A devolution of privacy is occurring in America today, and, what is
worse, most of us are gleefully and willingly going along with it.
Legislators are passing unconstitutional laws that permit authorities
to use our newest satellite technology to destroy our inherent right to
privacy. In allowing these fascist men and women to get away with this,
Americans are finally beginning to seriously trade away their freedoms
for just a modicum of security.
Here are the details of the latest assault upon our Bill of Rights:
Upon release, persons convicted of sexual predation crimes are
shackled with new electronic "leashes," which send out locator signals
to a series of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, for the
remainder of their parole. Those locator signals are then transmitted
to the offices of parole officers, who can call up computerized regional
maps and find out where their charges are at any given time.
As expected, many law enforcement agencies and certainly the parole
officers are delighted with these new electronic GPS locators. You see,
they have forgotten that in our Constitution, even convicted felons have
a right to privacy once they're released from jail. But millions of us
have been brainwashed by control-freak career politicians into believing
that this particular brand of ex-criminal has no more constitutional
rights to privacy once released from custody because, after all, they
may attack again.
The problem with measures like this one is they are usually based on
half-truths. It's true, for instance, that sex offenders are especially
difficult to "rehabilitate." The same is true for serial pedophiles;
once most of them begin to commit offenses, they usually cannot stop, no
matter how much counseling they receive.
But we're talking about the trashing of a basic constitutional right,
specifically the Fourth Amendment, just to provide ourselves with an
illusion of protection. The Fourth Amendment says, "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."
You'll notice there is no exception clause that states, "... unless
you've been convicted of a sex crime or any other crime Congress deems
particularly heinous."
You'll also notice that I added, "... or any other crime Congress
deems particularly heinous." In other words -- using the sex offender
precedent -- there are no guarantees that someday down the road,
Congress won't make another law stating that persons convicted of other
kinds of crimes won't be subjected to the same unconstitutional
treatment upon release from prison.
Think about that for a moment. Consider this trend in "law
enforcement," then consider the fact that we will do this to a convicted
felon but we grant unreasonable rights of privacy to people with a
disease that will kill you if you contract it -- AIDS.
Is it unreasonable, therefore, in this day and age, to assume that
this president or this compliant Congress could whip up public support
on a whim for laws that mandate GPS monitoring of, say, persons
convicted of gun crimes, or any crimes against women and minorities, or
crimes against the environment? After all each of these people
is deemed far more dangerous to society by these fascists than, say, a
serial drunk driver, a serial killer, an abortionist or an ecoterrorist
with a politically correct agenda.
Who among us does not find a sexual predator or pedophile a vile,
despicable character? Virtually no one, of course. But once we release
them from prison, are we not in essence saying that they have paid their
debt to society? And if so, what then gives government the right or us
the justification to monitor their whereabouts after they've been
paroled? Do we then have this "right" to monitor any paroled
criminal -- you know, just to be safe? If all of these people
are still so inherently dangerous -- enough so that we think we have to
monitor them -- why are we letting them out of prison in the first
place?
Look, no one wants their children raped or their loved ones stalked
and sexually assaulted. But to rely on government for protection --
which it cannot do unless we give up all rights to privacy and other
constitutional rights to protect ourselves -- is a false hope.
And don't buy the argument that this law may have started with the
best of intentions. That's horse dust; most career politicians with a
secular, fascist bent don't have those kinds of "joy-joy" thoughts. No,
their goal has always been the same -- to keep track of all people at
all times. This is just the beginning -- which is why we already have
traffic cameras, urban listening devices, pet implant chip technology,
virtually unlimited federal wiretapping, and those new GPS locators
available in many new cars. Face it -- the government wants to know
where all of us are and what we are doing at all times.
This is not the America most of us were raised to support and defend.
Our Founding Fathers wrote our Constitution with the thought that
Americans would trust in God and, in most cases, fend for ourselves and
rely instead on a small, weak central government to provide only the
most basic national imperatives, like defense. They believed local
state and city governments could best protect against predatory
criminals. And they believed that Americans, barring those state and
city protective functions, could best protect ourselves and our own
children against most threats. Perhaps that's why states with concealed
carry of weapons laws consistently have lower violent crime rates --
rates which are falling year after year instead of rising, by the way.
Instead, as we enter the 21st Century, we're living in George
Orwell's vision of America -- a vision that is devoid of basic
constitutional rights for criminal and law abider alike.
Any people who trade their freedom for a little temporary security
deserve neither, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin. But that's just what
we're doing each time we let these career politicians talk us into
trashing our constitutional freedoms for their false promises of
protection.
November 2000 is coming up. Let's show our disdain at the ballot box
en masse and throw these career bums out.