Continued Existence Of Fundamental Rights, FBI vs. APPLE – Part 3

By Roger J. Katz, Attoney at Law and Stephen L. D’Andrilli.
In this three part article, the Arbalest team examines what is truly at stake in the demand by the FBI that APPEL break is iPhone encryption.

Arbalest Quarrel
Arbalest Quarrel

New York, NY  -(Ammoland.com)- Americans should never for one moment doubt that Government will, if the public is not continually astute and vigilant, undermine the rights and liberties of the American people.

The federal Government is continually pressing the public to relinquish its rights and liberties for such security the federal Government says it can and will provide Americans in the alternative.

Americans have seen before where this has gone and they know where this is headed. Nothing good can come of it.

The federal Government wishes to know what Americans are thinking. It wishes to control Americans’ thoughts and will do so by gaining entry to their secrets in derogation of the Fourth Amendment, just as it seeks to control Americans’ speech, in derogation of the First Amendment, and as it intends to control Americans’ access to firearms, in derogation of the Second Amendment.

All of this is done under the guise of providing for the common defence of the Nation. But, the Nation suffers all the same as Government power increases commensurately with a decrease in the rights and liberties of the American people. What is occurring today in America is demonstrative of the founders’ greatest fear: that Government would turn on the people. As the doctrine of the separation of powers collapses, as the parameters of Government exercise of power extends, and as the rights and liberties of the American people continues to erode, the continued existence of our Nation as a free Republic begins to crumble.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats who play along with the carefully orchestrated charade and pretense of providing for the common defence of the Nation are not doing Americans a service. They should be protecting Americans rights and liberties. They are not. Instead, they are actively, insidiously, at work destroying those very rights and liberties, in defiance of and contemptuous of the oath of Office they have taken. They are a disgrace to this Nation and to its People.

The web blog, Salon, had an interesting point to make about Governmental lust for power, desire for control over the citizenry, and its attack on the Fourth Amendment, when it stated the other day:

“Security officials keep the public focus on the limits of surveillance rather than on its excesses; at the very same time, the frequent exposure of new surveillance capacities perversely functions to normalize those excesses. If widespread surveillance is ordinary, it cannot be shocking. Instead, the anomaly becomes whatever surveillance capability lies just beyond law enforcement’s capability or authorization.”

If Americans are to place their faith in something of value, that faith should rest first and foremost in the Bill of Rights.

Americans’ faith will be ill-spent if that faith is placed solely in institutions of Government; in the empty words of politicians; in the propaganda spouted through the mainstream media on behalf of Government and on behalf of groups bent on destroying the Bill of Rights; in the operations of Government intelligence agencies and federal police forces who claim to provide for the common defence of the Nation, at the expense of the rights and liberties of the American people. Government, after all, does not have a vested interest in preserving Americans’ rights and liberties. It never does.

The primary interest of our federal Government – indeed, of all central governments is acquisition of power for itself.

If the Bill of Rights is to remain tenable, if it is to exist as something more than a mere but empty expression of the sanctity of the individual, the public must be cognizant of the natural tension that exists between a strong central government and the rights and liberties of the citizenry. If the citizenry willingly accedes to the loss of their rights and liberties, what truly remains of the Nation? Security proffered by Government? But security – real security – of the Nation – for our Nation – truly rests in the rights and liberties of the people as codified and sanctified for the people by the founders of the Nation in our Bill of Rights.

If you are harboring any second thoughts about the sanctity of and importance of your Fourth Amendment privacy rights, or about the critical importance of the Bill of Rights to our Nation’s survival as a free Republic, generally, consider where the greater threat to your rights and liberties reside: Islamic terrorists threatening our shores or a central, federal Government that hungrily amasses for itself ever more power, ostensibly for our benefit if we would be ever so kind to allow the Bill of Rights to fall by the wayside?

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John

Excellent article.
All Americans should read it and heed it.