Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: When they had completed their work, did they keep their results secret?
Answer: No, they did not.
Question: Did they read the work aloud to the general public?
Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: Did they force their version of the Constitution upon the people without their consent or input?
Answer: No, they did not.
Question: Was the Constitution allowed to come under scrutiny by the 13 “states”?
Answer: Yes, it was.
Question: Was the Constitution debated in every state capital at the time?
Answer: Yes, it was.
Question: Once the document was completed, was it kept secret from the states and the people?
Answer: No, it was not.
Question: With the NSA, was everything they were doing supposed to have been kept from the American people?
Answer: Yes. That was the government’s intent.
Question: Did anybody know about what was going on at NSA?
Answer: Yes. Eleven FISA judges knew. Some of the people at the NSA knew. Their contractors knew.
Question: After being made public, did Madison, Adams and others assure the states that there would be additions to the Constitution to ensure that the protection rights of the individuals and the states were not usurped by the federal government?
Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: On June 27, 1778, did the members of the Virginia Ratification Convention ratify the Constitution?
Answer: Yes, the did.
Question: Did they also propose a “…Bill of rights asserting and securing from encroachment the essential and unalienable rights of the people?”
Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: Did the VRC also assert that “…every free man has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person, his papers and property. All warrants, therefore to seize any man’s person, papers or property without information upon oath, or affirmation of a person religiously scrupulous of taking an oath of legal and sufficient cause are grievous and oppressive. And all general warrants to search suspected places or to apprehend any suspected person without specifically naming or describing the place or person are dangerous and ought not be granted?”
Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: Did the NY Convention also provide a list of declarations asserting the same thing?
Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: Has NSA lived up to the requirements of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution asserting protection from unwarrented searches and seizures?
Answer: No, they have not.
Question: Do we know what they were concerned about?
Answer: Yes, we do.
Question: Had they lived under the iron fist of England who regularly used a "Writ of Assistance" to conduct searches and seizures of persons, papers and property in order to gather information they might use against the people to incriminate them, if they needed to?
Answer: Yes, they had.
Question: Did those Writs of Assistance enable the government of England to search and/or seize a person, a person's papers or a person's property without specifying the house or the goods?
Answer: Yes, they did.
Question: How is that different from what the NSA has done with its "enhanced surveillance tactics and abilities?
Answer: It is not different.
Question: Did we know NSA was conducting such surveillance?
Answer: Right wing radicals have been asserting it all along, but have been pooh, poohed.
Question: How did right wingers know this stuff was happening?
Answer: From the context of the actions and statements of the federal government that the right wingers deduced could only be happening to cover up something the federal government was doing or to deflect the attention of the citizens in some other direction.
Question: Now that Edward Joseph Snowden has revealed that the federal government has been involved in these things, and that the right wingers were correct, will the left be any more likely to take what right wingers say and/or warn against more seriously?
Answer: Nope. They lack the genes to admit they are wrong about anything and cannot see the world's reality through their rose colored glasses.
9 comments:
Question: Is Joe right on this one?
Answer: Yep - he is. Well written and clearly true.
The idea that the left wasn't loudly protesting the Patriot Act is absolutely absurd.
Unfortunately there was only one senator who voted against that abomination and if you think Russ Feingold was conservative then you're a lost cause.
The Tea Baggers did mount an opposition to Feingold and defeated him. A serious loss to good governance.
Still, thinking the right wing opposed the Patriot (LMAO) Act is beyond absurd, Joe.
Joe, many on the left loudly protested the Patriot Act as it was being debated and approved.
It was the radical right, as you call them who pushed the view that any stance against the Patriot Act was almost treasonous.
Support for the war effort and this Act were literally litmus tests set up by the right to ID lefties who were seen as squishy on national defense.
You will find few GOP politicians who, when questioned about the Patriot Act during the Bush Admin who were against it, but there were at least a few colleagues of former Sen Russ Feingold who stood against it.
The tyranny you decry, and which I too, as a lefty abhor, was proposed by, pushed by, and supported by the GOP congress and president long before President Obama took up the cause.
He should be ashamed for what he is doing, but at least, according to fmr NSA Chief Hayden, his admin is more transparent regarding this than the Bush Admin.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/george-w-bushs-nsa-director-michael-hayden-praises-obama-92686.html?hp=r2
DM: "...his admin is more transparent regarding this than the Bush Admin."
By an accident caused by a leaker.
He's as transparent as a lead wall.
Not true Joe... regarding this leak, Hayden said the Obama admin has in fact been briefing any member of congress who wanted to be briefed whereas the Bush Admin only briefed the intelligence committees.
At least as it regards this issue, Congress was way more informed by the Obama Admin than they were in the previous admin.
Be critical when it is warranted, but don't just be reflexively anti-Obama because you do not like him.
DM: "...don't just be reflexively anti-Obama because you do not like him."
I'm anti-Obama because I do not like his policies and I think he is a danger to America. I don't like people who are a danger to America.
DM: On Friday Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)said only select members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been briefed on the program.
And today, Former NSA head Hayden said otherwise... also, the Obama Admin has released a long list of the times they briefed regular members of Congress, from both parties.
Many of those members have agreed that they indeed did receive regular briefings.
DM: "...the Obama Admin has released a long list..."
If this administrations list means anything to you, then I am sorry for you.
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