| THE USA PATRIOT ACT--MAGNA CARTA
OVERTHROWN!
On Friday,
October 25, 2001, that black day in American history,
George Bush signed into law the hilariously misnamed USA
Patriot Act into law. With that act, Bush and the US
congress betrayed the American people to tyranny.
Whether they realise it or not, they are systematically
dismantling Magna Carta, keystone of a thousand year heritage
of liberty.
MAGNA CARTA
All our liberties,
all our protections against government tyranny, are founded on
Magna Carta or the Great Charter. I used to think that
every schoolboy knew the story of Magna Carta, but then I
found out that not even lawyers or legislators know it.
I found out the hard way when I called a Tennessee legislator
about 10 years ago to rebuke him about “child protection”
legislation he had sponsored. A former policeman, he had
not a clue that secret witnesses that the accused could never
confront, the presumption of guilt, and secret court
proceedings overthrew not only Magna Carta but our whole
inheritance of Christian and English liberty.
THE CHURCH AND THE BARONS
STOOD UP
During the absence
of Richard the Lion Heart in the crusades, his brother John
became King of England. Our picture of medieval life
doesn’t fit the reality. A king had far, far less power
than today’s president or prime minister. He commanded
the kingdom’s chief men (“barons”) only by their personal
loyalty to him. He was their feudal lord, i.e.,
they held title to their lands and powers in return for
certain services, limited and spelled out in advance.
This hierarchy of personal loyalty, mutual obligation, and
limited service reached from the highest nobleman to the
lowest serf. Both sides were obliged to observe the
feudal rights and obligations, and both low and high jealously
guarded and enforced their rights. The king could not
command a thing outside that feudal compact.
To put it mildly, John
played the tyrant in state and church. The barons, led
by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, rose up and
forced John to sign the Great Charter in which he agreed to
abide by their rights – sealed by King John “in the meadow
called Ronimede between Windsor and Staines on the 15th day of
June in the 17th year of our reign [1215].” Yes, you
read it right. The Church led the barons in
revolt against the tyrant. Yes, the Church refused to
submit its liberty and the realm’s to the
tyrant.
Magna Carta is difficult to read.
While it protects certain crucial rights it also changes
feudal laws wholly unfamiliar to us. Here are some of
the rights it guarantees, with the clause number in
parenthesis.
- Freedom of the church.
The church will be free and have the right of freely
electing its own officers. (1, 63)
- No taxation without
representation. Taxing powers are limited, and
essentially, are not lawfully levied without representation
and consent. (15, 16)
- Equality before the
law. As the king promised to observe customs and
liberties toward his barons, so the barons must observe them
toward their own men. (60)
- Due process, habeas corpus,
right of property, jury trial, freedom from unreasonable
search. “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or
disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed,
nor will we go upon him, nor will we send upon him, except
by the lawful judgement of his peers, or by law of the
land.” (39)
- Speedy justice without
charge. “To no one will we sell, deny, or delay right
or justice.” (40)
- Right to travel or dwell
anywhere. “All persons are free to come and go and
stay in the land in time of peace except outlaws, prisoners,
and enemy aliens.” (42)
- Free markets and freedom to
trade. All merchants are free to come and go and stay
in the land and buy and sell without unreasonable tolls and
according to ancient custom, except in time of war.
(41)
- Right of revolution against
tyrants. As security for the charter, the barons were
to choose 25 men as guardians of the Charter. If the
king or any of his officers infringe the charter, the
offense shall be reported to four members of the 25.
They must go to the king or his justiciar to ask that the
matter be put right. If the king fails to do so within
forty days, the four barons shall refer the question to the
whole 25, who, together with the community of the whole
realm “shall destrain and trouble us in all possible ways by
taking our castles, lands, and possessions.” Once the
king acquiesced in redress the former relations with him
would be resumed. (This section was, unhappily,
omitted from later renewals of the charter.”
But
Runnymeade was not the end of the Great Charter. Over
the years king after king was forced to renew it. It was
required to be read in most courts once a year, since the
people as well as the king and his agents must be continually
reminded what it commanded. By the time it was repeated
in the ninth year of Henry III (a.d. 1225), “the Great Charter
was becoming a symbol, a battle cry against oppression …
Whenever liberty seemed in danger, men spoke of the charter as
their defense. It follows that the great and beneficent
influence of Magna Carta in England and in every land across
the sea in which Englishmen have settled has come not from the
detailed expression of the feudal relationship between lord
and man but from the more general clauses in which every
generation could see its own
protection.”
Magna Carta founds all our
liberties. To this day, many of our state constitutions
quote Magna Carta’s very words in their bill of rights.
All the fundamental rights in the American constitution stand
on no other foundation.
THE USA PATRIOT
ACT
This ‘law” begins
insulting us with the title, a piece of infantile
marketing-by-acronym: “Uniting and
Strengthening America Act by Providing
Appropriate Tools to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.” Sounds
like the acronym for the evil institute in C.S. Lewis’ book,
That Hideous Strength: the N.I.C.E., National
Institute for Creative Experimentation.
This hideous bill passed the
house of [mis]representatives by a vote of 357 – 66,
and the senate by 99 – 1. Only one single senator, and
him a liberal pro-abort from Wisconsin, had enough unshakeable
courage to vote against it.
The bill purports to offer law
enforcement new tools in the “war against terrorism.”
Whether they realise it or not, it systematically destroys
Magna Carta in a “war on liberty.” Here are some of the
bill’s provisions:
- Destroys grand jury
secrecy. It’s not bad enough grand juries have already
been converted to tools of the prosecution with no shred of
independence. Now they’ve destroyed its secrecy meant
to protect both the innocent and citizens fearful of
bringing criminal charges against someone powerful or
mighty. Now nearly any federal official or bureaucrat
can “share” grand jury testimony or wiretap
information.
- Destroys protection against
unreasonable searches and seizures with “sneak and peek”
warrants.” Before police had to serve you with a copy
of the warrant when they entered your home, and provide an
inventory of anything taken. Now they can sneak into
your home while you are absent, take whatever they
wish, and leave. Imagine how they’ll hoot to
themselves when you report a burglary and they pretend to
investigate, knowing all the time they are the
thieves. (Section 213)
- Destroys equal protection of
the law. Formerly habeas corpus protected both
citizens and aliens from warrantless arrest and
imprisonment. Now any alien can be arrested and held
without being charged for six months. Imprisonment can
be continued for another six months “on suspicion.”
How many times can they renew imprisonment? The law
doesn’t specify. Oh, and just so you don’t appeal, the
only place you can appeal is to the US Court of Appeals in
Washington. Get in line, Methuselah.
- Destroys protection against
unreasonable and warrantless searches. Enables police
permanently to conduct Internet surveillance or a pen
wiretap (records all numbers incoming and outgoing) without
a court order in some circumstances. Any US attorney
or state attorney general can order FBI’s Carnivore
surveillance system installed to record addresses of Web
pages visited and e-mail correspondents – without going to a
judge. (Section 216)
- Destroys financial
privacy. The “amendments and improvements” to the
Banking Secrecy [sic] Act further perfect our financial
police state. Bank tattle-tales are exempted from
liability for falsely reporting a money laundering
violation. (351) Section 359 could be stretched to
apply to anybody engaged in any transaction, including flea
markets and garage sales. Ridiculous! You
say. Hide and watch, I say. It could also
apply to electronic money issuers and offer the government a
means to suppress that trade since it competes with their
own national currency.
IT WON’T STOP THERE
No point to say,
“Well, they will limit the application of these laws to
terrorists only.” Law enforcement couldn’t do
that even if they meant to. The law looks at all
offenses equally. Anyway, as we’ve seen with the
money laundering laws, they enforce them to the letter,
not even requiring any intent to break the
law.
Some
“senators” and “representatives” tried to hide behind sunset
provisions in the law: some of the extraordinary law
enforcement powers expire at the end of 2004. Well,
hogwash! Like they stopped enforcing the Victory
Tax Act for withholding when it expired in 1945?
Right. When did they ever cut our chains once they’ve
riveted them around our necks? Besides, the
“sunset provision” in section 224 applies only to one part of
the act and specifically exempts the most outrageous
provisions.
And don’t be fooled. They will
extend the precedents of this law to every other room where
the last rags and strings of liberty still hang. These
breaches cannot be quarantined to “terrorism” any more than
the war on drugs was quarantined to “drug dealers.”
NO OTHER PEOPLE
Why do we get such
abortions voted into law? We cannot avoid the ugly
conclusions. The American people want security before
liberty. Are they really cowardly slaves? Like all
slaves, do they want to be sheltered and told what to
do? Who but slaves slaves refuse to take responsibility
for themselves and do not cherish their
liberty?.
Americans are also ignorant. Part of that guilt
belongs to their training in state schools, which are only
statist propaganda factories. Another and greater part
belongs to those who are wilfully ignorant, who make no
effort to learn their rights and enforce them. Laziness,
cowardice, wilful ignorance – it makes quite a cocktail for
slaves.
Are
Americans self-centered cowards? Those who love their
country and their children unselfishly will defend and, even
at the peril and hazard of their own lives, pass on their
heritage of liberty to their children
undiminished. DO Americans have only contempt for
that heritage? Such people will never say NO to their
own home-grown Gestapo and Fuehrer of
Homelandsecurity.
Those Americans who yet have a spark of
manhood in them can as yet only protest. Write those
traitorous representatives and senators who voted to overthrow
your ancient and precious rights and tell them you, at least,
will remember.
And when the tyrant comes to your door,
resist with all the power of the law and Magna Carta!
Resist, because it is your right and your
duty.
-- F. Sanders
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