I Have Nothing to Hide

Some Americans are shrugging off government snooping.
They say they don’t mind the government prying into their private lives. “They have nothing to hide”.
The framers of the Constitution were students of history and took the long view of the slippery slope that leads to oppression and exploitation.
They knew that unwarranted government intrusion into people’s lives leads down a dark road from which there is no return.
So they thoughtfully included freedom from unnecessary intrusion and interference by adding the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

“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.“

Our leaders and representatives have, for the most part, stood by their oaths to protect and defend the US Constitution. Up till now, if we have been minding our P’s and Q’s, we haven’t had much to worry about.

Allowing the Supreme Court, Diebold and corrupt political operatives to select our leaders and representation has changed everything. These pretenders find the Constitution inconvenient and laws a nuisance. Complacent Americans are about to find out the extraordinary power leaders can wield when they have your personal information and no scruples.

While you were napping, George and his minions blew holes in a few more parts of the Constitution and set themselves up as the “deciders”.

They are judge, jury and God.
They, not you, are going to decide what you are hiding.

George Bush and his creepy cronies have given themselves permission to short circuit judicial process by labeling you an enemy combatant and to lock you up with the poor sods that are trying to kill themselves in Guantanamo.

They can trump up charges or be just plain wrong. Of the 70,000!! prisoners the US has held in Iraq and Afghanistan, only 120 have been identified for prosecution.
They can kidnap you and ship you off to Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan or South Africa where they can make you confess to anything.

Think it can’t happen? It is happening.

People are disappearing all over the place because our government wants them to and the most outrageous things are being done to them. There is no judicial process, no oversight and no accountability.

Nearly a thousand rendition flights (transport of unknown US prisoners for torture or confinement at an unknown location) have been logged in Europe. This has upset the Europeans but not your representatives in Congress.

The US is accused of having Gulags all over the world. The latest to be exposed is in South Africa.

The CIA kidnapped an Imam off the streets in Italy and outsourced him to a torture friendly nation; Egypt where he was "allegedly" tortured. They did this without the permission of the Italian government and lied to them regarding his whereabouts.

W’s boys kidnapped and tortured a German citizen who was not a terrorist. He turned around and sued in the US courts. One of George’s judges threw the case out of court. He didn’t do this because the case lacked merit but because trying the case would reveal “state secrets”.

Folks, there are no real state secrets that protect kidnappers and torturers.

We know Johnny Walker Lindh was tortured. That is the reason there was a plea bargain instead of a public trial. Lindh’s lawyer threatened to reveal all and Michael Chertoff tiptoed in “fixed it”.

You may not be doing anything wrong, but your government most certainly is.

Are Bush’s ratings in the toilet? Don’t want to or can’t find bin Ladin? Need to find a few terrorists to justify the billions General Hayden dumped (scroll down to May 9) on corrupt software companies like MZM? (Brent Wilkes, Duke Cunningham)

The White House politicos can have Bush write an executive order to pick up a few “domestic terrorists” who may have led high profile protests against the Iraq war or may be one of the pesky whistleblower who exposed the rotten underbelly of latest play for pay scam. They will have all the information they need to develop a “case” or to justify a wire cage and an orange jumpsuit without having to bother the courts.

Headlines; US Al Qaida number three captured. Problem solved.

There is the potential to make McCarthy’s witch hunts and 50’s blacklisting look like a nursery play party. Having the personal information of millions of Americans gives them the power to force acceptance of the class warfare and blood soaked imperialism that are the underpinnings of “keeping America safe” and the “ownership society” by destroying any opposition.

It is difficult not to believe that the secret of Bush’s success in ramming his agenda through congress and his celebrated “political acumen” is the information he has access to about those that might stand in his way.

Because human beings are flawed; because great power corrupts, because hereditary factors, chemical imbalances or events can disrupt the rational functioning of the human mind, our constitution gives the ultimate power over the government and the custody of our freedoms to “we the people”. Our government and our freedoms are meant to rest in our hands and no one else’s.

Only a fool would toss those freedoms away at the best of times. These are dark days. We are a heartbeat away from the worst of times.

Surely it is madness to surrender our civil rights to a government that lies, operates in secret, is constantly overreaching and has no visible moral structure.

Carol DW