I AM MY BROTHERS KEEPER

I AM MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

 

I am one of the plaintiff's in the case regarding the government's blatant violations of the 4th Amendment Rights to Reasonable Expectation of Privacy within homes and possessions.  That case, Civil Action No. 1: 13-cv-00851 being heard in The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has been quietly progressing with little to no media attention because in part the press either does not wish to bring this matter to the forefront or they have been intimidated by the White House to remain as close to mute on the matter as is possible.

  

As I have noted in previous entries here, the Government's complete disregard for the 4th Amendment in it's data collection efforts is not only unprecedented by completely unconscionable. 

According to Wikipedia:

 

"The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted in response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, a type of general search warrant issued by the British government and a major source of tension in pre-Revolutionary America."

 

In his recent disclosure of how the President was going to fix the current NSA debacle, President Obama stated in a Speech at the Justice Department;

  

"Obama directed that from now on, the government must obtain a court order for each phone number it wants to query in its database of records"

 

Perhaps I am still just a dumb ol' country boy from small town USA, but it seems to me that the 4th Amendment was exceptionally clear in requiring the Government to obtain a Search Warrant issued by a Judge based upon Probable Cause before violating a citizen's reasonable expectation of privacy.

 

I am not a Constitutional Lawyer.  I do not profess to know all of the case law that has transpired over all the years with regards to the 4th or any other Amendment to the Bill of Rights, but I am positive that I have a clear understanding of the fears of our Founding Fathers when they determined that it was necessary to draft and ratify the 4th Amendment.  The entire purpose of the 4th Amendment was to limit the Government's ability to conduct unwarranted searches and seizures and to guarantee the citizen's reasonable expectation of privacy in their persons and possessions. 

 

For the Administration to so flagrantly disregard the intent of the 4th Amendment on such a broad scope as is being conducted under the veil of secrecy and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court without shining the light of day on their complete lack of probable cause to secretly gather, store, manipulate and farm your records and mine is the epitome of the violations our Founding Fathers set out to protect us from. 

 

Perhaps this all becomes a bit more clear when we evaluate the President's position of being "my brother's keeper". 

 

In his Easter address, President Obama stated:

 

"The common thread of humanity that connects us all – not just Christians and Jews, but Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs – is our shared commitment to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  To remember, I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper.  Whatever your faith, believer or nonbeliever, there’s no better time to rededicate ourselves to that universal mission." 

 

Most good God fearing folk were raised to know the story of Cain and Able as it is told in the Bible.  The Bible reports in Genesis 4:9  "Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"