LOVE the Constitution
I received Congressman Todd Platts’ recent newsletter where he says, and I quote, “H.R. 3773 would require intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant in order to conduct surveillance on a foreign terrorist “suspect” located outside the United States whenever the suspect may be communicating with “anyone” located inside the United States.” What the congressman is trying to let you know is that he would like to remove any barriers that might hamper the intelligence agencies ability to wiretap terrorists. What he is trying not to let you know is that he would allow the intelligence agencies to wiretap American citizens without a warrant even if they were talking to someone who turned out not to be a terrorist.
That is not what I want. But make no mistake, I want the intelligence agencies to wiretap every terrorist, and every terrorist suspect, and I even want them to wiretap every American citizen they want to. Just get a warrant for each and every American citizen they want to wiretap. The Congressman refers to the process of getting a warrant as “micromanagement”. We have term for that process, and it is not micromanagement. It is “checks and balances”, and it is the American way, it is the Constitutional way, and it is a good way. The Constitution expressly forbids any agency from having both the power to conduct surveillance and the power to decide who surveillance will be conducted against. It is the intentional design of the Constitution to prevent any branch of government from exerting unilateral power, but rather to force the branches of government to share power.
Congressman, I am not asking you to support and defend the Constitution. I am asking you to LOVE it. And if you don’t love the Constitution, I am asking you to get out. There are plenty of places in the world where all the power is held by a single body. If that is what you like then go there! Go be a Saudi Arabian or a Jordanian or a Pakistani. But if you stay I want you to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and I want you to do it because you LOVE it. In my America we love the Constitution more than our own lives, and that is what I want you to do.
Mark Williams
Seven Valleys
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