That’s
what thugs, robbers, muggers, gangbangers, and assorted other ruthless
criminals always demand when they want to plunder innocent victims of lives and
property. Even if they don’t come out and say it outright they’re still
thinking it all the while inside their twisted criminal minds.
When
it comes to all the common methods employed upon the innocent by assorted
ruthless criminals, don’t forget your local, state and federal governments.
They’re determined not to be outdone. The only difference between a common ordinary
criminal and a government operative is that the government thugs claim
legitimacy for their criminal acts.
And
the federal judiciary of the United States is demonstrating that it is just as complicit
in the entire scheme of legitimizing government thuggery as the other two
branches. Americans can no longer confidently go the courts to vindicate their
lawful constitutional rights against government criminals who constantly demand
that we “give it up!”
Just
last week a U.S. federal judge upheld the “right”
and authority of government border thugs to confiscate and search the contents
of computers, flash drives, memory sticks, digital cameras and other electronic
equipment belonging to all travelers, American citizen and foreigner alike, including
news reporters and photographers, without even so much as a reasonable
suspicion of a crime.
U.S.
District Judge Edward Korman granted the government’s motion to dismiss a
lawsuit filed by civil rights attorneys that claimed the practice was
unconstitutional and sought to have it halted.
Of
course, such government conduct is clearly and unequivocally unconstitutional
under the Fourth Amendment, which provides no exceptions for unreasonable
searches and seizures at international border crossings, but the judge got
around that pesky impediment by declaring that the plaintiffs hadn't shown they
suffered an injury that gave them standing to bring the suit.
The
court also cited pervious decisions holding that the Fourth Amendment right
against unreasonable searches doesn't apply to the government's efforts to
secure international borders from outside threats. So he’s not the only
judicial miscreant out there who’s complicit in the government’s ongoing campaign
against the constitutional protections under the Bill of Rights.
How
about that? Nowadays Americans have no standing to challenge government routine
conduct which violates our constitutional rights according to the judiciary,
the very branch of government which was created by the founding fathers to
enforce those rights.
Where
in the Constitution does it provide that unreasonable searches and seizures can
be conducted at random by government thugs at border crossings?
The
judge didn’t answer that question because he knows full well that the Constitution
simply doesn’t allow it. He simply
ignored it in the interest of the governments claims of national security.
"Unfortunately,
these searches are part of a broader pattern of aggressive government
surveillance that collects information on too many innocent people, under lax
standards, and without adequate oversight," explained one of the
ACLU attorneys who brought the suit.
The
plaintiffs: "must be drinking the Kool-Aid if they think that a
reasonable suspicion threshold of this kind will enable them to 'guarantee'
confidentiality to their sources, or protect privileged information," opined
the judge. "Nor is this the only consideration that prevents them from
guaranteeing confidentiality. The United States border is not the only border
that must be crossed by those engaging in international travel."
“[The
plaintiff] "cannot be so naive to expect that when he crosses into Syrian
or Lebanese border that the contents of his computer will be immune from
searches and seizures at the whim of those who work for Bashar al-Assad or
Hassan Nasrallah," the judge added, referring to the president of Syria and
leader of Hezbollah.
Right;
if those other nasty governments can violate the rights of innocent travelers,
so can the United States, even against its own citizens, reasons the Judge. Anyone
else, such as advocates of the Bill of Rights, who reason otherwise, must be
drinking Kool-Aid.
No
doubt this criminally complicit judge would rule exactly the same way in favor
of the NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance and outright spying methods against innocent
American citizens, not at the border, but inside the country on their own soil.
After
all, what is the Fourth Amendment compared the government‘s “right” to ignore
it?
Now
we learn from our American hero, Edward Snowden that the NSA has embarked upon a
$79.7 million research program titled “Penetrating Hard Targets,” in the
process of building a quantum computer
capable of cracking the most sophisticated of today’s encryption types
currently protecting medical, banking, business and government records around
the world from prying eyes.
That’s
not the least of it. There are also reports
that NSA’s hacking unit uses James Bond-style spy gear to obtain data,
including intercepting computer deliveries to customers in order to outfit them
with sophisticated spying software. Its so-called Tailored Access Operations
unit, TAO, is an elite team of hackers specializing in stealing data from the
toughest of targets.
The
NSA wants everyone in the world, including all Americans to give it up, and if
they don’t want to give it up, they’re going to find a way to take it anyhow. They
want the capability of knowing all our personal secrets; our emails; bank
accounts; everything; they’re leaving no stone unturned.
We
might as well just give them a key to our homes and let them violate us as they
please.
And
the U.S. judiciary is going along with it.
I
envision the United States Supreme Court one day soon saying:
Give
it up!