and they said no.

[KDD]

The following are a sample of some of the changes as a result of the so-called USA PATRIOT Act. The legislation:

minimizes judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet surveillance by law-enforcement authorities.

expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches.

gives the attorney general and the secretary of state the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any noncitizen who belongs to them.

grants the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime.

leads to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes.

More specifically, Section 203 (Authority to Share Criminal Investigative Information) allows information gathered in criminal proceedings to be shared with intelligence agencies, including but not limited to the CIA — in effect, say critics, creating a political secret police. No court order is necessary for law enforcement to provide untested information gleaned from otherwise secret grand-jury proceedings, and the information is not limited to the person being investigated.

Furthermore, this section allows law enforcement to share intercepted telephone and Internet conversations with intelligence agencies. No court order is necessary to authorize the sharing of this information, and the CIA is not prohibited from giving this information to foreign-intelligence operations — in effect, say critics, creating an international political secret police.

The concern here is about the third branch of government. One of the overarching problems that pervades so many of these provisions is reduction of the role of judicial oversight. The executive branch is running roughshod over both of the other branches of government. I find it very bothersome that the government is going to have more widespread access to e-mail and Websites and that information can be shared with other law-enforcement and even intelligence agencies. So, again, we're going to have the CIA in the business of spying on Americans — something that certainly hasn't gone on since the 1970s when the illegal investigations of thousands of Americans under Operation CHAOS, and the spying carried out by the CIA and National Security Agency against U.S. activists and opponents of the war in Southeast Asia.

Nor do the invasion-of-privacy provisions of the new law end with law enforcement illegally searching homes and offices. Under Section 216 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Modification of Authorities Relating to Use of Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices), investigators freely can obtain access to "dialing, routing and signaling information." While the bill provides no definition of "dialing, routing and signaling information," the ACLU says this means they even would "apply law-enforcement efforts to determine what Websites a person visits." The police need only certify the information they are in search of is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."

This does not meet probable-cause standards — that a crime has occurred, is occurring or will occur. Furthermore, regardless of whether a judge believes the request is without merit, the order must be given to the requesting law-enforcement agency, a veritable rubber stamp and potential carte blanche for fishing exhibitions.

Additionally, under Section 216, law enforcement now will have unbridled access to Internet communications. The contents of e-mail messages are supposed to be separated from the e-mail addresses, which presumably is what interests law enforcement. To conduct this process of separation, however, Congress is relying on the FBI to separate the content from the addresses and disregard the communications.

In other words, the presumption is that law enforcement is only interested in who is being communicated with and not what is said, which critics say is unlikely. Citing political implications they note this is the same FBI that during the Clinton administration could not adequately explain how hundreds of personal FBI files of Clinton political opponents found their way from the FBI to the Clinton White House.

And these are just a few of the provisions and problems. While critics doubt it will help in the tracking of would-be terrorists, the certainty is that homes and places of business will be searched without prior notice. And telephone and Internet communications will be recorded and shared among law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, all in the name of making America safe from terrorism.

I understand the desire of lawmakers to respond forcefully to the Sept. 11 attacks but this is more of the same old same old. Government has the tendency to want to proliferate during times of crisis, and that's why we have to constantly fight against it. It's a natural impulse and, in many ways, I don't fault it. In some ways they're just doing their job by aggressively seeking as much law-enforcement power as possible, but that's why we have checks and balances in our system of government, and that's why I'm upset that Congress just rolled and played dead on this one.

This legislation wouldn't have made any difference in stopping the Sept. 11 attacks. I seriously believe this is a violation of our liberties. After all, a lot of this stuff in the bill has to do with finances, search warrants and arrests."

I don't like the sneak-and-peek provision because you have to ask yourself what happens if the person is home, doesn't know that law enforcement is coming to search his home, hasn't a clue as to who's coming in unannounced … and he shoots them. This law clearly authorizes illegal search and seizure, and anyone who thinks of this as antiterrorism needs to consider its application to every American citizen.

The rationale for the Fourth Amendment protection always has been to provide the person targeted for search with the opportunity to point out irregularities in the warrant, such as the fact that the police may be at the wrong address or that the warrant is limited to a search of a stolen car, so the police have no authority to be looking into dresser drawers. Likely bad scenarios involving the midnight knock at the door are not hard to imagine.

The Fourth Amendment states: "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."

[KDD]

Among the worst seven provisions of the bill are the following.

1. The FBI can secretly enter someone's home or office, search the premises, and leave without notifying the owner. In theory, this would be supervised by a court. However, the notification of the secret search "may be delayed" indefinitely (Section 213). This is, of course, a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "fishing expeditions" and guarantees the right of the people to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." All the federal government must do to suspend your Fourth Amendment rights is accuse you of terrorism.

2. Any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. As reported before, this system records all e-mail correspondence and the addresses of Web pages visited by a specific target. Previously, there were legal restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance techniques (Section 216). Even more troubling, Fox News has reported that the FBI plans to go beyond the authorization of the new bill and change the very architecture of the Internet. The FBI wants to route all net traffic through central servers for monitoring. While this will require the voluntary compliance of the major ISPs, most experts agree that they will quickly cave into these demands for fear of appearing uncooperative or unpatriotic.

3. An accused terrorist who is a foreign citizen can be held for an unspecified series of "periods of up to six months" with the attorney general's approval. He doesn't have to be charged and he may be denied access to an attorney (Section 412). In effect, this provision suspends any due process provisions of the Constitution, especially the Fifth Amendment which states that "no person … [shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." While the provision of this bill only applies to foreigners, it sets a dangerous precedent and could easily be used in the future against U.S. citizens accused of domestic terrorism.

4. Foreigners who enter the U.S. on a visa will be subjected to biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners. This will become part of an "integrated entry and exit data system" (Section 414). My fear is that eventually all Americans will be forced to submit to this technology. This bill will put the infrastructure in place. In will then be a simple step to require all citizens to participate in this system. Failure to do so may result in the inability to travel or even to buy and sell merchandise or property.

5. Without a court order, the FBI can require telephone companies and Internet service providers to turn over customer records. All they have to do is claim that the "records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism." Worse, the company contacted may not "disclose to any person" that the FBI is doing an investigation (Section 505). The bill of rights was written to protect citizens from exactly this kind of abuse. This provision of the new law completely throws out the presumption of innocence doctrine that is central to our system of justice. Now anyone can be treated as a criminal if they are merely accused of a crime.

6. Without a court order, credit reporting agencies must disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation. The agencies may not disclose to the subject that the FBI is snooping in their file (Section 505). Again, there is no presumption of innocence and the suspect is denied his due process rights. This gives government agents the authority to spy on anyone's financial activities. All they have to do is make the accusation of terrorism and the door swings wide open.

7. The current definition of terrorism is expanded to include biochemical attacks and computer hacking. Some current computer crimes — such as hacking a U.S. government system or breaking into and damaging any Internet-connected computer — are also covered (Section 808). While these are no doubt crimes and should be prosecuted, by classifying them as "terrorist activities," suspects are subject to having their rights radically curtailed, as I have outlined above. If convicted, they are subjected to extremely stiff penalties. Prison terms range between five and 20 years (Section 814.

[SoothingDave]

Actually her main argument was that the Constitution was a flexible document and that the founding fathers knew that things would change and wanted the Constitution to be able to change along with the times.

You write things down and agree upon them beforehand precisely to prevent things from changing. When two teams go out to play football, they can rest assured that the referees are going to call the game based upon a set of rules that the clubs assented to. They don't decide on a whim to make a touchdown 10 points because one side is losing too badly. The rules are the rules and they are agreed upon beforehand. This can not be stressed enough.

It is the same with a business that contracts for services. They decide beforehand and write down the terms. Then both agree to the terms, if they desire.

A society is to be run no differently. A would-be thief knows that what he is doing is against the rules and that there is a punishment for it. The entire idea of rule of law is that people can make choices based up a predetermined set of rules, that all agree to abide by. When judges and juries make up laws on the spot and punish people and companies for not obeying this new "law" that they had had no knowledge of existing is to introduce chaos and uncertainty where order should be.

SD

[El Sordo]

The WOD has given us civil forfeiture ( http://www.FEAR.org ) as well as a gutting of financial privacy. Remember 'Know Your Customer'? It was smothered in the crib, yes. But it was them dug back up and is being reanimated a bit at a time.

[ladyinred]

The seat belt laws were one of the first things that came to my mind too. Not that I don't think wearing them is a good idea, but we should not be forced to do so! You know, "land of the free" and all that.

[Mo1]

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[DWPittelli]

We're just registering gun owners. We'll never take away their guns. (2nd Amend.)

These "sham issue ads" must be stopped. (1st Amend)

These all-male (all-white, etc.) clubs must be forced to allow women members (freedom of association, 1st Amend and natural right)

[ladyinred]

Great post!
I heard Peter Jennings, you know, that great protector of our constitutional rights, (sure) say yesterday on Hannity that the framers were so brilliant to write the constitution in such a way that we could amend it to change with the times, blah, blah, blah. The greatest danger to our rights is the idea that the constitution is a living, breathing, document meant to be changed to fit the latest PC agenda.

[ladyinred]

Along with other things mentioned here, I must add the right to free speech has been greatly impaired with the "hate crime" legislation. We can now be convicted for what we are thinking. Remember the line from an old song, "Brother you can't go to jail for what you're thinking?" No longer applies. PC is a tremendous eroison of not only our freedoms, but our national security as well.