Wrong

Bush is simply wrong.

Speaking at a nearby venue yesterday, he defended warrantless wiretaps. Moreover, he made a joke of seeking Congressional Approval for an “illegal activity”.

Warrants for wiretaps exist because of a fundamental understanding that eavesdropping of any kind by any branch of government is a violation of a person’s right to privacy. Warrants exist to establish that while the act itself is still fundamentally wrong, there exists a need such that motivates a judge to authorize said activity.

Its basic checks and balances. It is designed so that the judicial branch has some oversight of the enforcement branch. So at least ONE other branch knows what the blank is going on.

This isn’t about partisanship, this is about not taking the Constitution seriously. The Constitution was written specifically to delinate and limit exactly what powers the Federal government may have. Powers that ultimately come from the sovereignty of the Citizens who signed, and later support said contract.

My Executive Branch is blatantly thumbing its nose at its Contract with me, The People.

That just really pisses me off….

And this isn’t even about catching Terrorists. That’s just an excuse to justify this abuse. You think “warrantless wiretaps” will end when we win the war against terrorism?(*) Expletive no! They’ll turn their microphones and surveilance equipment in another direction — yours and mine. And then I’ll be “detained” “without warrant” (and without due process) for writing this journal entry, as it “incites ill will toward the United States”.

And maybe you’ll not hear from me again. Not because I’m dead, but because I’m “detained”. Not arrested — that requires Due Process.

You watch. You wait. You’ll be their Bitch, too.

It will happen.

(*) Because the War on Terrorism will never end. Congress gets to abuse the system in all kinds of ways when we are at war. And Terrorism is an explicitly unpredictable activity. There’s no way to “win” a “war on terrorism”. Terror is a state of mind, and our govenment, with the assistance of our Media, are well trained in techniques of terrorising our nation’s people.

Forget equality. We are taught constantly about Hate in our country: and as long as we buy into what they are selling, then the war on terror will continue.

I am not naive enough to believe that there are NOT people willing to do harm against this country. But I am also not naive enough to believe this is a new thing. And I am also not so trained a monkey as to accept as grateuitous the hand that tears asunder its Contract with her Citizens as the hand that feeds me.

I’ve quoted this before: “Terrorism is the use of force or violence, or threatened use of force or violence, against person and places for the purpose of intimidating and/or coercing a government, its citizens, or any segment thereof for political or social goals.”

I believe in the validity of the Constitution, and value the same values and purposes recorded and acted upon in the Declaration of Independence: “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.”

Are you a terrorist? Am I? How long before the Enforcement branch decides that we are?

Warrantless wiretapping is Wrong. Its immoral. Its unAmerican.

…”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”… — Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

The Enforcement branch has no right under Nature and God to assume a superior virtue and violate my fundamental humanity. No creation of Man has such right, except by virtue of the authority INVESTED IN IT by The People so governed.

We had a Contract with that creation. It was called the Constitution.

Where have you, oh People, let it go? When will you, oh People, bring it back?