Archive for the ‘Civil Liberties’ Category
Obama's H1N1 Bill to Enact Martial Law
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Why libertarians-and everyone who believes in limited government-should worry about Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee
Damon W. Root
President Barack Obama's announcement that he wants federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter comes as something less than a shock. For months, Sotomayor's name has topped most lists of potential candidates. With her compelling personal story, which stretches from a Bronx, New York housing project to Yale Law School to the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotomayor's likely appointment as the Court's first Hispanic justice nicely complements Obama's own "only in America" narrative.
But when it comes to her judicial philosophy, there are some real causes for concern. In particular, on the hot-button issues of affirmative action and Second Amendment rights, her record suggests a decidedly illiberal vision of constitutional law.
Consider affirmative action. Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Ricci v. Destefano, which centered on charges of reverse discrimination at the New Haven, Connecticut fire department. In 2003 the department administered a test to fill 15 captain and lieutenant vacancies, but when the results came in, no African Americans made the cut (14 whites and one Hispanic earned the top scores). In response to local pressure, the city then refused to certify the results and decided instead to leave the positions open until a suitable new test was developed. This prompted a lawsuit from a group of white firefighters who had been denied promotion, including lead plaintiff Frank Ricci, a 34-year-old dyslexic who says he spent months preparing for the now-voided test by listening to audiotape study guides as he drove to work.
Ricci's suit was initially thrown out at the district court level, prompting an appeal to the Second Circuit. At that point Sotomayor joined in an unsigned opinion embracing the district court's analysis without offering any analysis of its own. This prompted fellow Second Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes-a liberal Democrat appointed by President Bill Clinton-to issue a stern rebuke. "The opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case," Cabranes wrote. "This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal."
It's an important point. Ricci gets at the very heart of the debate over whether the Constitution should be interpreted as a colorblind document. As the liberal legal commenter Emily Bazelon noted at Slate, "If Sotomayor and her colleagues were trying to shield the case from Supreme Court review, her punt had the opposite effect. It drew Cabranes' ire, and he hung a big red flag on the case, which the Supreme Court grabbed." Given that the Court is likely to side with Ricci and his fellow plaintiffs, Sotomayor's silent endorsement of New Haven's reverse discrimination is certain to come back to haunt her during her confirmation hearings.
Equally troubling is Sotomayor's record on the Second Amendment. This past January, the Second Circuit issued its opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo, which Sotomayor joined, ruling that the Second Amendment does not apply against state and local governments. At issue was a New York ban on various weapons, including nunchucks. After last year's District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down DC's handgun ban, attention turned to whether state and local gun control laws might violate the Second Amendment as well.
"It is settled law," Sotomayor and the Second Circuit held, "that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right." But contrast that with the Ninth Circuit's decision last month in Nordyke v. King, which reached a very different conclusion, one that matches the Second Amendment's text, original meaning, and history:
We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty." Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.
This split between the two circuits means that the Supreme Court is almost certain to take up the question in the near future. What role might soon-to-be Justice Sotomayor play? As gun rights scholar and Independence Institute Research Director Dave Kopel told me via email, Sotomayor's opinions "demonstrate a profound hostility to Second Amendment rights. If we follow Senator Obama's principle that Senators should vote against judges whose views on legal issues are harmful, then it is hard to see how someone who supports Second Amendment rights could vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor."
As a respected jurist with an impressive legal resume, Sotomayor appears just as qualified to sit on the Supreme Court as any recent nominee. But from the standpoint of individual liberty and limited constitutional government, there are significant reasons to be wary of her nomination.
Damon W. Root is a Reason associate editor.
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GPS Marking of Every House in U.S. Not Authorized by
Supreme Law of the Land
By: David Deschesne,
Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal May 6, 2009, page 1
The U.S. Census Bureau has been overstepping the U.S. Constitution's requirements for a simple enumeration of the citizens for years, but their current plans to mark the GPS location of every address in the U.S. is just the latest in a long list of usurpations of the General Government's Constitutional authority.
The Bureau of Census is sending its army of workers to every address in the United States within the next couple of months in order to log the Global Positioning System (GPS) location of every American citizen's home.
Cataloging the physical location of people's homes is far removed from the Constitutional grant of authority to the government to merely count how many people are living in the several states in order to assign an appropriate number of Representatives to them in the U.S. House of Representatives1 so, there must be another purpose for this action.
The term "Census" is Latin for to appraise or to assess a value thereon. In Roman history it was a registration or count of citizens and their property to determine taxation."2
The spirit of the word 'Census,' as to appraise or assess a value on the citizens' labor and their property, does not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, only an enumeration (counting) of people every ten years in order to appropriate Representatives.
The Bureau of Census is a relatively new creation, not actually in existence in the beginning of the United States. It was established temporarily in 1899 and as a permanent office within the Department of Interior in 1902, just a few years prior to our nation surrendering its money supply to a private cabal of international banks. In 1903, the Bureau of Census - now functioning as a de facto "Bureau of Appraisals" was absorbed by the newly created Department of Commerce and Labor, which was later separated into two separate departments. The Bureau of Census (Appraisals) was reorganized in 1950 and remains in the Commerce Department to this day.3
Congress created the Bureau of Census (Appraisals) to begin the laborious task of cataloging, serial numbering and tracking the value of all personal and business property in the United States, as well as the humans therein for the purposes of appraising their value and preparing them for use as collateral against the nation's debt under a proposed fiat debt money scheme to be implemented later on in 1913.
Ten years after its inception, the Department of Commerce was restructured as a stand-alone entity separating Labor into its own Department (15 USC 1501). The private, for-profit corporation, known as the Federal Reserve System was formed in the same year as the restructuring of the Department of Commerce. Under the new Federal Reserve System's plan, all new money would be brought into existence via loans to the government and citizens. The Bureau of Census (Appraisals), as a division of the Department of Commerce, is charged with keeping track of the number of human chattels whose labor is pledged against the national debt via the Federal income tax. The Bureau of Census (Appraisals) also appraises and keeps track of manufacturers, mineral industries, distributive trades, construction industries, agriculture, religious organizations and transportation. All towns, cities, and municipalities are required to annually submit a report of all new construction, multi-family units, new businesses, and any losses to the Bureau of Census (Appraisals) for the purposes of keeping a current valuation of all property in the United States.4
Just prior to the bankruptcy of the United States in June, 1933, the Bureau of Census (Appraisals) undertook a bold new venture. During the month of April, 1930, over 100,000 persons were engaged in taking the census. At that time the usual questions regarding race, color, sex, age, occupation, whether married or single, and whether able to write were asked. In addition were such questions as the value of your home and whether owned or rented, whether you were the owner of a radio, and detailed questions regarding unemployment.5 This information was needed in order to assess a value on the chattels and collateral the Federal Reserve banks needed before loaning money to the soon to be bankrupt U.S. government.
The Under Secretary for Economic Affairs compiles all Census data and makes it available to those who are in need of it - such as banks seeking to determine how well a state or geographic area of people are able to collateralize a bond issue (loan) with their currently existing labor and property.
The current scheme of using unwitting census workers to mark the GPS location of every address in the United States, under the banner of a Constitutional enumeration of the citizens, has nothing to do with counting people in order to appropriate Representatives to Congress. Instead, it appears to be an unconstitutional ploy to catalog and track all citizens' property which has been pledged to the banks and creditors who hold the notes on the United States' now $11+ trillion national debt.
"We are using the GPS data to help our census takers find your home when they come around next year," said one census worker. However, when asked since she was able to find the person's house without a GPS coordinate to begin with, why was a GPS coordinate necessary for another census worker, she was unable to explain.
Some have speculated that the GPS coordinates are for the Federal Government's future use in silencing protestors, confiscating firearms or foreclosing on homes on behalf of the foreign banks and countries who have loaned the U.S. trillions of dollars in unpayable debt. Whatever this government's intentions are, history has shown they are not benevolent.
The Fort Fairfield Journal contacted Paul Powell, Partnership Coordinator for the Boston Regional Census Center to ask what Constitutional authority the Bureau of Census had to catalog GPS coordinates, what the information was being used for, what other information was being collected about the address at the time the GPS ...
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The following is a resolution proposed in the New Hampshire legislature. It is aimed at reclaiming the sovereignty of the people through the power that is granted to the state, which is endorsed with the power to protect the rights of the citizen through the 10th Amendment.
This is a subject that has been completely ignored by the major media.
It is also interesting to note that there are currently a total of 5 states with such a resolution on the table, and one other state, Montana, which has proposed the revitalization of the Militia in accordance with constitutional mandates.
HCR 6 - AS INTRODUCED
2009 SESSION
09-0274
09/01
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 6
A RESOLUTION affirming States' rights based on Jeffersonian principles.
SPONSORS: Rep. Itse, Rock 9; Rep. Ingbretson, Graf 5; Rep. Comerford, Rock 9; Sen. Denley, Dist 3
COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs
ANALYSIS
This house concurrent resolution affirms States' rights based on Jeffersonian principles.
09-0274
09/01
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nine
A RESOLUTION affirming States' rights based on Jeffersonian principles.
Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled; and
Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 2, Article 1 declares that the people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other, to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body-politic, or State, by the name of The State of New Hampshire; and
Whereas the State of New Hampshire when ratifying the Constitution for the United States of America recommended as a change, "First That it be Explicitly declared that all Powers not expressly & particularly Delegated by the aforesaid are reserved to the several States to be, by them Exercised;" and
Whereas the other States that included recommendations, to wit Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia, included an identical or similar recommended change; and
Whereas these recommended changes were incorporated as the ninth amendment, the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and the tenth amendment, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, to the Constitution for the United States of America; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:
That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress; and
That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, slavery, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory; and
That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;" and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed. And thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same. And that in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been ...
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