Welcome To The Occupation...
Hello again loyal readers. I hope everyone is doing well.
The title above comes from an old R.E.M. tune by the same name (off the "Document" album [I highly recommend the album. It is essential R.E.M.]) However, I am not here to talk about music. I am here to address the serious violation of oaths and ethics by the current Congress.
When a Representative or Senator is sworn in they take an oath to "...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign or domestic...". This past week, the House and Senate saw fit to compromise on a bill that violates that oath. The bill I speak of is an extension of the USA Patriot Act.
The bill had been passed by both the House and Senate in different forms back in July. Those two seperate forms had to wait until this week to reach a committee that would hammer out the differences between the two versions and recommend a compromise bill to both the House and Senate for approval. That committee has done its job and the compromise bill is now awaiting formal approval (essentially a rubber stamp in this case).
The compromise would make permanent 14 of the Patriot Acts most controversial sections and would allow the use of "National Security Letters" (the most odious of the bill's tenets). National Security Letters would allow the FBI to conduct searches of a person's records without first obtaining a search warrant. All that would be required of the FBI to use an NSL is the desire to do so, and the rubber stamp approval of the Special Agent in Charge (of the given office). Now not being a legal scholar, I could be wrong about this, but isn't that a violation of the Constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure? And should the FBI actually seize something, isn't that also a violation of the right against being deprived of property without due process of law? The saddest part of the NSLs is that they can be used against anyone...even if you don't have anything to do with terrorism!
The bill also allows (without judicial approval) the government to look into library records, medical records, financial records, in short, every record that may (or may not) be remotely connected to you. The government is now allowed to tear your life apart all without you even being allowed to defend yourself against such an inquisition in a court of law. The people who are contacted are NOT ALLOWED BY LAW to inform you that the government is investigating you. Furthermore, should you be taken in for questioning in one of these NSL investigations, you aren't even allowed to tell your lawyer about it. Nice paradox, eh. You can have a lawyer, but you can't tell him why the government has you.
If the US had been conquered by a despotic regime, I could probably understand all of this. However, we have not been conquered by anyone. This bill comes from the (supposedly) democratically elected representatives of the people, namely the Congress. This bill so violates the Constitution and, subsequently, the individual liberties guaranteed by such that I would have expected this piece of legislative crap to be something crafted in Red China, the old Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany, not in the US! By coming up with a piece of legislation that violates the Constitution this egregiously, the Congress has abrogated their responsibilities to the people and violated their oaths of office. That is at least a violation of the ethics codes pertaining to government employees. A government employee guilty of ethics violations usually gets fired. I say that we have a mass firing of the US Congress, followed by a firing of the moron in the White House who pushed for all of this. It is time to tell the Congress that violating a person's Constitutional rights is a crime. A cop who violates your rights usually gets fired and sometimes goes to jail (depending on the magnitude of the violation), why should a Representative or Senator be any different?
As I see it, we have three ways of disposing of the current congress. The first, and least effective, is that we can vote them out of office and hope that their successors rectify the problem (not likely as incumbents generally win reelection, and the successors would probably be no better than the current bunch). The second, and somewhat more effective, is to recall each Representative and Senator and replace them with people who know what the Constitution says. The last involves somewhat more trouble but is probably the most effective solution. It involves two words, one of which starts with an "o" and the other starts with an "r". The first word, the one starting with "o" is the same word that sportscasters use when a quarterback passes to a reciever but the ball is too high and out of reach for the reciever. The "r" word is another word for one complete orbit of the sun by a planet, or the first word in the anagram "rpm". I can't say those words on this blog for fear of being put on a government watchlist, blackballed concerning future employment, having the FBI come knocking on my door, and possibly being deported (despite being a native US citizen).
Now the "o" and "r" would not be a whole new system with a whole new constitution or the like, it would merely be to restore the system back to what the current Constitution had in mind. That is to say that the current neo-Fascist government has to go in order that we, the people, might restore the system to one that recognizes that the rights of the individual outweigh the right of the government to do as it pleases (something the current regime in DC has rejected time and time again).
We face a grave choice, not in the future, but right now. The choice is between whether we, as a democratic and free people, will allow an elected government to guide us into a police state where the power of the government is all pervasive and allows for little or no privacy or dissent, or whether we, as a democratic and free people, will take back power from the government, restore sanity to the politcal process, and show the world that in the United States of America the right of an individual to do as he or she pleases is both inviolable and politically sacred.
In 1933 the German people faced a similar choice...they chose wrong and brought years of terror, in the form of an evil dictatorship and war, to their country. What will our choice be?
As always I am Chuck, and if this gets me deported I want to go to England.
The title above comes from an old R.E.M. tune by the same name (off the "Document" album [I highly recommend the album. It is essential R.E.M.]) However, I am not here to talk about music. I am here to address the serious violation of oaths and ethics by the current Congress.
When a Representative or Senator is sworn in they take an oath to "...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign or domestic...". This past week, the House and Senate saw fit to compromise on a bill that violates that oath. The bill I speak of is an extension of the USA Patriot Act.
The bill had been passed by both the House and Senate in different forms back in July. Those two seperate forms had to wait until this week to reach a committee that would hammer out the differences between the two versions and recommend a compromise bill to both the House and Senate for approval. That committee has done its job and the compromise bill is now awaiting formal approval (essentially a rubber stamp in this case).
The compromise would make permanent 14 of the Patriot Acts most controversial sections and would allow the use of "National Security Letters" (the most odious of the bill's tenets). National Security Letters would allow the FBI to conduct searches of a person's records without first obtaining a search warrant. All that would be required of the FBI to use an NSL is the desire to do so, and the rubber stamp approval of the Special Agent in Charge (of the given office). Now not being a legal scholar, I could be wrong about this, but isn't that a violation of the Constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure? And should the FBI actually seize something, isn't that also a violation of the right against being deprived of property without due process of law? The saddest part of the NSLs is that they can be used against anyone...even if you don't have anything to do with terrorism!
The bill also allows (without judicial approval) the government to look into library records, medical records, financial records, in short, every record that may (or may not) be remotely connected to you. The government is now allowed to tear your life apart all without you even being allowed to defend yourself against such an inquisition in a court of law. The people who are contacted are NOT ALLOWED BY LAW to inform you that the government is investigating you. Furthermore, should you be taken in for questioning in one of these NSL investigations, you aren't even allowed to tell your lawyer about it. Nice paradox, eh. You can have a lawyer, but you can't tell him why the government has you.
If the US had been conquered by a despotic regime, I could probably understand all of this. However, we have not been conquered by anyone. This bill comes from the (supposedly) democratically elected representatives of the people, namely the Congress. This bill so violates the Constitution and, subsequently, the individual liberties guaranteed by such that I would have expected this piece of legislative crap to be something crafted in Red China, the old Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany, not in the US! By coming up with a piece of legislation that violates the Constitution this egregiously, the Congress has abrogated their responsibilities to the people and violated their oaths of office. That is at least a violation of the ethics codes pertaining to government employees. A government employee guilty of ethics violations usually gets fired. I say that we have a mass firing of the US Congress, followed by a firing of the moron in the White House who pushed for all of this. It is time to tell the Congress that violating a person's Constitutional rights is a crime. A cop who violates your rights usually gets fired and sometimes goes to jail (depending on the magnitude of the violation), why should a Representative or Senator be any different?
As I see it, we have three ways of disposing of the current congress. The first, and least effective, is that we can vote them out of office and hope that their successors rectify the problem (not likely as incumbents generally win reelection, and the successors would probably be no better than the current bunch). The second, and somewhat more effective, is to recall each Representative and Senator and replace them with people who know what the Constitution says. The last involves somewhat more trouble but is probably the most effective solution. It involves two words, one of which starts with an "o" and the other starts with an "r". The first word, the one starting with "o" is the same word that sportscasters use when a quarterback passes to a reciever but the ball is too high and out of reach for the reciever. The "r" word is another word for one complete orbit of the sun by a planet, or the first word in the anagram "rpm". I can't say those words on this blog for fear of being put on a government watchlist, blackballed concerning future employment, having the FBI come knocking on my door, and possibly being deported (despite being a native US citizen).
Now the "o" and "r" would not be a whole new system with a whole new constitution or the like, it would merely be to restore the system back to what the current Constitution had in mind. That is to say that the current neo-Fascist government has to go in order that we, the people, might restore the system to one that recognizes that the rights of the individual outweigh the right of the government to do as it pleases (something the current regime in DC has rejected time and time again).
We face a grave choice, not in the future, but right now. The choice is between whether we, as a democratic and free people, will allow an elected government to guide us into a police state where the power of the government is all pervasive and allows for little or no privacy or dissent, or whether we, as a democratic and free people, will take back power from the government, restore sanity to the politcal process, and show the world that in the United States of America the right of an individual to do as he or she pleases is both inviolable and politically sacred.
In 1933 the German people faced a similar choice...they chose wrong and brought years of terror, in the form of an evil dictatorship and war, to their country. What will our choice be?
As always I am Chuck, and if this gets me deported I want to go to England.
posted by Chuck | 02:22
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home