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- iching, on 11/24/2007, -11/+52Bill Of Rights Pared Down To A Manageable Six-(DECEMBER 18, 2002 )
The Fourth Amendment, which long protected citizens' homes against unreasonable search and seizure, was among the eliminated amendments. Also stricken was the Ninth Amendment, which stated that the enumeration of certain Constitutional rights does not result in the abrogation of rights not mentioned.
"Quite honestly, I could never get my head around what the Ninth Amendment meant anyway," said outgoing House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), one of the leading advocates of the revised Bill of Rights. "So goodbye to that one."
Amendments V through VII, which guaranteed the right to legal counsel in criminal cases, and guarded against double jeopardy, testifying against oneself, biased juries, and drawn-out trials, have been condensed into Super-Amendment V: The One About Trials.
Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the slimmed-down Bill of Rights as "a positive step."
"Go up to the average citizen and ask them what's in the Bill of Rights," Ashcroft said. "Chances are, they'll have only a vague notion. They just know it's a set of rules put in place to protect their individual freedoms from government intrusion, and they assume that's a good thing."
"We're not taking away personal rights; we're increasing personal security," Ashcroft said. "By allowing for greater government control over the particulars of individual liberties, the Bill of Rights will now offer expanded personal freedoms whenever they are deemed appropriate and unobtrusive to the activities necessary to effective operation of the federal government."
Ashcroft added that, thanks to several key additions, the Bill of Rights now offers protections that were previously lacking, including the right to be protected by soldiers quartered in one's home (Amendment III), the guarantee that activities not specifically delegated to the states and people will be carried out by the federal government (Amendment VI), and freedom of Judeo-Christianity and non-combative speech (Amendment I).
According to U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), the original Bill of Rights, though well-intentioned, was "seriously outdated."
"The United States is a different place than it was back in 1791," Craig said. "As visionary as they were, the framers of the Constitution never could have foreseen, for example, that our government would one day need to jail someone indefinitely without judicial review. There was no such thing as suspicious Middle Eastern immigrants back then."
Ashcroft noted that recent FBI efforts to conduct investigations into "unusual activities" were severely hampered by the old Fourth Amendment.
"The Bill of Rights was written more than 200 years ago, long before anyone could even fathom the existence of wiretapping technology or surveillance cameras," Ashcroft said. "Yet through a bizarre fluke, it was still somehow worded in such a way as to restrict use of these devices. Clearly, it had to go before it could do more serious damage in the future."
The president agreed.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bill_of_right ... - inactive, on 11/24/2007, -4/+45Pocket Constitutions - $1 each. Give them out as stocking stuffers. Buy some of the videos so you know what all of the words and issues are really about. The best way to really give the government a hard time
http://www.xmission.com/~nccs/us_constitution.html - SeethisPass, on 11/24/2007, -2/+28What we need is to re-limit the governments rights. and the government itself.
- phnx0221, on 11/24/2007, -3/+24I had done a search a while ago about civil liberties and rights erosions and the patriot act. I had come across a fantastic pdf called "The State of Civil Liberties: One Year Later Erosion of Civil Liberties" written by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Unfortunately, they have changed their domain name, and did not keep that pdf during the transfer.
However, I did find another excellent article from truthout.org, that goes through and lists off the sections of the patriot act that infringe on US citizen and non-US citizen rights. It's long, but very easy to read. Here's the link.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/11.15D.jvb.cm.usap ...
Here is a pdf from the bill of rights defense committee. I think it's 1.91 MB. It didn't take long to download for me. It lists each amendment of the constitution, the section of the patriot act that affects it, how it affects it, and the abuses that could stem from those infringements. This also, is very easy to read, as everything is done in a table so you can see all of the information very clearly.
http://www.bordc.org/resources/repeal.pdf - lgfaphile, on 11/24/2007, -1/+19Sure and there is a procedure for doing just that, its called amending the Constitution. Unless you have the votes in Congress and the States to do that, don't "reassess which of those...rights are still relevant today" on my behalf. I enjoy them ALL too much for such flip assessment.
- Fieri, on 11/24/2007, -3/+21Let's not start fights between Kucinich and Paul supporters. We're both on the same team here.
- ussoldier, on 11/24/2007, -1/+18The Bill of Rights never went far enough... you really only need one right... which was painfully absent... the right to be left alone...
Unfortunatly, government, criminals, your neighbors, the police, everyone out there has absolutely no respect for it. - phnx0221, on 11/24/2007, -0/+12Dude. Satire. It's from the Onion. :)
- Witchboy, on 11/24/2007, -2/+13A fantastic book on the subject. Everyone concerned about the erosion of rights should read this, left or right.
http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-P ...
It lists the 10 common steps away from free society and toward a more fascist society.
(The list...1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy, 2. Create a gulag, 3. Develop a thug caste, 4. Set up an internal surveillance system, 5. Harass citizens' groups, 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release, 7. Target key individuals, 8. Control the press, 9. Dissent equals treason, 10. Suspend the rule of law.)
I'm reading it now...fantastic.
Here's an essay (short) version:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00. ...
Chilling excerpt:
And here is where the circle closes: most Americans do not realise that since September of last year - when Congress wrongly, foolishly, passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - the president has the power to call any US citizen an "enemy combatant". He has the power to define what "enemy combatant" means. The president can also delegate to anyone he chooses in the executive branch the right to define "enemy combatant" any way he or she wants and then seize Americans accordingly.
Even if you or I are American citizens, even if we turn out to be completely innocent of what he has accused us of doing, he has the power to have us seized as we are changing planes at Newark tomorrow, or have us taken with a knock on the door; ship you or me to a navy brig; and keep you or me in isolation, possibly for months, while awaiting trial. (Prolonged isolation, as psychiatrists know, triggers psychosis in otherwise mentally healthy prisoners. That is why Stalin's gulag had an isolation cell, like Guantánamo's, in every satellite prison. Camp 6, the newest, most brutal facility at Guantánamo, is all isolation cells.)
We US citizens will get a trial eventually - for now. But legal rights activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights say that the Bush administration is trying increasingly aggressively to find ways to get around giving even US citizens fair trials. "Enemy combatant" is a status offence - it is not even something you have to have done. "We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model - you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we're going to hold you," says a spokeswoman of the CCR.
Most Americans surely do not get this yet. No wonder: it is hard to believe, even though it is true. In every closing society, at a certain point there are some high-profile arrests - usually of opposition leaders, clergy and journalists. Then everything goes quiet. After those arrests, there are still newspapers, courts, TV and radio, and the facades of a civil society. There just isn't real dissent. There just isn't freedom. If you look at history, just before those arrests is where we are now. - bjornski, on 11/24/2007, -1/+12It's not normally "the left" that doesn't catch these things.
- nepawoods, on 11/24/2007, -2/+12"It's time to wake up and reasess which of those rights (and responsibilities) are still relevent or necessary today - and also decide which new rights and responsibilities should be granted to people."
They would never have written the Bill of Rights had they not had the mindset of those who wrote the Declaration of Independence, with the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR with certain UNALIENABLE rights". These rights aren't "granted" by government or by any collection of people. Government has no power to "grant" rights, and personally, I don't want it to such power. The Bill of Rights doesn't grant rights. It clarifies what rights the authors recognized were a fundamental part of being human.
As for rights that are no longer relevant or necessary, it's irrelevant whether they're relevant or necessary. We have them. They can't be given up, traded in, or taken away. If you don't want to exercise yours, that's your business. - phnx0221, on 11/24/2007, -10/+20:) Vote Dennis Kucinich! 2008!
- anonynous2_, on 11/24/2007, -0/+10Granted to the people--are you completely daft?! A fundamental principal of the US was that the the power and rights of the government stemmed from the people, not the other way around. So who is it you think should get to decide which rights you have? I think it should be me..
- sirloin, on 11/24/2007, -1/+11You know who protects our rights from encroachments of government?
You do or are supposed to. - nbeck, on 11/24/2007, -1/+10Our rights are gone and America is going to burn down from the inside out. Congratulations: we've turned into a bunch of willfully ignorant consumers. SUVs (Americans are the only people who drive these pieces of ***** by the way) and Coach Purses mean more to us than culture, unity, and not killing a million people in Iraq--not to mention remaining free from tyranny. It's ***** disgusting. Our phone lines are tapped, our internet usage is monitored. Cameras are going up on our street corners, and our police are becoming an extension of the military. Now they can casually shock us for refusing to sign a speeding ticket.
Free country? More like history repeating itself.
We let corporations tell us what to think and what's important. And we've been taken over by a bunch of ***** murderous religious zealots. Bet I get buried. =) - nepawoods, on 11/24/2007, -1/+9Which is why gun ownership should not only be considered a right, but a moral obligation to oneself and to one's fellow man.
- nepawoods, on 11/24/2007, -3/+11Way to get yourself on the government's list of domestic terrorists.
- BlackJackJester, on 11/24/2007, -0/+8Ideally the tenth amendment does that...but it seems to have been forgotten completely.
- CatalystGhost, on 11/24/2007, -0/+8Tough to read the entire thing and see it pretty blatantly at the bottom in the link? Wow... you really read that one, didn't you?
- jbird71, on 11/24/2007, -0/+7I think Bush and co. should also be reminded of this little snippet from the Declaration of Independence:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [...]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."
Remember that first and foremost the American founders were REVOLUTIONARIES. - SilverBack101, on 11/24/2007, -4/+11I'm not an American but a Canadian and from what we see from up here we're worried you people in the States aren't being watchful over what is going on with your government and your rights. For ***** sake people print this and keep it in your car, wallet, and bloody well make a poster of this on your wall. If you are unwilling to learn and protect your rights they will be infringed upon.
- phnx0221, on 11/24/2007, -0/+6We definitely need an increase in the people's role in legislation. It would certainly be nice to have our votes actually affect changes made not only on a local scale, but on a national scale as well. We have so many laws passed each year, I certainly don't know of them all, it would be really nice to be able to vote on them, so that laws aren't passed that are not in the interest in the majority of the population.
- locriology, on 11/24/2007, -2/+8Unfortunately, the people who need the reminder the most probably don't spend too much time on Digg.
- jeffiek, on 11/24/2007, -2/+8"things cannot and must not ever change."
I call BULL. In case you haven't heard, there's a procedure to change the Constitution. It's been done more than once. One time they even reversed a prior change.
It's the LAW. Live by it or change it.
(sorry - meant as reply to geekchic - damn comment system) - random12345, on 11/16/2008, -0/+6Dugg for the people of America.
- inactive, on 11/24/2007, -0/+6Just throwing in a founding father quote to back you up. You know, the old RP'er stand by? Here is what Mr. Jefferson had to say about not changing:
Jefferson himself said this plainly: "Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - jbird71, on 11/24/2007, -0/+6You should look up Tyranny of the Majority. As soon as you make human rights subject to the whims of the masses, you see the wholesale elimination of rights that protect minorities in all their stripes. Even if 99% of the country despises brussel sprouts, there's no good reason to ban them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majori ... - TrevorBelmont, on 11/24/2007, -0/+6I will respond on behalf of non-voters everywhere.
There was no one to vote for. - Ekdog, on 11/24/2007, -2/+8Whoever posted this left-wing propaganda document is an anti-American commie and a traitor who should be thoroughly investigated and then muzzled, water boarded and imprisoned. God bless America.
- skews13, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5 article ix;
the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights,shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people - Hawkknight88, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5Thanks for the cool info bud. I believe that the main reason the government has eroded our civil liberties is due to the lack of knowledge that they're even under attack. It's true, most people couldn't tell you the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, but does that in any way give someone the right to steal our guaranteed freedoms from our founding fathers? The article detailing the Patriot Act's infringements was particularly good.
- nepawoods, on 11/24/2007, -1/+6So yo don't believe in unalienable rights then. You have no rights, unless and only as long as government grants them to you.
- skews13, on 11/24/2007, -1/+6only 40% of the elidegble voters in the country voted in the last 2 elections
- lgfaphile, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5"Which is why gun ownership should not only be considered a right, but a moral obligation to oneself and to one's fellow man."
Absolutely!! - sockpuppets, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5That would be "bare-arms."
- spyd3rweb, on 11/24/2007, -4/+9Digg the Bill of Rights or move to Soviet Russia.
- inactive, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5A reminder to the 10th amendment freaks: Note the words in caps:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, OR TO THE PEOPLE.
It is NOT a be all and end all "states rights" mantra that means you can claim it for everything. OR TO THE PEOPLE, people! - Mikeropology, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4Hah, I read the URL as "billo frights" ..sign of the times?
- overkillingness, on 11/25/2007, -0/+4And for all Canadians... :)
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/ - DeviantDragon, on 11/24/2007, -1/+5No, screw them, they make a big deal over really insignificant things and make terrible decisions on what to focus on and bring media attention to.
- Richandler, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4Actually I think they do.
- N00F, on 11/25/2007, -0/+4As a Canadian, I never really understood the 2nd amendment. "The RIGHT to bare arms". But now, after seeing so many of your freedoms taken from you, This one right gives you hope, The fact that you have that right means, that when the 2nd amendment is taken from you, you will already have the means necessary to fight for your rights. I hope you get to take back all of your rights in a bloodless and democratic vote, if not, give 'em hell!!!
- phnx0221, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4Great link. I can't believe I had forgotten that. I wholeheartedly supported Gravel in the beginning of the candidacies. I'm a Kucinich supporter now, although I still support Gravel, and his national initiative only solidifies that. Once again, great link.
- EdgarVerona, on 11/24/2007, -0/+3In Soviet Russia, the Bill of Rights diggs YOU.
... what? - inactive, on 11/24/2007, -0/+3You are confusing America with the U.N., who has now declared the Taser a torture device. We called it a "less-lethal deterrent". America will soon be calling it "instant money in a civil lawsuit".
- bjornski, on 11/24/2007, -1/+4I don't pay taxes because it "makes me feel good".
I pay them because I like the services they provide. Well, many of them, anyway.
This war for Exxon/Israel part? Not so much. - djbon2112, on 11/24/2007, -0/+3Just ordered 3 of them.
- ZenMasterJG, on 11/25/2007, -0/+3Sure, the constitution can be changed with the due process of law. Things like the Patriot act, or the suspension of Habeas Corpus ignore that procedure. They take away our rights without changing the constitution, and that cannot be allowed.
Edit: amusingly, I meant to reply to geekchic too. Serious Fail. - jeffiek, on 11/24/2007, -0/+3I'm in fine shape tonight. First I screw up responding to you. Then I post my apology to the wrong person.
Again, my sincerest apology. -
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