WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE 4TH AMENDMENT?

 

We The People have lost our minds.  We are all aware of the transgressions of the Government and specifically the NSA with regards to our reasonable expectations of privacy and our right to feel secure in our homes against unreasonable searches and seizures.  Recently, the Obama administration and the President himself announced sweeping reforms that were being proposed to stop the perceived violations of the peoples rights by the government. 

 

In a March 24th New York Times article entitled "Obama to Call for End to N.S.A.’s Bulk Data Collection" the following "changes" were proposed.

 

Under the proposal, they said, the N.S.A. would end its systematic collection of data about Americans’ calling habits. The bulk records would stay in the hands of phone companies, which would not be required to retain the data for any longer than they normally would. And the N.S.A. could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order.

 

Following my long career in Law Enforcement in the Military, I recalled being taught and having had to follow the requires set forth in the 4th Amendment to obtain a Search Warrant.  A Search Warrant is what law enforcement are required to have in order to search you, your possessions or chattels, and / or your car and home UNLESS under exigent circumstances waiting for the issuance of a warrant would cause the lass of evidence or life etc..

 



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia    

 

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. The Fourth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution. Congress submitted the amendment to the states on September 28, 1789. By December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had ratified it. On March 1, 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the amendment.

I am not a Rhodes Scholar nor am I the brightest bulb burning on the tree at all times, however, it seems clear to me that the Government's creation of a new kind of court order continues to circumvent the already functional and time tested method to obtain information and / or evidence.  I am all in favor of thwarting terrorist plots.  I am also in favor of stopping criminal plans before they are put fully into motion.  That said, I am still a simple country boy from the Midwest and I don't know crap from apple butter, but I do taste the difference when you spread them on bread and try to force feed them to me. 

The FISA Court is a farce.  It was created to circumvent the legal methods that were set in motion in 1792 to stop the Government from abusing its powers against "We The People".  At present, NSA is not required by the FISA Court or the Government and it's agents to show probable cause as outlined in the Bill of Rights to search your records.  They have a standing "LETTER" that orders the phone companies to turn over your calling history and other information simply because they want it.  They are doing the same with banking transactions and God only knows what else.  Yes, 9-11 was tragic and the loss of American and other lives on our soil was devastating but I had nothing to do with it.  I spent a lifetime in the Military supporting and defending the "Constitution of The United States against all enemies, Foreign AND Domestic."  I have worked in places that don't exist.  I have been entrusted with the security of persons and information that cannot to this day be discussed.  I am not a threat to the United States. 

I am a patriot.  I believe that those who can, MUST stand against injustices for those who themselves cannot or will not.  I believe that a government not kept in check will usurp all of the rights and freedoms its citizens have fought to secure and that if we do not exercise our rights and freedoms they will be forever lost to us.

A system exists that was specifically designed to establish procedures and protocols to ensure that the Government over "We The People" did not grow so big or so powerful that it could forget that it is "OF the People, BY the People and For the People".  As time and technology both advance, We The People need to be even more diligent in our efforts to ensure that Our government does not forget itself or our rights and freedoms.

Semper Vigilantes

 

ROMA "GODMOTHER" SENTENCED IN FLA

For one of the biggest stories effecting the Gypsy / Travel Crime Families, the media on the left coast has been decidedly quiet as Rose Marks, the "God-Mother" of the Marks Rom or clan was sentenced to just over 10 years for her part in the fortune telling fraud cases that she and her family orchestrated.  In addition, a great majority of her family plead guilty to lesser charges and the ironically, the Judge who presided over the case was not really sympathetic towards the victims. 

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra indicated that he found it difficult to understand how educated men and women could fall prey to the Marks Rom or family scams.  It is astounding to me that a Federal Judge could not wrap his head around the methods that Gypsies employ to take financial advantage of their victims.  It's simple, they listen.  They listen to what their prey relates and then mold their schemes specifically for each unsuspecting and God fearing subject and then they adapt their stories along the way as the plot of their victim's life unfolds.

They are master manipulators who are trained from birth to take up their roll in the family business.  Instead of attending pre-school and kindergarten, the Roma children are molded from the youngest of ages to listen intently to what their victims say and equally as importantly, to what they don't say and then they play into those needs, desires, weaknesses and all the while, embed themselves into every aspect of their target's life. 

They form an absolute co-dependent relationship where the victim eventually cannot make a single decision without first consulting their "spiritual advisor" and friend.  In many cases, the gypsy convinces their prey that they were related in a prior life and most importantly, they pray together.  They pray for divine intervention and that God will help them with whatever issue is at hand and then, the fortune teller simply tells the unsuspecting yet highly intelligent and highly functional victim that God spoke to them and told them that somehow, money would solve the problem.  That money of course has to be sacrificed or blessed in some way for the psychic to be able to help their "friend" and the con runs for as long as the victim has money and a willingness to part with it.

Once the prey wises up, they are either too embarrassed that they were so easily manipulated that they cannot or will not report the losses or they are intimidated into remaining silent.  Either way, with profits in the millions, the Rom is not going to let their livelihood go lightly.  The Prosecutors and Judicial Officers of the land need to get in-depth training on the methods of the Travelers and more importantly develop a willingness to understand that these are not victimless crimes.

When more gypsies begin to be successfully prosecuted, these crimes will at last begin to diminish.

See the underlying story here: 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/fl-psychic-rose-marks-sentenced-20140303,0,4722066,full.story

What the heck did President Obama say?

Last night I watched and listened to President Obama's 2014 State of the Union Address. 

Today, I found and read the transcript because I was plagued with a burning need to find out if what I thought I heard the President say is really what had been declared by him.  Here is the direct quote from the full transcript:

That's why, working with this Congress, I will reform our surveillance programs because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public confidence, here and abroad, that privacy of ordinary people is not being violated. (Applause.) And with the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay -- (applause) -- because we counter terrorism not just through intelligence and military action but by remaining true to our constitutional ideals and setting an example for the rest of the world.

I found this of particular interest and simply want to examine it briefly in light of the law suites against the government for the violations of our Constitutionally protected rights to reasonable expectations of privacy and against unwarranted searches and seizures, etc.. as written into the 4th Amendment (see blog below). 

So what the President said again was:

"That's why, working with this Congress, I will reform our surveillance programs because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public confidence, here and abroad, that privacy of ordinary people is not being violated. (Applause.) And with the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay -- (applause) -- because we counter terrorism not just through intelligence and military action but by remaining true to our constitutional ideals and setting an example for the rest of the world."

Just looking at that first portion, President Obama has said that there is nothing wrong with the surveillance programs currently spying on normal everyday Americans.  Citizens who have never even been a blip on the NSA's radar in the past and now, with no reasonable suspicion and absolutely no probable cause, the Government has devised a system through the FISA Court wherein they can obtain letters authorizing them to force private companies to turn over their information on completely innocent American's. 

If, as the President would have us believe, there is absolutely nothing illegal or immoral about these programs, why then would he have declared in his State of the Union Address:

"That's why, working with this Congress, I will reform our surveillance programs because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public confidence, here and abroad, that privacy of ordinary people is not being violated. (Applause.)"

If it was not broken, why on earth would he be working with Congress to reform it to ensure that the privacy of ordinary people is not being violated?

The President's closing portion of that train of thought was:

"And with the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay -- (applause) -- because we counter terrorism not just through intelligence and military action but by remaining true to our constitutional ideals and setting an example for the rest of the world."

If this president is truly concerned about remaining true to our constitutional ideals, why has he not suspended this program and demanded that the NSA, the FBI and the Government at large, "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" as sworn and immediately go back to obtaining warrants supported by probable cause to obtain the records of the citizens that the government is there to serve?

Remember that this is the same President who said that American's need to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy. 

Here is the applicable quote as taken from Huffington Post:

"I think the American people understand that there are some trade-offs involved," Obama said when questioned by reporters at a health care event in San Jose, Calif.

"It's important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," he said. "We're going to have to make some choices as a society. And what I can say is that in evaluating these programs, they make a difference in our capacity to anticipate and prevent possible terrorist activity."

Remember that when asked in open Court to give one single solitary example of this program ever having worked to identify and thwart a pending act of terrorism against the United States or it's citizens' the government was unable to do so. 

Since there is no quantifiable measure of success with this program and in that the President himself says that there must be reform to ensure that the "that privacy of ordinary people is not being violated." shouldn't this government admit that it crossed the lines and take every possible step to bring itself back in check "by remaining true to our constitutional ideals and setting an example for the rest of the world."

Semper Vigilantes

We the People vs. the NSA et al,

We The People vs The NSA, et al

For few of those who will read this will it come as a surprise that the Government of These United States is actively spying on its citizens.  Most of us have a basic understanding of The Fourth Amendment to The Constitution and that states:

Fourth Amendment

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 
In his speech given on January 17, 2014, President Obama stated:

"In fact, even the United States proved not to be immune to the abuse of surveillance. In the 1960s government spied on civil rights leaders and critics of the Vietnam War. And probably in response to these revelations, additional laws were established in the 1970s to ensure that our intelligence capabilities could not be misused against our citizens. In the long twilight struggle against communism, we had been reminded that the very liberties that we sought to preserve could not be sacrificed at the altar of national security."
 
President Obama continued by admitting the "supercomputers are sifting through the data and that there is a recognized potential for abuse": 

"Second, the combination of increased digital information and powerful supercomputers offers intelligence agencies the possibility of sifting through massive amounts of bulk data to identify patterns or pursue leads that may thwart impending threats. It’s a powerful tool. But the government collection and storage of such bulk data also creates a potential for abuse."

When addressing our professionals within the intelligence gathering community, President Obama clearly admits the vulnerabilities of the U.S. citizens reasonable expectations of privacy when he says:

"They’ve got electronic bank and medical records like everybody else. They have kids on Facebook and Instagram. And they know, more than most of us, the vulnerabilities to privacy that exist in a world where transactions are recorded and email and text and messages are stored and even our movements can increasingly be tracked through the GPS on our phones."

 The President then addresses the seriousness of the threats to privacy we suffer when he states:

"Moreover, we cannot unilaterally disarm our intelligence agencies. There is a reason why BlackBerrys and iPhones are not allowed in the White House Situation Room. "

The good President then legitimizes the fears that every citizen of These United States should recognize when he says:

"But all of us understand that the standards for government surveillance must be higher. Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us. We won’t abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power. It depends on the law to constrain those in power."

So now the President wants us to feel secure in the knowledge that He is taking the following "affirmative" steps to keep "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,..."  When he says"

"And today I can announce a series of concrete and substantial reforms that my administration intends to adopt administratively or will seek to codify with Congress.
  
First, I have approved a new presidential directive for our signals intelligence activities both at home and abroad. This guidance will strengthen executive branch oversight of our intelligence activities. It will ensure that we take into account our security requirements, but also our alliances, our trade and investment relationships, including the concerns of American companies, and our commitment to privacy and basic liberties. And we will review decisions about intelligence priorities and sensitive targets on an annual basis so that our actions are regularly scrutinized by my senior national security team."

So in one breath, The President warns us that "it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us.  We won't abuse the data we collect" then he says that "He" has granted "himself" by virtue or a new Presidential directive stronger "Executive Branch Oversight of our intelligence activities."  Isn't this truly the fox guarding the chicken coop?  The President is warning us not to trust the government that spied on dissidents in the past but to trust Him and his appointee's because they are somehow more trustworthy than their predecessors" 

"This brings me to the program that has generated the most controversy these past few months, the bulk collection of telephone records under Section 215. Let me repeat what I said when this story first broke. This program does not involve the content of phone calls or the names of people making calls. Instead, it provide a record of phone numbers and the times and length of calls, metadata that can be queried if and when we have a reasonable suspicion that a particular number is linked to a terrorist organization."

The same President who would have us believe that he and his cabinet are more trustworthy than those who have gone before then completely contradicts his own prior statements.  Remember earlier in this speech when the President said;  " digital information and powerful supercomputers offers intelligence agencies the possibility of sifting through massive amounts of bulk data to identify patterns or pursue leads" and we are to simply take his word for it that our individual data is secured while that sifting is taking place to locate potential threats to the United States? 

During the recent inquiries into this entire debacle, the Government was loathe to express one single solitary instance when this form of intelligence gathering and "sifting" had lead to the identity of one single instance where a terrorist plot had been identified and / or thwarted. 

We the People must stop following blindly a Government that admits that it sacrifices the rights and liberties provided us in the very Constitution in exchange for some alleged additional securities against terrorist threats, plots or attacks. 

Our forefathers would have been shot or hanged for treason had they been discovered while attempting to forge the lifeblood that has become this great nation.  They were willing to take the risks necessary to stand up against tyrants and injustices and We the People now more than even need to regain oversight of our Government, it's policies and it's actions.  If we do not begin to hold them accountable, who will?  At what point will we all wake up in an Orwellian state with no liberties or justices for any of us?

BOLO - Help Catch This Guy

I am asking for assistance in locating the guy who physically attacked a dear friend of mine in an elevator at a Santa Monica Office Building on July 11th, 2012.  This creep laid in wait in the lowest level of the parking garage and followed her into an elevator.  He wrapped a towel around her head and told her "Don't worry, this will all be over soon". 

This young lady fought off her attacker but he was able to get away.  I have real concerns that this guy has done this before and since he was willing to attack at 9:00 AM on a busy day for the office building, it may show that he is at an escalated point in his assaults.

Please review the Press Release from Santa Monica P.D. and forward this to everyone you know.  If you recognize this dirt bag, contact Sergeant Richard Lewis of the Santa Monica Police Department at (310) 458-8462 or myself at (866) 866-2268.

Dazed and Confused

As a Veteran of the United States Army and the father of an active duty Marine who recently returned from his second tour in Afghanistan, I am deeply bothered.

On Memorial Day, I was disappointed to see President Obama lay the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and instead of rendering the hand salute in honor and tribute to the fallen souls buried there, he placed his hand over his heart during the playing of taps. All the other Military personal present paid the proper respect by rendering the customary hand salute. 

I like so many others immediately imagined the debate that must have taken place when President Obama took office about should he or should he not salute.  I came to the conclusion that some political advisers more worldly and knowledgeable than I must have decided that the current President should refrain from rendering the hand salute because he had never served his country.  At that point I had appeased myself and although disappointed that those fallen heroes did not receive the proper respect earned, that the counter argument was that the President, although the current Commander in Chief, had not served and therefore should refrain from saluting as it might cause even more controversy.

I truly tried to dismiss this from my active thoughts but last night as I sat watching the news, I was shown footage of President Obama getting off of Marine One on several different occasions and each time, he rendered and received the Hand Salute of the Marines pulling security for him.  This was seriously a WTF moment for me.  I am not trying to influence a political agenda.  Personally I want to vote - No confidence but I do have to voice my disapproval of a President who on one hand will salute his active duty Marine Guards but on the other refuses to show the same level of respect for those who gave their lives to ensure his freedom.

I wish someone, anyone could explain to me why the sitting President of These United States would show such a blatant lack of respect for those who paid the ultimate price to win our freedom.

GAO WHERE ARE YOU NOW

America needs you Harry Truman.  Years ago your desk in the oval office proudly displayed the sign "THE BUCK STOPS HERE".  At that time, the general understanding of the sentiment was that YOU, the President of these United States were the ultimate in accountability and that with you, lay all credit and blame.

In recent years, it would seem that the sign still resides on the most powerful desk in the world but that the sentiment behind it has changed to reflect the end game of the political fund raising dollars into the private coffers and ventures of those who seek to hold that office.  PLEASE note that I have had this thought for way more years than the Democrats have held the White House.  This is not a Democrat or Republican issue this is a systemic issue allowing the tax payers dollars to bear the costs of the fund raising efforts of the incumbent President.

Last night George Clooney hosted a private gala at his residence where those who were able paid $40,000.00 per person for the honor of dining with the President and Mr. Clooney.  Look, I don't begrudge those who can, spending their dollars to have dinner with the most powerful man in the world.  It isn't my money.  I don't care that the money leaves the State of California while the State is on the brink of bankruptcy. 

What is really insulting to me is that the sitting President of the United States of America can use three aircraft, who knows how many Secret Service whore mongers, not to mention the local resources of a financially distressed State and City to raise some record 15 million dollars for his campaign and have NO obligation to off set the amount of tax dollars spent to "go begging". 

Some years ago, people were enraged and astounded when Air Force One wasted tax payer dollars sitting on the tarmac while Mr. President got his hair cut but no one questions that it takes Air Force One and two other Military Transport Aircraft to move the President's motorcade and support personnel with equipment.  That hotel rooms must be paid for, meals per diems, fuel for the aircraft, I would suppose that airport fees must be paid and the list goes on and on.  Why is it that the Pres is not required to have the Government Accounting Office look in to the costs of these trips which are truly personal and make the President repay those costs before pocketing the remainder of his new found fortunes?

What next?  Will "We The People" be asked to fund the costs of schlepping Presidential Hopefuls from fund raiser to fund raiser?  I reviewed the ballot initiatives to the best of my ability in the past several elections and I note the box to give one dollar to the Presidential Candidate remains but no where was I able to locate a box to be checked or a chad to be left hanging that says - spend my tax dollars on fund raising trips. 

Oh and for the record I think that when the good sitting President goes out to help local politicions win their races, they, the locals, shouldd have to pay for those same costs too. 

How many homeless could be housed or hungry could be fed with the amount of tax dollars that are being spent on campaign fund rasing junkets?