As someone who watched 9/11 go down (as did 99% of Americans) I can understand why congress would pass the patriot act (that was written before 9/11 and was not read by any member of congress before passed).

I can understand wanting to pass such an act.

I can understand wanting to give our agencies every resource available to disrupt any future attack.

OK. So be it. I am willing to give up some privacy (even though many founding fathers warned us about giving up liberties and freedoms in exchange for a higher degree of "security.")

But lets be fair here.

Lets be realistic. Lets be real in the need for protecting ourselves from our own worst enemy: ourselves, or in other words: our government.

How might we do such a thing? I have an idea.

Each state within our union creates and verifies, by its legislative branch, certified multiple independent private investigative groups to "spy" or 'use the powers given by the definition of the patriot act' on our very own federal government. Let us keep track of the people we have in charge to make sure of no esoteric domestic terrorist actions or agendas.

Give every state the same capability and the broad range of powers to do the exact same thing to the government as they have done to the people.

This would cost close to nothing and it would ease tensions and distrust people have about giving the central federal government that much power over information about private individuals.

The groups could answer and report to each state independently in public eye (recorded by public cameras), under oath and penalty of perjury if any accusation were to be made. They would have to be verified investigators and hold a high level security card with a very high standard of professionalism. They would be required by law to keep silence (as any court requires its jourers) until hearing or reports were made in public eye. These are just some random thoughts about how it may work.

Not only would it weed out corruption, I believe you would see real changes within our government overnight.

Any thought? Any idea as how to propose such a revision? Good idea or bad? Any thoughts or comments are welcomed.

Oh, if you like the idea, flag it!

Who knows maybe we can get something going???

maybe...

A rather novel idea. I'm all for giving the states the right to do this to the USG, much as the USG has the right to do this to us. And I'm flagging this thread, too.

cool. thanks for the flag.

I would love to hear from an attorney or someone with knowledge about this type of legislation. What would it take to get something like this proposed?

any thoughts at all?...

hhmmm..maybe I am way off base here??

At first glance in my sleep deprived state it sounds like a good idea. I gave you a flag hoping some people with more intimate knowledge could offer their 2 cents. Good thinking though.

So.. create a new branch of government to watch the government? Who will be watching them?

I'm confident that if we simply followed the constitution, we wouldn't have many of the problems we have today. Now THAT is a novel concept.

Good idea, and believe me, I would love to see some way that the government (federal gov't in particular) could be watched by the people. We need something like that since the media, who should be playing the role of government watchdog, is failing miserably at it.

Unfortunately I can't imagine that the government would allow such an operation to succeed. Publicly they'd probably embrace and applaud such checks and balances, but privately I can definitely see them doing whatever it takes to mislead, deceive, infiltrate, and even sabotage any efforts to undermine and monitor their actions. There are far too many things that our government does that we the people don't have knowledge of. There's no way they'd give up that ability to operate behind the proverbial curtain.

Originally posted by METACOMET
I'm confident that if we simply followed the constitution, we wouldn't have many of the problems we have today. Now THAT is a novel concept.

That's crazy talk! What in the world inspired you to think that way?!

You know, this feels like an Occam's Razor type of situation. The government continues to become bigger, more complicated, and more expensive, all while moving further and further away from the fundamentals of the Constitution. Yet, as you pointed out, the simplest solution may very well be for the country to shift back to the basics given to us in that document.

Good idea... but now that states are becoming more financially dependant on the federal goverment due to deficits this is highly unlikely. Plus the patriot act is a federal law... states would probaly have to create a new one..

This is a fantastic idea in theory. However, do you really think those that sit in the panopticon will allow us to see them? Even so, what guarantee would we have that the members of this new oversight organization would not be bought and paid for?

Starred & flagged for a great idea.

If we know that this civilian task force is both truthful and benevolent, if we vest all the power of the public good in them, then we have drawn the final line to that old adage:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Just knowing that members of the civilian public have this information is good enough, even if I don't get to hear any of it. I understand the need for the secrecy and privacy of federal information for purposes of national security, but so as long as we get a piece of it I will be satisfied.

[edit on 19-11-2008 by cognoscente]

As many here stated. It sounds GREAT (I flagged this post by the way) in theory. But lets be honest here. Considering how much the states depend on the govt. now a days, it'd be hard to implement and even if it did succeed, I can see the govt. doing all their very best to sully the image of said organization so people won't take them seriously.

Heck, just take a look after 9/11, when the question of building 7 came about and theories that the govt. not only had foreknowledge of the events, but did VERY LITTLE, what happened? he and the media went on TV to damage the name of those that questioned them. Calling them Crazy conspiracy theorists and that the people shouldn't listen to them yada yada yada.

So even if this organization was made, it wouldn't be as succesful as we'd want it to be. The only way I can see it succeeding, is if the sheep start waking up in droves and supporting said organization. But if it's only just a handful. It won't do the trick, there would still be a huge mass of apathetic people obeying the govt. and doing what the govt. tells them to do, and we simply can't have that. We'd need the masses to be on our side.