Juan Cole: Bush Spying on Americans

Juan Cole has this to say on the subject :

Wire tapping the telephones of American citizens without a court order is illegal.

... just taking the Constitution and pushing it through the shredder, why that is just fine and dandy.

He really does believe that it is just a piece of paper, and he is the Prince of the Realm who may do as he pleases, isn't he?

The answer to Ben Franklin's comment about what sort of government the constitution enshrined--"A republic, if you can keep it"-- has been answered. We've lost it, folks. We've got George III in the White House. And, it is now often forgotten, that George was looney as the day is long, too.

Amendment IV

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.

That Bush was doing this wasn't even known. How much more is not known?

It was a good run, this United States of America with its Constitution and its Bill of Rights. How sad that a gang of unscrupulous criminals has been allowed to subvert its basic values altogether.

Is there even a single one of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights that Bush and his henchmen have not by now abrogated by royal fiat?

And why? Because of a single attack by a few hijackers from a small terrorist organization? The thousands lost in the Revolutionary War did not deter the Founding Fathers from enshrining these rights in the Constitution! The fledgling American Republic was far more unstable and facing far more dangers when this document was passed into law than the unchallengeable hyperpower that now bestrides the globe as a behemoth.

Have we lost our minds?

posted December 18, 2005