By Sheryl Devereaux, Contributor, US Daily Review.
December 6th marked another day in dying dignity for Americans. The Senate, short on wisdom and sanity, voted nearly unanimously for the Defense Authorization bill. Known primarily as a fiscal bill—a bill to allocate funds for the next couple years for defense measures, it also modified the procedures for handling terrorism. Confusion abounds about the intent of the bill: Does it rob liberty and due process from American Citizens or does it not? The answer is actually both. Well, sort of. The truth is that the bill does indeed take Constitutional rights from Americans. Robs them blind, actually. But the wording of the act cleverly disguises this stripping.
In Sections 1032 to 1037, which define the requirements of military custody—that would be another name for martial law—one paragraph states that a future paragraph is exempt; they call it “waived” from the exempted status it seeks to list. What is that paragraph? The one that says Americans are exempt from martial law. You are reading correctly: The latter paragraph is an exemption, along with another one exempting lawful resident aliens from detainment of custody by military. However, the waiver that comes before it reverses that exemption in any situation the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State say warrants it. This is suspect, particularly because the “lawful resident aliens’” rights remain intact—escaping the waiver of the exemption—meaning their exempted status against detention and so forth, remains, even when American status does not. This is just insultingly bad math to Americans who have been betrayed wholesale by the very people in whom they put their complete trust for their liberties.
To make matters worse, the Senate and House are attempting to reconcile their differences between each house’s versions of the latest Defense Authorization bill. Given that the House version has none of the liberty robbing clauses in it, that fact that they are working with the Senate on a compromise indicates a willingness to give up some of American’s inalienable and constitutionally enumerated rights for the sake of this negotiation. A compromise on liberties is in violation of the Constitution that both houses are sworn to protect. Giving any part of any of them away is tantamount to a breach of our contract with them in that document. Clearly the federal government has an obligation to protect the states from insurrection and invasion and to preserve liberty in this country. Any measure, however, that takes one from the other is not well thought out policy. This nation has and always will be the land to covet. Absolute security is not reasonable, nor expected. A police state, which in theory is the only way to preserve absolute safety—at least from all other threats besides the government itself—is wholly against the intent of the Constitution, colonial America, and the vast understanding of the Founders on the principles of freedom.
Additionally, making matters of encroachments on privacy worse, the Library of Congress is now keeping a complete record, going back to Twitter’s inception, of all tweets. That is right; Twitter is now under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This would be a ridiculous, nearly laughable sight to the Founders of this nation, were they not pained by the sharp barbs due to constant rolling over in their graves from such a gross departure from the Constitution on a daily basis. To show you how far astray we’ve gone, please note the purpose of the Library of Congress. To wit: the Library of Congress’s purpose is in support of one of the enumerated duties of the Federal government, to protect the property rights of those who produce and invent: trademarks, patents, and copyrights. The catalogue system we have is derived from and then stored in the Library of Congress. Never was there a thought or purpose to cataloguing comments or statements publicly posted on a private site. The LOC is celebrating their intentions by claiming that they will be seeking the most informational and beneficial comments. To what end?
One can only wonder. But then, too much wondering could be construed by this administration as spying, and we know from Sections 1032 to 1037 of S1867 where that will land us.
Sheryl Devereaux is a prolific writer and researcher, speaker, and radio commentator on the Constitution and public policy. You can listen to her show, Foundation of a Nation on allfiredupradio.net or find her on facebook, and on twitter @sheryldevereaux.
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