Where's The Outrage!

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Published June 07, 2012

ince this particular piece didn’t get that much coverage, I hope the good Judge and FOX News will have no objections to this being used, in full, with full accreditation back to FOX News and Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. This is a piece that needs to be seen by ALL Americans. TexasFred


For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government's use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if -- had drones existed at the time -- King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello.

I suspect that Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as one who is urging the use of violence against the government.

Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes, and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us.

The folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.
Don't believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the "recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function” in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel inside the United States and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them "to collect information about U.S. persons.”

It gets worse. If the military personnel see something of interest from a drone, they may apply to a military judge or "military commander” for permission to conduct a physical search of the private property that intrigues them. And, any "incidentally acquired information” can be retained or turned over to local law enforcement.


What's next? Prosecutions before military tribunals in the U.S.?
The quoted phrases above are extracted from a now-public 30-page memorandum issued by President Obama's Secretary of the Air Force on April 23, 2012. The purpose of the memorandum is stated as "balancing … obtaining intelligence information … and protecting individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution…” Note the primacy of intelligence gathering over freedom protection, and note the peculiar use of the word "balancing.”

When liberty and safety clash, do we really expect the government to balance those values? Of course not. The government cannot be trusted to restrain itself in the face of individual choices to pursue happiness. That's why we have a Constitution and a life-tenured judiciary: to protect the minority from the liberty-stealing impulses of the majority. And that's why the Air Force memo has its priorities reversed -- intelligence gathering first, protecting freedom second -- and the mechanism of reconciling the two -- balancing them -- constitutionally incorrect.

Everyone who works for the government swears to uphold the Constitution. It was written to define and restrain the government. According to the Declaration of Independence, the government's powers come from the consent of the governed. The government in America was not created by a powerful king reluctantly granting liberty to his subjects. It was created by free people willingly granting limited power to their government -- and retaining that which they did not delegate.

The Declaration also defines our liberties as coming from our Creator, as integral to our humanity and as inseparable from us, unless we give them up by violating someone else's liberties. Hence the Jeffersonian and constitutional beef with the word "balancing” when it comes to government power versus individual liberty.

The Judeo-Christian and constitutionally mandated relationship between government power and individual liberty is not balance. It is bias -- a bias in favor of liberty. All presumptions should favor the natural rights of individuals, not the delegated and seized powers of the government. Individual liberty, not government power, is the default position because persons are immortal and created in God's image, and governments are temporary and based on force.

Hence my outrage at the coming use of drones -- some as small as golf balls -- to watch us, to listen to us and to record us. Did you consent to the government having that power? Did you consent to the American military spying on Americans in America? I don't know a single person who has, but I know only a few who are complaining.

If we remain silent when our popularly elected government violates the laws it has sworn to uphold and steals the freedoms we elected it to protect, we will have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother is everywhere. Somehow, I doubt my father's generation fought the Nazis in World War II only to permit a totalitarian government to flourish here.

Is President Obama prepared to defend this? Is Gov. Romney prepared to challenge it? Are you prepared for its consequences?

Story Here:
Where's The Outrage?


Where is the Outrage Part II

 I had a dream the other night, I did not understand,
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand.
His clothes were torn and dirty as he stood their by my bed,
he took off his three cornered hat, and speaking low, he said.
We fought a revolution to secure our Liberty,

We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny.
For future generations this legacy we gave,
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you’d always keep,

But tyrants labored endlessly, while your parents were asleep.
Your freedom gone – Your courage lost – You’re no more than a slave,
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
You buy a permit to travel, and a permit to own a gun,
Permits to start a business or to build a place for one.

On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent,
Although you have no voice in choosing, how the money’s spent.
Your children must attend a school, that does not educate,
Your Christian values can’t be taught, according to the State.
You read about the current news in a regulated press,
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the IRS.

Your money is no longer made of silver or of gold,
You trade your wealth for paper, so your life can be controlled.
You pay for crimes that make your nation, turn from God in shame,
You’ve taken Satans number, as you traded in your name.

You’ve given government control to those who do you harm,
so they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm.
and keep our country deep in debt,put men of God in jail,
harass your fellow countrymen while corrupted courts prevail.

Your public servants don’t uphold, the solemn oath they’ve sworn,
Your daughters visit doctors, so their children won’t be born.
Your leaders ship artillery and guns to foreign shores,
and send your sons to slaughter, to fight other peoples wars.

Can you regain your freedom, for which we fought and died,
or don’t you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride.
Are there no more values, for which you would fight to save,
or do you wish your children, to live in fear and be a slave.
Sons of the Republic, arise and take a stand,

Defend the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.
Preserve our great Republic, and teach each God given right,
and pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright…