The "Patriot Act" vs. the Bill of Rights [View All]

[David Van Os]

When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 presented the proposed Constitution to the people of the new nation known as the United States of America, the people demanded that a Bill of Rights be added, or else the Constitution would not be ratified.

Thus we have the First Ten Amendments, the majestic Bill of Rights of the American Constitution. The Americans of 1787 intended the Bill of Rights to endure through all time, as the untouchable covenant ensuring that the people would be the masters and government the servant. They intended that the protections of the Bill of Rights would belong to all succeeding generations of Americans as their national birthright, never to be taken away or given away. In the Bill of Rights, our forebears gave one of the greatest gifts that any people has ever given to all the people of the world and to the march of human history.

For any U.S. congress or president to try to nullify anything in the American Bill of Rights is a betrayal of every reason that the public offices they hold even exist. Yet today, the United States Congress is on the verge of re-enacting, at the request of the Bushite president, a detestable legislative act that they have the gall to call the Patriot Act, and that on its face seeks to nullify Constitutional protections that were written for the very purpose of protecting the people from the very government action that is about to take place. Under the misnamed Patriot Act (actually one of the most unpatriotic laws ever enacted), if re-enacted as proposed, agents of the Federal Government will claim the right to seize private papers, records, and belongings of American citizens without obtaining warrants from judges, and without having to demonstrate probable cause to suspect the commission of crimes - in direct conflict with the Fourth Amendment, and in direct contradiction to one of the very reasons the American Revolutionaries rose against the British Empire to create our nation. As if that were not bad enough, Federal agents of the Federal Government will also claim the right to compel librarians to inform the Government what books an American citizen has checked out of a library - as if we all lived in George Orwell's nightmarish Big Brother society under the control of thought police, instead of in the United States of America. These provisions were abominable when the Patriot Act was first enacted four years ago. It would be even more abominable today to re-enact them, after so many voices in America have been raised against doing such damage to fundamental protections that were intended to protect us from tyranny for all time.

I salute the small coalition of Senators from both parties, including Democrats Feingold (Wisconsin), Salazar (Colorado) and Durbin (Illinois), and Republicans Murkowski (Alaska), Craig (Idaho) and Sununu (New Hampshire), who are fighting to block these police-state measures. Their battle is an uphill one, as majorities from both parties support these eviscerations of our liberties, with most Senate Republicans displaying their usual blind lemming obedience to their White House master, and most Senate Democrats once again running in fear from a Bushite play of the terrorism card. The opposition Senators need all the support we can give them. Nevertheless these atrocious measures may get re-enacted; but if they do, there are other lines of defense against them that do not depend upon the votes of Senators.

After the voters of Texas choose me to serve them as Attorney General in next November's elections, before I can take office I will have to swear an oath to the Constitutions of the United States and Texas. In obedience to that oath, my highest duty will be to honor and protect the fundamental birthright of the people of Texas to their Constitutional protections. No government agent has the Constitutional authority to seize your private possessions without a warrant or probable cause, no government agent has the Constitutional authority to pass judgment on what books you choose to read in a public library, and no pack of scaredy-cat politicians has the Constitutional authority to give any government agent such powers. Let there be no doubt about this - as Texas Attorney General, chief legal advisor to the other officers of State Government, and the people's lawyer, I will apply every effort and resource of my office to defending the Constitutional rights of the people of Texas against these or similar provisions of the so-called Patriot Act or any other such legislation, no matter how many gutless politicians of no matter what political party enact them or seek to apply them.

David Van Os
Democratic Candidate
For Texas Attorney General 2006
www.vanosfortexasag.com