Question for those who say they are losing rights in the US

reply to post by thesungod


Ive seen the article, as a few people have posted it already.
The article about the guy and the sign, in the first paragraph, it quotes a supervisor as saying it went to far.

My point behind this thread was for people to understand their rights. Anyone can put out a list of their rights, but when you ask people about them they cant tell you how they work, or where to find them. Some people list rights that come from the declaration of independance and not the constitution.

How can people calim the government is taking their rights if the people dont even know what they are and how they work in the first place?

Using your articla for example -
A threat to the President of the US, regardless of how trivial, is taken seriously by law enforcement (along with any threat that advocates the death of an individual). If a threat is made / impled, and action is not taken and a person dies, the aftermath is gonna be ugly).


Devils advocate -
There is no 4th amendment violation. The stop was valid based on the good faith clause and the officers view that the sign constituted a possible threat. The sign was seized as evidence, which is allowed under the 4th and valid without a warrant since it was based on a traffic stop.

People like to throw the 4th amendment out there, but they dont understand it at all (imo). First, it applies to the government, not the individual. What this means is police must meet certain crieria in order to get an arrest warrant or search warrant.

There are exceptions to the 4th -
Search incident to arrest
Plain sight contraband
Consent

As far as the 1st amendment goes, not all speech is protected. A person cant walk into a crowded theatre and yell fire. SCOTUS has been more open about the protection of signs and speech in that manner.

Mind you - devils advocate on my response above this..

The point behind this thread was to show that a person must be more familiar with their rights. Simply listing them is not enough anymore. People must not only know what they are but also how they work, how they are applied in addition to knowledge and understanding of how our government works, at all levels. Ive seen people mention the pursuit of life liberty and happiness. That line is not in the constitution - its in the Declaration of Independance.

Last year a senior member of Congress was talking to the media, when the rep started talking about the 3 branches of government -

Namely the Presodent (executive branch)
The House
and finally the Senate

Completely left out the fact the Judiciary is the 3rd branch and both houses fall under legislative. Our government now represents our level of care and participation in it.

Without that knowledge and understanding backing the people up in their argument, any challenge to government action in the courts / at the ballot box could do more damage than good.

People must stop being apathetic about government and participate. We have had a boat load of responses, rants, hate the government, love the government etc. I am willing to wager though that not one of those people took the extra 20 seconds to copy and paste their reponse and send it to their reps in the state and federal governments.

reply to post by Xcathdra


On the 4th amendment thing I was referring more to the Secret Service searching the man's home after the local LEOs had already settled it all.

As for the exceptions to the Fourth amendment, they all came later (1900s on), just like most of the regulating and restricting of our rights.
The definition of search changed in 1967 to enable easier searching in general.
The limited frisk became okay in 1968 to enable easier searching in general.
The 4th amendment is now all but a joke, a right all but lost but in the most extreme of circumstances.

LOL f'ing L to the rest though. True, true and true. If people understood how the government actually functioned the electoral would be gone, the gold standard or even another standard coinage would reemerge, the Posse Comitatus (and the accompanying insurrection act, etc.) would ALL be changed, lobbyist would be outlawed, meetings between the executive branch and legislative branches would end, etc.

People do need to educate themselves. As for writing your Rep... Well let us just say my Senator, My House Rep, hell even the county commissioners here all know me by name. It has done me NO good trying to talk to them.

John Cornyn (My Senator) ended a town hall when I asked him about his closed door meetings with the Speaker of the House (Pelosi at the time.)

John Carter (My House Rep) has black listed me, by name only, from his events, functions and meetings because I told the sunlight foundation about his little oil pocket money.

As for my State level Gov... Texas is great but the system is flawed. The State house reps and senators don't get paid... So what do they do? They pass laws and such that benefit their private businesses, etc. Cronyism I believe is popular word for it these days.

I hate to say, but your correct. 99.9% of the people who replied to your post probably didn't write there congressman, however what good would it have done, save for an election year?

For example.....under the Patriot Act, the head of the FBI and/or CIA or second in command can now, without a warrant from a judge, retrieve any information about you as respects your activity at the library.

Originally posted by thesungod
I hate to say, but your correct. 99.9% of the people who replied to your post probably didn't write there congressman, however what good would it have done, save for an election year?

We wont have an answer to that question until the people get involved.

reply to post by Xcathdra
Hi Xcathdra - I'll take a stab here, I guess. Lost rights of:
1) Life (abortion - disputable, granted)
2) Liberty - the right to do as one will as long as no infringement is made upon the liberties of another (VIPR checkpoints, federal seizure/authority of issues that should belong to the states/people, thus not allowing the states/people to decide on these matters for themselves. Founders were quite clear about the strictures of interpretation of constitutional clauses)
3) Pursuit of Happiness (originally wealth, but whatever) - applies to the liberty argument above and federal interjection into rights and decisions that should belong to the people/states. E.g., if I want to sit around and consume a range of substances, I should be able to do so as long as I'm not impeding the free expression of anyone else's rights or negatively impacting their property, etc., - i.e. the Controlled Substances Act should be null and void.
4) They have prohibited the free exercise of religion (in limited cases, granted, disallowing prayer in various settings related to public funding, etc.)
5) They have abridged the freedom of speech by limiting it to "Free Speech" zones generally isolated and removed from the ears of passers-by at venues relating to said speech, attacked/arrested people for expressing undesirable people at certain venues, etc.
6) They have, in various cases, abridged the freedom of the press by way of specious arguments about "national security" to keep their own dark dealings from coming to light.
7) 4th Amendment - they have instituted systems of monitoring effectively any and all forms of electronic communications, allowed their agents to, in essence, authorize their own sneak-and-peek searches *assumedly* without such specification as required or direct consent of a judge via specific probable cause by way of reasonable and articulable suspicion; enabled federal checkpoints (VIPR), and so forth.
8) The have effectively suspended habeas corpus at will (via the Military Commissions Act of 2006, "enemy combatants", etc.) and not under authorized guidelines of our founding documents.
9) They have effectively neutered the 9th and 10th amendments (previously addressed somewhat) by way of incredibly broad and fallacious interpretation of constitutional clauses, thus far exceeding their specifically-enumerated powers and removing the authority of the states and the people to decide for and amongst themselves on a good many matters.

That's all I've got off the top of my head, but each of these are areas where the federal government *seems* to me to have specifically overstepped their limitations and directly impacted my liberties and privacy in ways that seem directly contrary to the express intent of the founders as outlined in the Declaration of Independence (indeed adopting a good many of the practices the founders specifically cited as reasons FOR said declaration), Constitution/Bill of Rights, anti-federalist papers, and various other writings and communications by those who ratified the constitution.

Take care, friend.

Originally posted by Praetorius
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

Hi Xcathdra - I'll take a stab here, I guess. Lost rights of:

okedoke

Originally posted by Praetorius
1) Life (abortion - disputable, granted)

- Roe V. Wade

Originally posted by Praetorius
2) Liberty - the right to do as one will as long as no infringement is made upon the liberties of another (VIPR checkpoints, federal seizure/authority of ..snip for length

The VIPR is TSA and they are only authorized to inspect commercial vehicles. They have no authority to stop a privatre vehicle since they are not law enforcement. FEderal search and seizure authority is the exact same as the state and local levels and is exacty the same due to US Supreme Court rulings.

Originally posted by Praetorius
3) Pursuit of Happiness (originally wealth...snip

Pursuit of Life liberty and happiness is found in the Declaration of Independance, not the US Constitution.

Originally posted by Praetorius
4) They have prohibited the free exercise of religion (in limited cases, granted, disallowing prayer in various settings related to public funding, etc.)

There is no such ting as the seperation of church and state in the Constitution. What is there states the Government cant establish an offical religion for the country. Anything after that is reserved to the states and the court system.

Originally posted by Praetorius
5) They have abridged the freedom of speech by limiting it to "..snip.

Actually they havent. Your rights end the moment they infringe on another persons rights. You can walk into a theatre and yell fire, however be prepared to be arrested for it. The standard is what would a reasonale person believe/ think. Check up on private property vs. public right of ways vs right to speech / protesting.

Originally posted by Praetorius
6) They have, in ...snip.

The term is Prior restraint. The court case was the Pentagon Papers. If people actually read the court case the 2 journalists who leaked the info were charged and went to court. The PA screwed up part of his case resulting in a mistrial. The Supreme Court ruling never granted immunity to media when it comes ot printing classified material.

Originally posted by Praetorius
7) 4th Amendment - they have .....

Commercial vehicles (semis) fall under federal law, not state. As such they are not subject to the same rules private individuals are. Cops must have RS/PC to stop a priate individual. Commercial vehicles can be stopped, at random, to have their manifest / log books checked etc. TSA's responsibility is valid since the feds are suppose to enforce those laws, and not state police. There are no 4th amendment implications in randomly stopping / searching a semi. TSA cannot stop a private individual, and private vehicles arent required to stop at weig stations, whichn are the "check points" people are refering to.

Originally posted by Praetorius
8) The have effectively suspended habeas corpus at will (via the Military Commissions Act of 2006, "enemy combatants", etc.) and not under authorized guidelines of our founding documents.

Actually no they have not. Secondly the Militaryt commission Act of 2008 as well as 2009 addressed some of the misgiving the Supreme Court had when ruling on Hamde as well as Hamdi verse Rumsfeld. Enemy combatantsd are because its contained in the geneva conventions, which are a part of the FEderal Body of Law. Secondly, the UCMJ is used in this area, and not civilian / domestic law.

Originally posted by Praetorius
9) They have effectively neutered the 9th and 10th amendments (previously addressed somewhat) snip.

The 9th and 10th amendment is working as intended. I say this because a lot of the complainst / arguments I see in this thread arent taking into account their issue is a state law and not federal. This is why I tell people to read and understand all levels of government.

Originally posted by Praetorius
That's all I've got off the top of my head, but each of these are areas where the federal government *seems* to me to have specifically overstepped their limitations and directly impacted my liberties and privacy in ways that seem directly contrary to the express intent of the founders as outlined in the Declaration of Independence (indeed adopting a good many of the practices the founders specifically cited as reasons FOR said declaration), Constitution/Bill of Rights, anti-federalist papers, and various other writings and communications by those who ratified the constitution.

Take care, friend.

Some excellent points as well as some good arguments. If need be I can go a bit more indepth for some of my counters if needed. My goal in this thread was to get people to think about all of these issues. Its one thing to quickly list what rights are. Its something else entirely when it comes to understanding those rights and how they apply.

Poeple argue the government is no longer representing the people and are walking over individual rights. I agree with that sentiment, however we wont be able to fix it if we cant identify the problems and be able to intelligently argue the point.

Originally posted by Xcathdra
I am willing to wager though that not one of those people took the extra 20 seconds to copy and paste their reponse and send it to their reps in the state and federal governments.

Since even Echelon is old news now and that with things like Einstein 3, and whatever other monitoring technologies the NSA, DHS, FBI, etc, has that we don't know about - I'd we willing to wager the government already has a good record of all the responses in this thread.

Of course since its "for our own good and the security of the nation" they won't actually tell us what is and is not monitored, searched, and kept we don't really know if that 4th amendment thingy is violated or not.

I'd be willing to wager if I found out and you ask me - I'd say "Yes it is being violated". I'd also be willing to wager a legion of government lawyers would attempt to slice the baloney so thin as to claim it wasn't violated.

Originally posted by Jessicamsa
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

"It is quite evident that the 4th amendment does not apply to me. On January 19, 2011 the government forced their way into my home, physically assaulting me in the process, without a warrant. The 'evidence' they collected and fabricated was used against me to steal my daughter. The judge said she did not care about my constitutional rights in the courtroom in front of everyone. The court appointed attorney was allowed to lie to me about what I was being charged with. It went into record that I plead guilty to a bunch of stuff that I had been disputing since day one, and they added more accusations that I had not heard/read until after the judge rubberstamped the papers."


If these were CPS workers, then they have no right to do any sort of enforcement actions. Only LEO's can use force against you, but this force must be warranted by a judge's order in the case of search and seizure. I do not know if you got a jury trial, but you should have gotten one. If this process took place before a magistrate judge in a court of no record, then the magistrate can go fruit loops on you(total kangaroo court). But you do have the choice to ask for a jury trial upon arraignment. I suppose family courts are civil proceedings, but there must be a way to move the process to criminal court where the standard of guilt is higher. But I suppose they treated your child as property in a sort of asset forfeiture process. I don't know much about family courts, but the process seems very arbitrary. What is strange is that if you had been accused of murdering your child, you would have had benefit of a criminal proceeding by trial by jury.

Originally posted by Jessicamsa
"It is quite evident that the 4th amendment does not apply to me. On January 19, 2011 the government forced their way into my home, physically assaulting me in the process, without a warrant. The 'evidence' they collected and fabricated was used against me to steal my daughter. The judge said she did not care about my constitutional rights in the courtroom in front of everyone. The court appointed attorney was allowed to lie to me about what I was being charged with. It went into record that I plead guilty to a bunch of stuff that I had been disputing since day one, and they added more accusations that I had not heard/read until after the judge rubberstamped the papers."

Can you provide a link to your states case net. I would like to take a look at the court transcripts and charge / dicket sheet to see what the heck you are talking about.

Originally posted by artfuldodger
If these were CPS workers, then they have no right to do any sort of enforcement actions. Only LEO's can use force against you, but this force must be warranted by a judge's order in the case of search and seizure. I do not know if you got a jury trial, but you should have gotten one. If this process took place before a magistrate judge in a court of no record, then the magistrate can go fruit loops on you(total kangaroo court). But you do have the choice to ask for a jury trial upon arraignment. I suppose family courts are civil proceedings, but there must be a way to move the process to criminal court where the standard of guilt is higher. But I suppose they treated your child as property in a sort of asset forfeiture process. I don't know much about family courts, but the process seems very arbitrary. What is strange is that if you had been accused of murdering your child, you would have had benefit of a criminal proceeding by trial by jury.

When it comes to child protective services a judges order is not required if exigent circumstances exits. In my state LEO's, doctors can place a child into protective custody for 12-24 hours, depending on situation. At the end of that time frame evidence must be presented to the court to not only justify the intial removal, but keeping the child away from gaurdians.

Family Courts arent civil, they are criminal to the extent of how the law applies to minors. The exception to that rule is when driving is involved.

As for the rest of the comments, they are not accurate at all and plays into the paranoid viewpoint people develop towards the government.

As always a 100 meter rush to judgment and blanket comments about law enforcement.

this site tells how our rights as American citizens have been lost. www.salon.com...

Originally posted by AngelicRose
this site tells how our rights as American citizens have been lost. www.salon.com...

None of which have anything to do with rights.