An Alarming Trend...

Recently I became aware of 2 articles that might surprise people with some of the content they have. One is the ACLU's article titled "What Seven Years Have Taught Us" and the other is from another blog and the article is "Investigation into Whether America Is Still a Constitutional Government."

Both of these articles are talking about essentially the same thing. We have been at War for 7+ years now due to the declared State of Emergency from the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01. This State of Emergency give the President powers almost akin to that of a dictator.

Some of the powers he gains are:

• seizure of property
• organize and control the means of production
• seizure of commodities
• assign military forces abroad
• institute martial law
• seize and control all transportation and communications
• regulate the operation of private enterprise
• restrict travel
• and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens

One might ask how that has any bearing on Sex Offender laws. With the ability to "institute martial law" and "regulate the operation of private enterprise," he can in effect, create a law that will stop Sex Offenders from going anywhere or getting any jobs.

One way this happens is by a tricky little piece of Legislation called a Suspension Calendar. You can find a decent deffinitioin of that on the ACLU site with the article "Congress-ese: A Suspension of…Rules." The suspension calendar is for mundain bills coming forth like the naming of post offices and whatnot. It was never meant for major bills like the Patriot Act or FISA or the AWA.

The other piece of the puzzle is the Unanimous Consent used in Legislation as well. Check it out at the ACLU site with the article called "The Golden Child of the Legislative Process." Unanimous Consent allows the Congress to take a "voice vote" which allows them to call out Yeah or Nay. This is not recorded, and there is no way to know which direction a Legislator voted (or even if someone else voted for them...)

Both of these were brought into precidence with the Patriot Act. It was used with the AWA and also FISA.

The President has allowed our country to be ruled by laws that don't work, and give the Government more power than the Constitution has set forth. This Declaration of a State of Emergency or Declaration of War has allowed the President to bypass the checks and balances system built into the Constitution.

I think that there should be a Committee of Legislators (from both houses) and from the Judiciary Branch to sit down and look at the state of affairs and decide if a Declaration of War/State of Emergency is still warranted.

The Constitution was set up to protect the citizens from the Government. Not allow the President total power over how the country is running by the simple Declaration of War/State of Emergency. This power has allowed precidence in the Judicial system to be set. Their hands are tied. They must follow the flow of things until there is a case braught before them that challenges the Constitutionality of this Power...