FISA Amendments Act be Damned!!

The fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America reads as follows:

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.

Now, good reader, if you please, follow this link and in that excellent article read the details of the FISA Amendments Act. I knew about the telecom facet of the legislation but had no idea as to the potentially radical changes in privacy law that the Act otherwise contains.

This right to privacy, so well stated in our Bill of Rights, is under direct attack by the Bush administration. I find this exceptionally strange, even hypocritical, as the Bush administration suffers few, if any, breaches of its privacy though its business is purportedly that of the people it governs.

The NeoCons like to play the fear card, conjuring up images of Bin Laden and black hooded terrorists in an attempt to justify their power grabs. They cry," We cannot let them win." Well, the terrorists will most certainly win if the Land of the Free becomes the Land of the Gilded Cages.

A law abiding citizen of the USA should not have to suffer unwarranted searches at any time. The original FISA bill allowed for unwarranted searches in extraordinary circumstances but even then the searching organization had three days to get a FISA judge to approve the search.

But this was not enough. An administration that demands accountability in our schools through such short sighted and impractical legislation as No Child Left Behind wishes to go even farther than the original FISA in an attempt to avoid being held accountable itself.

The FISA Amendmenta Act is wrong, it is unAmerican, it is unConstitutional, and I shall attempt to prevent its passage by every legal means at my disposal.