For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel, where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if - had they existed at the time - King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as someone who is urging the use of violence against the government.
Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. Folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.
Don’t believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the “recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function” in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel insidetheUnitedStates and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them “to collect information about U.S. persons.”
It gets worse. If the military personnel see something of interest from a drone, they may apply to a military judge or “military commander” for permission to conduct a physical search of the private property that intrigues them. Any “incidentally acquired information” can be retained or turned over to local law enforcement. What’s next? Prosecutions before military tribunals in the United States?
The quoted phrases above are extracted from a now-public 30-page memorandum issued by President Obama’s secretary of the Air Force on April 23. The purpose of the memorandum is stated as “balancing … obtaining intelligence information … and protecting individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” Note the primacy of intelligence-gathering over protection of freedom, and note the peculiar use of the word “balancing.”
When liberty and safety clash, do we really expect the government to balance those values? Of course not. The government cannot be trusted to restrain itself in the face of individual choices to pursue happiness. That’s why we have a Constitution and a life-tenured judiciary: to protect the minority from the liberty-stealing impulses of the majority. And that’s why the Air Force memo has its priorities reversed - intelligence-gathering first, protecting freedom second - and the mechanism of reconciling the two - balancing them - constitutionally incorrect.
Everyone who works for the government swears to uphold the Constitution. It was written to define and restrain the government. According to the Declaration of Independence, the government’s powers come from the consent of the governed. The government in America was not created by a powerful king reluctantly granting liberty to his subjects. It was created by free people willingly granting limited power to their government - and retaining that which they did not delegate.
The Declaration also defines our liberties as coming from our Creator, as integral to our humanity and inseparable from us, unless we give them up by violating someone else’s liberties. Hence, the Jeffersonian and constitutional beef with the word “balancing” when it comes to government power versus individual liberty.
The Judeo-Christian and constitutionally mandated relationship between government power and individual liberty is not balance. It is bias - a bias in favor of liberty. All presumptions should favor the natural rights of individuals, not the delegated and seized powers of the government. Individual liberty, not government power, is the default position because persons are immortal and created in God’s image, and governments are temporary and based on force.
Hence my outrage at the coming use of drones - some as small as golf balls - to watch us, listen to us and record us. Did you consent to the government having that power? Did you consent to the American military spying on Americans in America? I don’t know a single person who has, but I know only a few who are complaining.
If we remain silent when our popularly elected government violates the laws it has sworn to uphold and steals the freedoms we elected it to protect, we will have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother is everywhere. Somehow, I doubt my father’s generation fought the Nazis in World War II only to permit a totalitarian government to flourish here.
Is President Obama prepared to defend this? Is Mitt Romney prepared to challenge it? Are you prepared for its consequences?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/7/big-brothers-all-seeing-eye/
Thanks to a contributor at Survival Blog
Some Families Are Choosing A More Old Fashioned Lifestyle
A Medford family chooses a more old fashioned lifestyle, becoming self sustaining.
This is one for it makes me sick, i was not going to post it, but it just speaks out and shows what our politicians are made of so well.
Obama’s Memorial Day Photo-Op Blocks Families, Vets From D.C. Vietnam Memorial Wall For 7 Hours
May 28th, 2012
Author: Rachel
On Memorial Day, the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. is supposed to look like this:
Instead, for seven long hours, it looked like this:
Obama’s secret service shut down the memorial for most of the day, as families and veterans who had come to pay their respects to fallen loved ones were forced to stay hundreds of feet away.
Why? So that the Narcissist-in-Chief could show up for 15-minute speech and photo-op with his carefully selected fans in the audience.
In his
“As long as I’m president, we will make sure you and your loved ones will receive the benefits you’ve earned and the respect you deserve,” Obama said. “America will be there for you.”
I just received this e-mail from a brother in arms who I served with as a USAF pararecueman. A link to his e-mail is at the bottom of the message. I deleted the photos because the server rejected them. -Brian Trubee, Redmond, Washington.:
I am currently in Washington DC and witnessed the following. I saw this first hand and I bet you won’t hear about this from the Liberal media…
Vietnam veterans and the families of Vietnam veterans killed in action whose names are etched on the Wall were denied access to their memorial today, of all days, Memorial Day. The Vietnam Memorial was shutdown, cleared and secured for approximately 5 hours prior to Obama, his cronies and hand picked veterans for a 15 minute appearance by Obama. It’s obvious it was all for show. After all, this is an election year.
Hundreds if not thousands of Vietnam veterans and families of Vietnam veterans killed in Vietnam stood in disbelief as Secret Service, Park Police, Washington DC Police, etc., blocked all access to the Vietnam Memorial and kept everyone approximately 100 yards away from their memorial for the first time in the history of the Memorial so Obama could get some photos of him at the Wall. Veterans in uniforms stood in the heat angered as Obama makes them wait. It was a photo op at their expense and families of those killed in Vietnam.
As I stated, I was there and witnessed all of this. Many veterans and others flipped Obama the finger as his motorcade drove past. I didn’t honor him with a finger salute because I was busy holding up my 3′x5′ Don’t Tread on Me Flag as his motorcade drove past.
On another note, I was able to dedicate some port-o potties to Jane Fonda. Pictures attached. Maybe Obama should share this honor with Jane Fonda henceforth.
- Jim Morris
So this is how Obozo honors those who served….I just had this passed on from a friend who was at the wall this morning:Maybe it would have been better for everyone if Obama had just gone golfing like last year. Unfortunately, this is what veterans and their families have to suffer when Obama is in full campaign mode.
I normally try to avoid political statements, but this one is a bit different. This was received by Colonel Wayne Morris just a few moments ago, who was refused access to the Vietnam War Memorial, where he has visited his fallen comrades for the last 15 years.
Today is Memorial Day and I went to the Vietnam Memorial and something happened there that upset me greatly and I want to pass it on.
For over 15 years I had been going with my dear Marine buddy, Larry Cullen. Since he passed away last year and was interned at Arlington Cemetery, I went this year accompanied by my grandson, Cameron. I had my list of Recon Marines, school classmates, and Larry’s fallen buddies to visit but, as we got close to the area of the National Mall where the Wall is located, we saw huge white tents. We also saw barricades all along Constitution Ave and for a couple blocks in each direction from the Wall. They even closed down all of Constitution Av from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the WW-II Memorial and there was a virtual army of uniformed and plain-clothes security everywhere.
The biggest tent was right at the west end of the Wall entrance and there was a covered walkway leading right up to The Wall. It was so close, you couldn’t get to the Wall on that side so, my grandson and I went all the way around to the eastern entrance to the Wall and walked down along the Wall to the first of my names and I began telling my grandson about my buddies and how each one died. In short order, a guy in a dark suit and earpiece in his ear told us we had to leave as it was 0730 and they were closing Memorial until at least 1400 so the President could drop by. I asked if he was serious and he assured me he was. We and all the other veterans and families were forced to leave and it was locked down.
The Vietnam Memorial is the most visited site on the entire National Mall. Memorial Day has more visitors to the Vietnam Memorial than almost any other day. Even at the rather early hour Cameron and I were there, there were a lot of veterans and family members down there. In the midst of all that, Obama decides to close it for over seven hours just so he can roll by for 30 minutes in the afternoon for a campaign appearance with Democrats, supporters, and campaign donors? This is an incredulously arrogant, egotistical, and inconsiderate thing to do. What in hell was Obama thinking?
Hey President Obama: Since you ran me (and all the other veterans and family members) out of the Memorial before we finished our business there, how about doing me a favor. If you can take a short break from all the grippin’, grinnin’, posin’ and pontificatin’, how about taking a minute or two to stop by and say hello to my fellow Recon Marines and other classmates on the Wall. I suspect you’ll be too busy with photo ops, campaigning, and stroking donors to be troubled with a couple minutes doing what the Memorial was built for but, just in case, here’s a list so you can have your man find them and point them out to you. Hope you have a Meaningful Memorial Day.
Joseph J. JONES; 53-W-02
Sherwood David Kreis, 42-W-40
Dale Kagebein, 34-W-50
Jerry Bock, 25-W-95
Larry Daniels, 09-E- 66
Joe Mack Kemp, 09-E-69
Rhonda L. Raglan, 09-E-70
Robert L. Studards, 09-E-71
Jose D. Flores, 09-E-74
Arthur Willie Greene, 14-E-56
Eric Barnes, 17-E-41
Godfried Blankenship, 17-E-48
Michael Ray Smith, 19-E-113
Ervin Lovell, 19-E-120
William D. Martin, 25-E- 87
Michael L. Laporte, 26-E-1
Ronald Frederick Kitzke, 32-E-76
Charles Harris, 34-E-48
Robert Tracy, 34-E-72
Michael G. Murdock, 36-E-57
No wonder a recent Gallup poll showed veterans prefer Mitt Romney to Obama, 58% to 34%.
H/T Jan Weeks
UPDATE: The National Park Service, Public Affairs, and Vietnam Veterans of America all confirmed the shut-down when contacted by phone. VVA said that all the guests had to be pre-screened for security reasons, and it would have been “very difficult” to give advance notice to all the families and vets who arrived to find it closed.
http://www.thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com/2012/05/obamas-memorial-day-photo-op-blocks-families-vets-from-d-c-vietnam-memorial-wall-for-7-hours/
Kristinn at Free Republic confirms the story:Wow. How did our veterans ever get their benefits before the benevolent Obamessiah came to office? Is that his argument for why they should vote for him? Because their benefits are only available “as long as I’m president?” Perhaps he’s hoping they’ll forget that he suspended hazard pay for deployed U.S. troops, terminated 157 Air Force Majors without retirement benefits, and proposed a budget that would cut healthcare benefits for active duty and retired US military while protecting union benefits.
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