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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Putting Alex Jones Arrest In Perspective On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York struck down portions of the Patriot Act as unconstitutional, ordering the FBI to stop issuing "national security letters" that secretly demand customer information from Internet service providers and other businesses. Washington Post writer Dan Eggen commentated that the judge's ruling clarified "the landmark anti-terrorism law violates the First Amendment and the Constitution's separation of powers provisions because it, in effect, prohibits recipients of the FBI letters from revealing their existence and does not provide adequate judicial oversight of the process. "Marrero wrote in his 106-page ruling that Patriot Act provisions related to the letters are 'the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.' "The decision has the potential to eliminate one of the FBI's most widely used investigative tactics. It comes amid widespread concern on Capitol Hill over reported abuses in the way the FBI has used its national security letter powers." It's interesting that leading into an election season, politicians on Capital Hill are suddenly concerned with civil liberties. Makes you want to say, "What a difference an election season can make, huh?" Then again, media activist Alex Jones was just arrested by New York Police Department officers while filming a documentary about the sixth anniversary of September 11th and joining the protest against the official version of what happened on 9/11. This makes me reminisce about the good old days leading up to the last U.S. Presidential election in which during one of several conversations I had with a fellow evangelical who couldn’t understand my lack of enthusiasm for the Bush administration, I listened as the highly educated and very successful publisher said the dumbest thing I’d heard in a while - a statement that has unfortunately been echoed by many sheeple over the last seven years. "But Tom," he said in response to my concern about the erosion of civil liberties, "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about!" Maybe it was because he was recently returned from a private dinner with Attorney General John Ashcroft - which included a night of bulletproof limousine rides and exquisite dining locations under the ever-present protection of secret service agents - that my friend seemed asleep at the cerebral wheel. Or perhaps it was due to the three of us – him, me and Ashcoft - having credentials in the same organization or Ashcroft’s winning personality and the afterglow of the piano playing and gospel-songs-crooning they had shared at the Attorney General’s private residence that night that had disarmed my buddy’s brain. After all, I’m sure all of this would make it difficult for any hard-core evangelical to understand my point of view: that our friend the nation’s top cop was becoming a scary man working with a group of even scarier men on some pretty scary policies. Whatever the case, in the days following the election, I was pleased to learn that Ashcroft hadn't been that supportive of the administration's wishes, and that he would soon be stepping down. Yet my bubble burst when insiders told me the celebration had come a bit early, and that John Ashcroft’s replacement was bringing some equally menacing qualities of his own to the thoroughly neo-conned White House. Multilateralism was being deemed outmoded, they said, and the new assertion would be that freedom from terrorism would only occur through pre-emptive action against ‘enemies of democracy’ not only abroad, 'but also inside the United States.'" Such as... Alex Jones? Of course it was bound to come sooner or later. I even predicted such, not that I’m a prophet you understand, and not that anybody was listening way back then. It was 1990 when as keynote speaker to a packed house of religious delegates including TBN officials, I said loudly into the microphone, "If America doesn’t wake up and teach it’s kids to think, we will have a dictator in this country within ten years!" I still remember the looks on their faces, as if they were musing, "Here he goes with that ‘loss of liberty’ speech again. Does Tom really believe that in just ten years Americans will be microchipped, body searched at airports and detained without warrants!?" Of course they were right. I had miscalculated. A dictator didn’t take control of the U.S. within ten years like I’d predicted. It appears he will need a bit more time. With leading members of the increasingly political and spiritually anemic evangelical community spouting phrases like, "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about," it shouldn’t take too long. The eradication of fundamental rights including the presumption of innocence, which my publisher friend either didn’t understand or cherish, is easy fodder for the emerging beast as he plows the inevitable intrusion by federal bureaucrats into every corner of our lives. Students of the Revolutionary War and the French Revolution will see the irony here. In 1789, while Americans were at long last rejoicing in newfound liberties and hard-won freedoms, more than twenty thousand citizens prepared to be executed in Paris's guillotines beneath the horrific persecution and torture of Maximilien Robespierre. France would witness an unprecedented reign of terror leading up to totalitarianism and Napoleon, in which the masses would in effect be told, "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about!" In case you’re interested in how today’s pre-emptive action against "enemies of democracy inside the United States" might likewise materialize, here are the signs I talked about over fifteen years ago. Signpost #1 - The erosion of free speech: Any criticism of the U.S. President and members of the government are currently being viewed as hostile. To speak your mind or disagree in the current political climate can malign you as a terrorist or at a minimum an unpatriotic radical. Like those worried pilgrims who fled in their little boats so long ago to escape totalitarianism in search of America, in the near future dissenters will be viewed as enemies of the state if they challenge the status quo. Signpost #2 - The erosion of privacy: As you learn to march in cadence to the New American Dream, changes to federal privacy laws will see you watched, monitored, investigated, patted down, detained, harassed and suspected of criminal activity until you can prove otherwise. To ensure everybody’s uncontested compliance along the new chain-cobbled highway, national ID and exhaustive databases will be networked to track continuous individual whereabouts and activities. Your car, television, computer, sidewalk and building cameras will assure that Big Brother’s benevolent eyes are watching everything you do. Signpost # 3 - The erosion of property rights: During the coming years, personal property rights will be vastly undermined. Why? Because of sustainable society ideas, and also because when government accumulates power in responding to a crises, it brings with it the authority to commandeer resources. The roof over your head is yours only as long as the government doesn’t want it, every Real Estate agent knows this. It’s called imminent domain and I watched my grandfather lose his campground as a result of this law. How long will it be before similar principles apply to those hard-earned bucks you have in the bank? Already there is a global push for biometric body-parts-scanning in order to verify your rights to access your own money... so that you can buy and sell. Does this sound prophetic to anybody but me? Signpost #4 - The erosion of fundamental fairness and U.S. due process standards: A new election ‘mandate’ that is given or assumed in 2008 could waste little time building on the Bush years and changing valuable court resources. To "make this country safer and to protect our mutual interests," citizens could witness further erosion of constitutional rights, including the misuse of laws and regulations by government officials as well as the implementation of new rules for domestic engagement - such as detention without formal charges. But take heart, Alex Jones. I heard recently that If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about! Right! Uh-huh! May we have another!
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