The Chief Lawyer Bashes the Bill o' Rights

(Link Via Rebellion) AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP)— Attorney General Alberto Gonzales contended Saturday that some critics of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program were defining freedom in a way that poses a "grave threat" to U.S. security.

First, I hate the Air Force, just had to say that.

Second, I was once a Constitutionalist, but more or less no longer. To be a Constitutionalist you have to accept certain premises.

1. the Federalist did not lie
2. the anti-federalist were wrong
3. humanism, human reasoning and the enlightenment were/are right
4. human nature is capable of managing centralized power

I still believe that the Constitution is the de jure law of the land, the de facto circumstance notwithstanding. It still forms the contract that binds the states with the artificial entity called the Federal Government. It is supposedly still the vehicle by which the states and the people delegate certain limited rights, privileges and powers to the Federal Government. That is true at least in theory.

Let us work with the theoretical - the Federal Government is restricted to certain specified powers. So then, what of these freedoms that some - according to Gonzales- are defining wrongly?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It seems among other things we have the right to be secure in our "papers". The drafters of the Bill of Rights certainly could not envision a world in which electronic communication replaced written "paper" communication. Their intent is, however, clear; communication, in whatever form is protected from unreasonable search and seizure.

Every lawyer in the American Colonies, to include every person involved with the drafting and writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was very familiar with Blackstone's Commentaries on English Common Law. These four volumes served as de facto law in the colonies where civil law was not yet written. The ideas contained therein, about the relationship of the citizen to government and the rights of citizens, influenced these men. These commentaries must be consulted to determine exactly what was intended with the 4th Amendment.

First Blackstone's definition of rights:

RIGHTS are however liable to another subdivision ; being either, first, those which concern, and are annexed to the persons of men, and are then called jura personarum or the rights of persons ; or they are, secondly, such as a man may acquire over external objects, or things unconnected with his person, which are stiled jura rerum or the rights of things.

So we have jura personarum - rights of persons and jura rerum or the rights of a person over things - the Fourth Amendment speaks to both of these rights; it speaks to a man's rights to his private property (things) and to the security of his person. Blackstone describes the common law view of private property thusly:

SO great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it ; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.

This is what the framers of The Constitution understood property rights to mean, and they certainly understood "effects" and "papers" to be private property.

How is it then that a man like Alberto Gonzales, when speaking of warrantless spying on American citizens, can say:

We believe the president has the authority under the authorization of military force and inherent authority of the constitution to engage in this sort of program, but we want to supplement that authority.

He went on to describe the view that such violations of ancient rights were in fact:

is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people

This from the very man with the chief job of protecting the Constitution. Liberty at what price Mr. Attorney-General?

Blackstone warns:

...these rights consist, primarily, in the free enjoyment of personal security, of personal liberty, and of private property. So long as these remain inviolate, the subject is perfectly free ; for every species of compulsive tyranny and oppression must act in opposition to one or other of these rights, having no other object upon which it can possibly be employed.

I am but a simple country boy really, a humble Soldier - as John Kerry said recently I did not study too hard in school, otherwise I would have a different profession. I am an infantryman by trade and an engineer by education - I am not a lawyer. I am of the opinion that simple but profound things are comprehensible by men like me. I cannot fathom that something as important as basic rights should be so complicated or nuanced as to required elaborate interpretation. The Constitution is written with words any basically educated adult can understand. How can this possibly be so difficult? How can our own government attempt to continually redefine the contract, its powers and our rights?

It seems to me it is all right there in black and white, but like I said - I am just a simple country boy.