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Are We 'Federal Children,' owned by the Government
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
FOREWARD: WeAtThem have been looking askance as the term "human resources" for quite a while. This essay expounds upon what has, for a long time, made us very very uneasy. Who actually owns you - yourself or your government? (State, federal, local...)
It's a question, which we all need to answer, if only for ourselves.
Are We 'Federal Children,' owned by the Government?
By Dave Champion
The American Crisis II
In 1921, the federal Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act created the birth "registration" or what we now know as the "birth certificate." It was known as the "Maternity Act" and was sold to the American people as a law that would reduce maternal and infant mortality, protect the health of mothers and infants, and for "other purposes." One of those other purposes provided for the establishment of a federal bureau designed to cooperate with state agencies in the overseeing of its operations and expenditures. What it really did was create a federal birth registry which exists today, creating "federal children." This government, under the doctrine of "Parens Patriae," now legislates for American children as if they are owned by the federal government. Through the public school enrollment process and continuing license requirements for most aspects of daily life, these children grow up to be adults indoctrinated into the process of asking for "permission" from Daddy government to do all those things necessary to carry out daily activities that exist in what is called a "free country."
Before 1921 the records of births and names of children were entered into family bibles, as were the records of marriages and deaths. These records were readily accepted by both the family and the law as "official" records. Since 1921 the American people have been registering the births and names of their children with the government of the state in which they were born, even though there is no federal law requiring it. The state tells you that registering your child's birth through the birth certificate serves as proof that he/she was born in the United States, thereby making him/her a United States citizen. For the past several years a social security number was mandated by the federal government to be issued at birth.
In 1933, bankruptcy was declared by President Roosevelt. The governors of the then 48 States pledged the "full faith and credit" of their states, including the citizenry, as collateral for loans of credit from the Federal Reserve system.
To wit: "Full faith and credit" clause of Const. U.S. article 4. Sec. 1, requires that foreign judgment be given such faith and credit as it had by law or usage of state of it's origin. That foreign statutes are to have force and effect to which they are entitled in home state. And that a judgment or record shall have the same faith, credit, conclusive effect, and obligatory force in other states as it has by law or usage in the state from whence taken. - Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Ed. Cites omitted.
The state claims an interest in every child within its jurisdiction. The state will, if it deems it necessary, nullify your parental rights and appoint a guardian (trustee) over your children.
The subject of every birth certificate is a child. The child is a valuable asset, which if properly trained, can contribute valuable assets provided by its labor for many years. It is presumed by those who have researched this issue, that the child itself is the asset of the trust established by the birth certificate, and the social security number is the numbering or registration of the trust, allowing for the assets of the trust to be tracked. If this information is true, your child is now owned by the state. Each one of us, including our children, are considered assets of the bankrupt united states. We are now designated by this government as "HUMAN RESOURCES," with a new crop born every year."
In 1923, a suit was brought against federal officials charged with the administration of the maternity act, who were citizens of another state, to enjoin them from enforcing it, wherein the plaintiff averred that the act was unconstitutional, and that it's purpose was to induce the States to yield sovereign rights reserved by them through the federal Constitution's 10th amendment and not granted to the federal government, and that the burden of the appropriations falls unequally upon the several States, held, that, as the statue does not require the plaintiff to do or yield anything, and as no burden is imposed by it other than that of taxation, which falls, not on the State but on her inhabitants, who are within the federal as well as the state taxing power, the complaint resolves down to the naked contention that Congress has usurped reserved powers of the States by the mere enactment of the statute, though nothing has been, or is to be, done under it without their consent (Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, et al.; Frothingham v. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury et. Al..) Mr. Alexander Lincoln, Assistant Attorney General, argued for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To wit:
I. The act is unconstitutional. It purports to vest in agencies of the Federal Government powers which are almost wholly undefined, in matters relating to maternity and infancy, and to authorize appropriations of federal funds for the purposes of the act.
Many examples may be given and were stated in the debates on the bill in Congress of regulations which may be imposed under the act. THE FORCED REGISTRATION OF PREGNANCY, GOVERNMENTAL PRENATAL EXAMINATION OF EXPECTANT MOTHERS, RESTRICTIONS ON THE RIGHT OF A WOMAN TO SECURE THE SERVICES OF A MIDWIFE OR PHYSICIAN OF HER OWN SELECTION, are measures to which the people of those States which accept its provisions may be subjected. There is nothing which prohibits the payment of subsidies out of federal appropriations. INSURANCE OF MOTHERS MAY BE MADE COMPULSORY. THE TEACHING OF BIRTH CONTROL AND PHYSICAL INSPECTION OF PERSONS ABOUT TO MARRY MAY BE REQUIRED.
By section 4 of the act, the Children's Bureau is given all necessary power to cooperate with the state agencies in the administration of the act. Hence it is given the power to assist in the enforcement of the plans submitted to it, and for than purpose by its agents to go into the several States and to do those acts for which the plans submitted may provide. As to what those plans shall provide, the final arbiters are the Bureau and the Board. THE FACT THAT IT WAS CONSIDERED NECESSARY IN EXPLICIT TERMS TO PRESERVE FROM INVASION BY FEDERAL OFFICIALS THE RIGHT OF THE PARENT TO THE CUSTODY AND CARE OF HIS CHILD AND THE SANCTITY OF HIS HOME SHOWS HOW FAR REACHING ARE THE POWERS WHICH WERE INTENDED TO BE GRANTED BY THE ACT.
(1) The act is invalid because it assumes powers not granted to Congress and usurps the local police power. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 549-551.
In more recent cases, however, the Court has shown that there are limits to the power of Congress to pass legislation purporting to be based on one of the powers expressly granted to Congress which in fact usurps the reserved powers of the States, and that laws showing on their face detailed regulation of a matter wholly within the police power of the States will be held to be unconstitutional although they purport to be passed in the exercise of some constitutional power. Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251; Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U.S. 20; Hill v. Wallace, 259 U.S. 44.
The act is not made valid by the circumstance that federal powers are to be exercised only with respect to those States which accept the act, for Congress cannot assume, and state legislatures cannot yield, the powers reserved to the States by the Constitution. Message of President Monroe, May 4, 1822; 4 Elliot's Debates, p. 525; Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How.212; Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U.S. 678; Coyle v. Oklahoma, 221 U.S.559; Cincinnati v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 223 U.S. 390
(2) The act is invalid because it imposes on each State an illegal option either to yield a part of its powers reserved by the Tenth Amendment or to give up its share of appropriations under the act.
A statute attempting, by imposing conditions upon a general privilege, to exact a waiver of a constitutional right, is null and void. Harrison v. St. Louis & San Francisco R.R. Co., 232 U.S. 318; Terral v. Burke Construction Co., 257 U.S. 529.
(3) The act is invalid because it sets up a system of government by cooperation between the Federal Government and certain of the States, not provided by the Constitution.
Congress cannot make laws for the States, and it cannot delegate to the States the power to make laws for the United States. In reference Rahrer, 140 U.S. 545; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149; Opinion of the Justices, 239 Mass. 606.
The Maternity Act was eventually repealed, but parts of it have been found in other legislative acts. What this act attempted to do was set up government by appointment, run by bureaucrats with re-delegated authority to tax, which is in itself unconstitutional. What was once declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of this nation in the past should be upheld in a court challenge today.
The constitution hasn't changed. What has changed is the way this government views human life. Today we are defined as human resources, believed to be owned by government. The government now wants us, as individuals, to be tagged and tracked.
Government mandated or legislated National I.D. is unconstitutional anyway you look at it. Federal jurisdiction to legislate for the several states does not exist and if defended properly would never survive a court challenge as shown above. Writing letters to elected public servants won't save us when we all know their agenda does not include serving those who place them in power. Perhaps the 10th amendment of the federal constitution guaranteeing states rights will, when making it known that we as individuals of the several states will not be treated as chattel of the U.S. government. If the federal government believes they own us, and as such have the right to demand national I.D. cards, and health I.D. cards, which will in truth tag us as we tag our animals, then let them bring forth the documents to prove their authority to demand or legislate for it.
If our God-given rights to liberty and freedom which were the foundation upon which this nation was created do not exist, and liberty and freedom is only an illusion under which the American people suffer, then let the governments of this nation come forward and tell its people.
If we are indeed free, then we should not have to plead or beg our elected public servants to be treated as such. If, in truth we are not free, then perhaps it's time to let the final chapter of the Great American Revolution now be written........
~ Afterword ~
American Crisis II: A Declaration of Independence for Our Life and Times (2 - Compact Discs) Available for the first time - directly from the Master Digital Studio Tapes! This 2 disc set is amongst our finest work. In March of 1998, we walked into a studio in Escondido, California with transcript in hand - ready to lay down the tracks of challenge to our fellow American's. The American Crisis II, picks up where Thomas Paine's left off over 200 years ago - with a few surprises in between. May God Bless America again? It's up to you.
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=3467
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
It's a question, which we all need to answer, if only for ourselves.
Are We 'Federal Children,' owned by the Government?
By Dave Champion
The American Crisis II
In 1921, the federal Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act created the birth "registration" or what we now know as the "birth certificate." It was known as the "Maternity Act" and was sold to the American people as a law that would reduce maternal and infant mortality, protect the health of mothers and infants, and for "other purposes." One of those other purposes provided for the establishment of a federal bureau designed to cooperate with state agencies in the overseeing of its operations and expenditures. What it really did was create a federal birth registry which exists today, creating "federal children." This government, under the doctrine of "Parens Patriae," now legislates for American children as if they are owned by the federal government. Through the public school enrollment process and continuing license requirements for most aspects of daily life, these children grow up to be adults indoctrinated into the process of asking for "permission" from Daddy government to do all those things necessary to carry out daily activities that exist in what is called a "free country."
Before 1921 the records of births and names of children were entered into family bibles, as were the records of marriages and deaths. These records were readily accepted by both the family and the law as "official" records. Since 1921 the American people have been registering the births and names of their children with the government of the state in which they were born, even though there is no federal law requiring it. The state tells you that registering your child's birth through the birth certificate serves as proof that he/she was born in the United States, thereby making him/her a United States citizen. For the past several years a social security number was mandated by the federal government to be issued at birth.
In 1933, bankruptcy was declared by President Roosevelt. The governors of the then 48 States pledged the "full faith and credit" of their states, including the citizenry, as collateral for loans of credit from the Federal Reserve system.
To wit: "Full faith and credit" clause of Const. U.S. article 4. Sec. 1, requires that foreign judgment be given such faith and credit as it had by law or usage of state of it's origin. That foreign statutes are to have force and effect to which they are entitled in home state. And that a judgment or record shall have the same faith, credit, conclusive effect, and obligatory force in other states as it has by law or usage in the state from whence taken. - Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Ed. Cites omitted.
The state claims an interest in every child within its jurisdiction. The state will, if it deems it necessary, nullify your parental rights and appoint a guardian (trustee) over your children.
The subject of every birth certificate is a child. The child is a valuable asset, which if properly trained, can contribute valuable assets provided by its labor for many years. It is presumed by those who have researched this issue, that the child itself is the asset of the trust established by the birth certificate, and the social security number is the numbering or registration of the trust, allowing for the assets of the trust to be tracked. If this information is true, your child is now owned by the state. Each one of us, including our children, are considered assets of the bankrupt united states. We are now designated by this government as "HUMAN RESOURCES," with a new crop born every year."
In 1923, a suit was brought against federal officials charged with the administration of the maternity act, who were citizens of another state, to enjoin them from enforcing it, wherein the plaintiff averred that the act was unconstitutional, and that it's purpose was to induce the States to yield sovereign rights reserved by them through the federal Constitution's 10th amendment and not granted to the federal government, and that the burden of the appropriations falls unequally upon the several States, held, that, as the statue does not require the plaintiff to do or yield anything, and as no burden is imposed by it other than that of taxation, which falls, not on the State but on her inhabitants, who are within the federal as well as the state taxing power, the complaint resolves down to the naked contention that Congress has usurped reserved powers of the States by the mere enactment of the statute, though nothing has been, or is to be, done under it without their consent (Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, et al.; Frothingham v. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury et. Al..) Mr. Alexander Lincoln, Assistant Attorney General, argued for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To wit:
I. The act is unconstitutional. It purports to vest in agencies of the Federal Government powers which are almost wholly undefined, in matters relating to maternity and infancy, and to authorize appropriations of federal funds for the purposes of the act.
Many examples may be given and were stated in the debates on the bill in Congress of regulations which may be imposed under the act. THE FORCED REGISTRATION OF PREGNANCY, GOVERNMENTAL PRENATAL EXAMINATION OF EXPECTANT MOTHERS, RESTRICTIONS ON THE RIGHT OF A WOMAN TO SECURE THE SERVICES OF A MIDWIFE OR PHYSICIAN OF HER OWN SELECTION, are measures to which the people of those States which accept its provisions may be subjected. There is nothing which prohibits the payment of subsidies out of federal appropriations. INSURANCE OF MOTHERS MAY BE MADE COMPULSORY. THE TEACHING OF BIRTH CONTROL AND PHYSICAL INSPECTION OF PERSONS ABOUT TO MARRY MAY BE REQUIRED.
By section 4 of the act, the Children's Bureau is given all necessary power to cooperate with the state agencies in the administration of the act. Hence it is given the power to assist in the enforcement of the plans submitted to it, and for than purpose by its agents to go into the several States and to do those acts for which the plans submitted may provide. As to what those plans shall provide, the final arbiters are the Bureau and the Board. THE FACT THAT IT WAS CONSIDERED NECESSARY IN EXPLICIT TERMS TO PRESERVE FROM INVASION BY FEDERAL OFFICIALS THE RIGHT OF THE PARENT TO THE CUSTODY AND CARE OF HIS CHILD AND THE SANCTITY OF HIS HOME SHOWS HOW FAR REACHING ARE THE POWERS WHICH WERE INTENDED TO BE GRANTED BY THE ACT.
(1) The act is invalid because it assumes powers not granted to Congress and usurps the local police power. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 549-551.
In more recent cases, however, the Court has shown that there are limits to the power of Congress to pass legislation purporting to be based on one of the powers expressly granted to Congress which in fact usurps the reserved powers of the States, and that laws showing on their face detailed regulation of a matter wholly within the police power of the States will be held to be unconstitutional although they purport to be passed in the exercise of some constitutional power. Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251; Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U.S. 20; Hill v. Wallace, 259 U.S. 44.
The act is not made valid by the circumstance that federal powers are to be exercised only with respect to those States which accept the act, for Congress cannot assume, and state legislatures cannot yield, the powers reserved to the States by the Constitution. Message of President Monroe, May 4, 1822; 4 Elliot's Debates, p. 525; Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How.212; Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U.S. 678; Coyle v. Oklahoma, 221 U.S.559; Cincinnati v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 223 U.S. 390
(2) The act is invalid because it imposes on each State an illegal option either to yield a part of its powers reserved by the Tenth Amendment or to give up its share of appropriations under the act.
A statute attempting, by imposing conditions upon a general privilege, to exact a waiver of a constitutional right, is null and void. Harrison v. St. Louis & San Francisco R.R. Co., 232 U.S. 318; Terral v. Burke Construction Co., 257 U.S. 529.
(3) The act is invalid because it sets up a system of government by cooperation between the Federal Government and certain of the States, not provided by the Constitution.
Congress cannot make laws for the States, and it cannot delegate to the States the power to make laws for the United States. In reference Rahrer, 140 U.S. 545; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149; Opinion of the Justices, 239 Mass. 606.
The Maternity Act was eventually repealed, but parts of it have been found in other legislative acts. What this act attempted to do was set up government by appointment, run by bureaucrats with re-delegated authority to tax, which is in itself unconstitutional. What was once declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of this nation in the past should be upheld in a court challenge today.
The constitution hasn't changed. What has changed is the way this government views human life. Today we are defined as human resources, believed to be owned by government. The government now wants us, as individuals, to be tagged and tracked.
Government mandated or legislated National I.D. is unconstitutional anyway you look at it. Federal jurisdiction to legislate for the several states does not exist and if defended properly would never survive a court challenge as shown above. Writing letters to elected public servants won't save us when we all know their agenda does not include serving those who place them in power. Perhaps the 10th amendment of the federal constitution guaranteeing states rights will, when making it known that we as individuals of the several states will not be treated as chattel of the U.S. government. If the federal government believes they own us, and as such have the right to demand national I.D. cards, and health I.D. cards, which will in truth tag us as we tag our animals, then let them bring forth the documents to prove their authority to demand or legislate for it.
If our God-given rights to liberty and freedom which were the foundation upon which this nation was created do not exist, and liberty and freedom is only an illusion under which the American people suffer, then let the governments of this nation come forward and tell its people.
If we are indeed free, then we should not have to plead or beg our elected public servants to be treated as such. If, in truth we are not free, then perhaps it's time to let the final chapter of the Great American Revolution now be written........
~ Afterword ~
American Crisis II: A Declaration of Independence for Our Life and Times (2 - Compact Discs) Available for the first time - directly from the Master Digital Studio Tapes! This 2 disc set is amongst our finest work. In March of 1998, we walked into a studio in Escondido, California with transcript in hand - ready to lay down the tracks of challenge to our fellow American's. The American Crisis II, picks up where Thomas Paine's left off over 200 years ago - with a few surprises in between. May God Bless America again? It's up to you.
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=3467
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
By L. Neil Smith
Published 08. 1. 02 at 21:56 Sierra Time
Adolf Hitler predicted, on a number of occasions, that his regime, the Third Reich, would endure for a thousand years. It lasted for just twelve, from 1933, when he was elected Reichschancellor, to 1945, when he poisoned his bride and blew his brains out -- or was it the other way around?
During those twelve years, Adolf and his Third Reich did plenty of damage. They executed ten or twelve million folks at home. They set off a worldwide war that murdered about sixty million more. They inspired quantum advances in the technology of killing appalling numbers of human beings in the shortest time possible, reversing the alphabet from Zyklon B to A-bomb, culminating in the annihilation of hundreds of thousands in an hour or an instant in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. They caused the United Nations to be created. Worst of all, their ultimate war crime, they made the United States government come to believe that it was, and ought to be, an elite world power and the Planetary Police.
One of the Third Reich's most recognizably totalitarian trademarks was the demand, "Your papers!", as issued by some morally-deficient cretin in a black trenchcoat, or merely being held erect by a stiff woolen uniform. Like almost every "civilized" country following the "progressive" turn of the 20th century (before the late 19th century, nobody had ever heard of a passport, and people were freer to "vote with their feet"), Germany required individuals to carry officially issued identification.
All of the expectable abuses followed, not just in Germany, and not just to Jewish people. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the government of Switzerland, idyllic, pastoral land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, and lederhosen, kidnapped Gypsy children -- how would they know without demanding, "Your papers!" -- bestowing them upon more genetically and socially respectable volk to bring up. Motherly Sweden rounded up and sterilized "undesirables" as late as the mid-1970s.
As an aside, I'd say that's reason enough, right there, for those Americans who still care about survival, let alone liberty, to demand the abolition of all forms of compulsory ID -- yes, including drivers' licenses -- rather than inventing new kinds of sorting systems for the sake of the New World Order, the War on Practically Everything, and the President's glorious new Department of Heimatsicherheitdienst. Any problems generated by nobody having any ID are vastly exceeded by the major inconvenience of someday being rounded up and shoved into a giant microwave oven provided by some corporation owned by one of W's pals.
Another famous trademark of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich was a way it had of encouraging "good Germans" to spy on one another, reporting each other to the secret police for behavior or perceived attitudes that were even slightly suspicious -- meaning un-Nazi in character. Their proudest achievement in this field was turning little children against their own parents, something William Bennett tried to emulate when he was the Drug Czar (a position that I have tried assiduously, but without success, to find any provision for in Article I, Section 8). So much for the conservatives' widely-advertised regard for the Constitution.
And now, not to be outdone by the Nazis' Gestapo, or by similar accomplishments by Stalin's Soviet Union, East Germany's Stasi, or Mao's China, Silverfoot Junior's orcish minions have a "Citizen's Corps" decreed, which would enlist Americans to rat each other out like good Germans. This is all being done in the name of the War on Practically Everything, which is actually a war to drive a pipeline through a nation that had to be destroyed to make it safe for Bush's petrocratic buddies.
If this administration were really sincere about apprehending the culprits responsible for what happened at the World Trade Center, then, following current WoE procedures, they'd have to arrest, and possibly torture, everyone who worked for the U.S. State Department from 1945 to September 11, 2001; it was policies they crafted and carried out that have made everybody else in the world hate us enough to try and kill us.
If this administration were sincere about preventing all future atrocities of this nature, then they'd abolish the State Department altogether, and bring everybody -- soldiers, sailors, airmen, diplomats, spies, everybody who works for the government -- home for good.
If they were sincere, then they'd make sure that the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right of every man, woman, and responsible child -- to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon, rifle, shotgun, handgun, machine-gun, anything, any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission -- remained sacred and inviolate, even -- or especially -- aboard commercial airliners.
It's said that in the Soviet Union, everyday human life became so hideously distorted by the police state that nobody ever spoke freely about anything, even to his or her spouse. Toward the end, it was said six Muscovites in ten were alcoholics. No wonder the Russians are having such a tough time recovering.
Perhaps they never will.
We Americans are now on a path toward the same kind of half-human existence, driven -- the shabby fact itself is enough to make you retch -- by a gang of mercantilist thugs and political shapeshifters whose goal is to get richer than they are now by pretending to fight a just and noble war, following a catastrophe that they brought upon us themselves. To do this, they require that we make "sacrifices" (as if we weren't doing plenty of that already, to keep them in limousines and caviar) of our basic rights today, and of any remnant of decent civilization tomorrow.
It's time to tell the bastards no. It's time to take America back and restore the Bill of Rights to its proper legal and political supremacy. That's the only genuine way to make the country safe from terrorism.
As a first step, I suggest an experiment. That's all it is. That's all the significance it has. It's just an experiment. Write to your congressthing today, and your senator, as well. Throw in some state legislators and a couple of judges. Tell him, her, or it that there will be no "Citizens' Corps" or anything even remotely like it, if he, she, or it plans to keep his, her, or its phony-baloney job. Make it clear that you're fed up, and that you're joining a new movement to vote for no incumbent until the Bill of Rights is stringently and energetically enforced and the government is back inside its cage, the Constitution.
Tell them you don't want George Busch's Reich to last another five minutes.
It's just an experiment. Let me know what happens. If you're afraid of what might happen, doesn't that prove it's time to do something?
Three-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 23 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collection of articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page".
Autographed copies may be had from the author at lneil@lneilsmith.com. ****** L. Neil Smith writes regular columns for The Libertarian Enterprise, Sierra Times, and for Rational Review.
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/08/02/lneilsmith.htmc 2002 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Democrats propose commission to keep anti-terror efforts from imperiling liberties.
By Adam Clymer
The New York Times
August 02, 2002
WASHINGTON -- Two senators, Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Edwards, D-N.C., said on Thursday that federal and state governments needed to set standards for how they used new surveillance techniques like video cameras and the monitoring of Internet use and called for a commission to propose such standards.
The senators, who do not yet have any Republican supporters for their idea, said that such surveillance techniques could threaten privacy if not used thoughtfully.
Their proposal is a measure of growing congressional concern about privacy. Just last Friday, the House voted to prohibit the proposed Department of Homeland Security from developing a national identity card and to block any government agency from using the proposed TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program of an organized corps of citizens reporting suspicious activities.
Republicans took the lead there, with Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, the majority leader, telling the House that not only a national identity card but also a federally authorized uniform driver's license with "unique identifiers of Social Security numbers" was "not consistent with a free society." Of the TIPS program, Armey said a system of reporting suspicious activities to the federal government was a threat to the freedom the House was there to defend by creating the new department.
In addition, the House Judiciary Committee is likely to approve in September a bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., which would require the federal government to issue a privacy impact statement, comparable to an environmental impact statement, that describes how new policies would affect individual privacy.
On Thursday Schumer focused on the use of surveillance cameras, saying: "We need to employ the latest technological tools in the war on terrorism, especially on our home soil. But in the process we should, we can, and we must protect privacy and liberty to the best extent possible. It is 2002, but if we're not careful, it will feel like 1984."
Edwards said that since Sept. 11, the FBI and local police departments "have increased experimentation with video and Internet surveillance, X-ray screening, * identification and other investigative tools." One he cited in particular was a telephone booth-sized X-ray scanner being used at the Orlando Airport that was "the equivalent of an electronic strip search, revealing the naked body along with any concealed weapons." He said a modest programming change could scramble images of body parts but still detect weapons.
Schumer said he hoped the Bush administration would come to support the commission idea, because it could save embarrassing retreats, like Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's announcement last week that the TIPS program would not, despite earlier indications, compile an electronic data base of telephone tips.
He said the commission should include advocates of civil liberties and also law enforcement officials, and not be drawn from the extremes of either camp.
http://www.indystar.com/article.php?privacy02.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
AP
Friday, August 02, 2002
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers serving on the House-Senate panel probing pre-Sept. 11 intelligence breakdowns have been asked to submit to lie-detector tests to learn the source of a leak, according to reports Friday.
"Lie-detector tests are a standard element of FBI investigations and they are meant to eliminate people from suspicion," an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They are always voluntary."
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said he refused to take the test and he's not alone.
"I don't know who among us would take a lie-detector test," said Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate panel. "First of all, they're not even admissible in court and second of all, the leadership (of both parties) have told us not to do that."
The FBI investigation into leaks about intelligence failures at the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency was requested by Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, after Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the panel for allowing sensitive information to leak out.
At issue were reports, which actually began appearing before the special committee was formed, about Arabic communications intercepts picked up by the NSA the day before the Sept. 11 attacks, but not translated until two days later. Those translations revealed messages such as "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said after the leak appeared in newspapers that the level of detail was "alarmingly specific" and undermined national security.
The FBI investigation has encompassed agents interviewing nearly all of the panel's 37 lawmakers as well as polygraph tests for some 60 employees of the NSA, CIA, Defense Department and Congress.
But according to The Washington Post, most of the members on the panel have refused to be polygraphed themselves, citing separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches as well as the unreliability of the exams.
The refusal marks a real turnaround from the days immediately following the investigation request, when Goss said that the members would "cooperate with the FBI in any way possible," even if it meant submitting to polygraphs.
One lawmaker described the tension that has evolved between Congress and the FBI since the investigation began.
"It's a very akward situation for the FBI and members of Congress, and again I think it's a little silly," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a member of the committee. "I've said before if you've got to go around and give your members of Congress polygraph tests, then we've got a more serious problem than just leaking sensitive information out. If we can't trust our nation's leadership with sensitive information, then we ought to go back and start all over again.
The Senate's top Republican expressed little sympathy for the members of the panel, however, and savored the irony of the lawmakers' predicament.
"I do think it's ironic that an investigation has been requested into this particular leak that you are referring to by the bipartisan leaders of the Ethics Committee. And then when the investigation goes forward, at the request of the committee themselves, then people start complaining about, 'Oh, my goodness, they're asking us questions,'" said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
The House-Senate panel is expected to finish its investigation into pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures before the end of the year. However, some lawmakers have discussed creating an independent commission to look at intelligence leaks.
The White House has opposed such a move, citing the leaks themselves as reason why an independent unit should not be organized.
Fox News' James Rosen and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59405,00.html
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