By Alan Caruba ——Bio and Archives--April 5, 2015
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“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 probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”Colonial Americans had watched a famous case in England in which John Wilkes had led the fight to ensure that the King could no longer arbitrarily search and seize the property of anyone. They had fought a Revolution to be free of such tyranny. In the effort to secure the ratification of the Constitution, in 1789 James Madison began drafting the Bill of Rights that several of the states said had to be part of the Constitution if they were to ratify it. It was introduced to the First Congress that same year. Sen. Lee expresses concern that “for the past eight years, the federal government has relied on an excessively broad interpretation of an excessively broad provision of the USA Patriot Act to collect and, in some circumstances, search through vast amounts of information that most Americans would consider both private and entirely unrelated to national security.” Noting the intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency that routinely gather enormous information about all our electronic communications, telephone calls and email, Sen. Lee says that “One could argue, however, that that far greater threat to government of the people, by the people, and for the people is the near certainty that those who wield this power will eventually use it to identify and punish anyone whom may disagree with them. This type of abuse could weaken or even destroy constitutionally limited government as we know it.” That’s what has me worried specifically about Barack Obama. I have no doubt at all that he would and probably has used the vast information gathering capacity at his disposal to “punish” those he regards his enemies. Consider what he did to Iraq War hero Gen. David Petraeus who he had appointed as Director of the CIA. He drove him from that post and threatened him with jail for an infraction that likely was discovered by monitoring his private communications. By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s email server was, according to intelligence experts, likely hacked to the point where our enemies knew exactly what she and the State Department was doing. And she wants to be your next President. My ultimate concern is that Obama might declare martial law for whatever spurious reason he would give. It would suspend the Constitution and leave us with no rights at all, subject to arrest for resisting his takeover of the nation. It would also mobilize the largest army in the world…America’s hunters and gun owners! Obama has been working to federalize police authorities around the nation. He has purged the military of any officer that was deemed to disagree with his policies. All that stands between us and him is the Constitution and Congress. And the fact that millions of Americans, thanks to the Second Amendment, are armed in the event he tries to assert dictatorial powers. © Alan Caruba, 2015
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Editor’s Note: Alan passed away on June 15, 2015. He will be greatly missed
Alan Caruba: A candle that goes on flickering in the dark.