USA citizens have been treated to a barrage of stories over the past eight months or so which should at least give them pause, if not outright "make them think long and hard." It would help if our popular media spent more time analyzing these issues in greater depth. But they don't - being far more interested in wasting our time with massive coverage of the recent record cold and snowfall of the past week or so. [BTW, that type of coverage is by design, so as to dumb-down the population as much as possible.]
Some USAers aren't bothered by a secret court giving blanket permission for the NSA to track our phone calls in the name of fighting terrorists. We are assured that the content of our calls isn't monitored, just the numbers of those we are calling. Frankly? I don't believe for a moment that the NSA isn't monitoring content, simply because I don't trust the lying bastards. I favor a complete dismantling of the NSA metadata collection program for two very good reasons: It's a huge waste of taxpayer money; and if you want to discourage terrorists, stop giving them reasons to hate us. That is, pull out of Afghanistan and stop all of the drone attacks in places like Yemen and Somalia.
While surfing the internet, I came across this quote from the Wikipedia article on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC):
"In 2013, a top-secret order issued by the court was leaked to the media by Edward Snowden. It required a subsidiary of Verizon to provide a daily, ongoing feed of all call detail records – including those for domestic calls – to the NSA."
It's hard to believe that Verizon likes to feel that it's nothing more than a subsidiary of the NSA.
It's hard to believe this secret court, which can issue top-secret orders after having heard arguments by government attorneys (opposing counsel is not allowed) has been in business for over 30 years. It's also hard to believe that all of the judges of this court are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That last part in particular bothered me, so I looked up Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution, which reads:
QUOTE:
He [the President] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
:UNQUOTE.
As I read Article II, Section 2, I thought of the Supreme Court's Chief Justice John Roberts who appointed all 11 of the currently sitting judges of the FISC. In doing so, the advice and consent of the Senate was not sought. And Congress did not have the power, according to the last 32 words of Art II, Sec 2, to allow Roberts to do this. Congress could have "vest[ed] the appointment" of FISC judges "in the President alone" - but it didn't (I emphasize the word "alone"). And Roberts is not among the "heads of departments," since SCOTUS isn't a "department." As for "in the courts of law," maybe FISC judges should have been appointed by a majority of SCOTUS judges instead of just one man acting "alone." That would have been more in the spirit of Art II, Sec 2.
But since that spirit had been ignored, I have no choice but to call the appointment provision unconstitutional. Art II, Sec 2 calls for ambassadors to be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. How can the appointment of the ambassador to Malta be considered worthy of the Senate's consideration and not the appointment of a FISC judge? I suspect the same kind of thinking was at work here as was at work when Congress delegated (read: abdicated) its power to declare war by giving it to the President in order to invade Iraq if he deemed that should be done.
This is a big problem: Those who have power (especially in the Executive Branch) seek to grab more. An even bigger problem: Those responsible for such grabs are not really very moral or ethical people. And that leads me to conclude: In order to truly protect our freedoms and the rule of law, we simply need to elect a better class of people as legislators. And to do that, we need to become better people - that is, better than sheep who are easily misled and who permit others to do their thinking for them.
We no longer have the luxury. But I despair because too many of us would rather hear endless reports about record cold and snow, or would rather gawk at the latest YouTube cat videos. I can see how we've come to this, since a lot of people have come to the conclusion that we can't do anything to change the system. Especially, there's no way to break the Democratic/GOP monopoly and elect only independents to office.
But there is a way, and it's cheap and easy. And this link reveals that way:
http://ind4prez2012.blogspot.com/2013/10/independents-its-time-to-seize-primaries.html
I consider this link to be one of the most important I've written. I hope you circulate this link and today's post to as many of your friends as possible. We've got to get people to start talking about more than just how cold and snowy it is. And to take action which is very easily taken. Or else we'll all truly be left out in the cold.
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Steven Searle, former candidate for US President (in 2008 and 2012) and
Founder of the Independent Contractors' Party
Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com
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