I was reading the constitution the other day, and the Forth Amendment peaked my interest. A lot of people have long said that Forth Amendment protects individuals from the right to be searched by government without a search warrant. But that’s not exactly what the text says …
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 probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Maybe the founding fathers were instead implying that the purpose of the constitution was to protect the government from “ unreasonable searches and seizures” by individual citizens. After all, it’s only logical that the government would want to protect its assets from theft from the public. Government property after all belongs to the government, which represents all the people.
Likewise, one could argue that the government felt it necessary to restrict what kind of questions could be asked of it for national security and other purposes. Could “unreasonable searches” refer to public use of Freedom of Information laws? Maybe the founding fathers were just implementing an early standard to limit use of Freedom of Information, to ensure the public only had limited knowledge of what the government’s actual operations were. Maybe a citizen should be required to get a search warrant prior to getting even the most basic information on how government works. This would help protect national security.
After all, we do refer to prosecutors as “the people” in court cases, so there is a reason to believe that the founding fathers were actually referring to the government, and not individuals in drafting the Fourth Amendment. Likewise, maybe the people the Constitution was referring into First Amendment was the government and the government press, and not private citizens. To say nothing of the Second Amendment, etc.
While it seems unlikely that such an intent could be put in a document called the Bill of Rights, it’s really a bit hard to know for sure. Indeed, there are some people who may have some beliefs that the Fourth Amendment is actually a collective right, and only limits the citizen’s access to their government.
Here is what the preamble to the Bill of Rights says:
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
Still, people are free to believe what they believe about the Constitution. Ultimately though, the Courts, especially the Supreme Court will decide what the document really means.
I was quite annoyed to see that the US Census Bureau’s website is down during the government shutdown. Not because it costs anything extra to run the website or requires specialty staff, but because the President Obama and the civil servants that work for him, wanted to punish the public for electing leaders who disagreed with his policies, and refused to pass a budget bill until the President agreed to modify the health care law.
It is understandable that things requiring actual staff people would be closed during a government shutdown. For example, nobody expects developed recreation areas like campgrounds or even statistics collection to go on during the government shutdown. But websites? Most websites require minimal to any staffs, as computers will continue to serve up websites regardless of human interaction. There may be a marginal need for security staff to reset things should they get fouled up by hackers, but for the most part, web servers are totally automatic to run.
Taking down websites like the US Census Bureau is interfering with the free flow of information needed for the smooth progress of commence. It’s one thing to say grants and government contracts will be delayed during the shutdown, but the existing information should not be taken from the public domain for no reason at all except to punish the public.
A couple of years back, I decided to apply for Food Stamps and Welfare benefits, by using a free online website, provided by the state. Not because I was hungry or in need of assistance, but because I figured it would be interesting to see if there was any social services programs I could receive, and use for my benefit. I figured the form was free, and it didn’t obligate me to anything. I pay a lot in taxes, and it seemed only right that if I was eligible for a service, I should get my money’s worth.
Obviously, after I applied, I was promptly turned down. It said my income was well above the level allowed for a variety of social services. Despite the fact I pay a lot in taxes, I can’t get food stamps or other forms of social assistance that many poorer people can get. It’s not like I have a lot of extra money at the end of the month, and it really isn’t fair that some people, who are poor, can get government assistance that I am not allowed to get.
Why do some people get food stamps and government assistance, while hard-working people don’t get any assistance? They could transform these programs to be a basic benefit for all Americans. Why shouldn’t everyone get food stamps, especially if the they pay into the program? There are some months where that extra money — specifically earmarked to buy healthy food would be helpful.
I don’t particularly like having the government deciding how I should spend my money, but it would be a good incentive if the government gave everyone a few bucks every week to buy healthy food. Not everyone would take advantage of it, but it would give an incentive for eating healthy.
I have long had an interest in the use of political messaging, and how media frames a new story to benefit one political party or ideology. National Public Radio, a partially publicly funded radio station, is known for being a left-of-center bias, typically favoring liberal social policies, such as abortion and gun control. I thought it would be interesting to compare the article NPR ran after the passage of New York’s SAFE Act to Texas’ Abortion Regulation Act. New York passed it’s new law in response to the Newtown Shootings, while Texas passed it’s law in response to Kermit Gosnell’s Dirty Abortion clinic where he murdered live-born children.
N.Y. Governor Flexes Political Muscle To Pass Tough Gun Law
On Tuesday, New York became the first state in the nation to pass a tough new gun control law. Gov. Andrew Cuomo convinced his state’s Legislature to act, even before President Obama took executive action to limit access to guns.
The governor’s legislative victory followed his impassioned State of the State address earlier this month, delivered the first day of the 2013 legislative session.
In the speech, the Democratic governor, who owns a hunting rifle, exhorted the Legislature to act quickly. “No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer,” he said.
Just days later, Cuomo was signing the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, which he calls “common sense,” into law. “No one else has to die,” Cuomo said the night before Tuesday’s signing ceremony. “No more innocent loss of life.”
Abortion Rights Activists Plan Challenge To Texas Measure
In a major victory for the anti-abortion movement, the Texas state senate passed a sweeping bill early Saturday that has become a flashpoint in the national abortion debate. Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign it in short order.
But the fight is not over. Abortion rights supporters say that the new law attempts to overturnRoe vs. Wade in Texas, and that’s why they plan to take their fight to the courts.
“What this does is completely reshape the abortion landscape in the state,” says Elizabeth Nash, who follows state issues at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research group. “With this legislation, Texas will become one of the most restrictive states in the country. And Texas really matters.”
First, Texas is the second most populous state in the nation, with four major cities and 5.5 million women of reproductive age. It also has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation.
And symbolically, Texas was home to Jane Roe, whose fight for a legal abortion went all the way to the Supreme Court — which decided in 1973 that abortion is a woman’s fundamental right under the Constitution.
Under the new law, abortion doctors must get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals; abortion clinics must upgrade to surgical centers; abortion-inducing pills can only be taken when a physician is present; and abortions would be banned 20 weeks after fertilization.
All of these measures have been passed, piecemeal, in other states, where the Center for Reproductive Rights has fought them all, says Julie Rikelman, the group’s litigation director.
“This law can absolutely be stopped. It is a cocktail of restrictions that have been blocked by other courts around the country,” Rikelman says. “It’s clearly unconstitutional and I do believe that courts will find it to be unconstitutional if it’s challenged.”
With the Senate voting comfortably Thursday to take up its most ambitious gun control legislation in nearly two decades, all eyes turn to the “open amendment process” that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised.
There always will be some amount of crime, some amount of violent individuals, and some amount of people who die every year from gun violence. Even countries and states with very strict gun controls have gun violence. While it’s hard to argue in favor of more gun violence and more death, we have to accept a certain level that is consistent with our society’s values. Some people are going to die from gun violence. It’s sad, and quite troubling, but it’s a realistic part of society.
Nobody wants to see children gunned down. But accepting a certain amount of carnage may be required to protect our rights and liberties as a free people. A politically unpopular position, but the reality is our civil liberties rights have consequences — and if we as a society believe that every individual should has a constitutional right to own a firearm, then a certain amount of carnage must be acceptable.
Before we debate gun control, we should first all put forward what appropriate number of carnage is every year.
