William Slater's CIS 537 Blog: Post 029

Source: the American Civil Liberties Union

USA PATRIOT Act

Commentary, Part 1

Did you think they were kidding?

*** URGENT *** (That big sucking sound you hear in D.C. is the last gasp of our Freedoms disappearing.) Here's some things to think about on December 15, 2011, Bill of Rights Day. Many believe that the Original 13 Colonies rebelled against King George because of taxation with out representation. (Remember the Declaration of Independence???) But the main reason was lack of habeas corpus for the Colonies. If S.1867 (NDAA), that is pending a vote in Congress, is signed into law by President Obama, the Bill of Rights will basically only exist in our collective and individual memories. The government will be able to hold you as long as they want, like for the rest of your life, without breaking the law. So effectively, this new law will supersede the Bill of Rights and suspend habeas corpus. "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." -Thomas Jefferson http://warisacrime.org/nomohabeas

Call the White House Comments Line: 202-456-1111; your U.S. Senators, and your U.S. Representative to tell them "NO" on S.1867 (NDAA). [ COPY AND RE-POST ]

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From our Divorce Papers - The Declaration of Indepedence:
http://billslater.com/tj1776.htm

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.

We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

References:

The Constitution of the U.S. (1791). U.S. Constitution. Retrieved from the web at

http://www.billslater.com/wfs_us_constitution.htm on November 6, 2011.

The Declaration of Independence. (1776). The Declaration of Independence. Retrieved from the web at

http://www.billslater.com/tj1776.htm on November 6, 2011.

Doyle, C. (2002). USA PATRIOT Act: A sketch. Retrieved from the web at

http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS21203.pdf on December 24, 2011.

Doyle, C. (2010). National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse of the Legal Background and Recent Amendments - a CRS Report Dated December 27, 2010. Retrieved from the web at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RS22406.pdf on December 24, 2011.

Electronic Privacy and Information Center Resources about the USA PATRIOT Act

http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/ .

U.S. Government (2001). USA PATRIOT Act. Retrieved from the web at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf on December 24, 2011.

U.S. Department of Justice (2004). USA PATRIOT Act at Work. Retrieved from the web at

http://www.justice.gov/olp/pdf/patriot_report_from_the_field0704.pdf on December 24, 2011.

Wikipedia. (2011). USA PATRIOT Act. A Wikipedia article retrieved from the web at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa_patriot_act on November 6, 2011.

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William Favre Slater, III

MBA, M.S., PMP, CISSP, SSCP, CISA, ISO 27002, ISO 20000, ITIL v3, Cloud Computing Foundation

Project Manager / Program Manager

M.S. in Cybersecurity Program at Bellevue University

http://cybersecuritymsbellevue.blogspot.com