Trust of the Citizens:

Over the past several decades the American public at large has in my opinion been abused. These abusers vary as to motivation but most are driven by the baser instincts of a desire for money and power. Were I to describe the “dark force” alluded to in the Star Wars Trilogy I think most would agree that greed for power and greed for money are what drove that “dark force”.

The founders of America studied this problem and pondered a series of changes that could be made to the “contract of governance” between the people and the people that govern. We call that The Constitution of the United States of America. In fact we thought so highly of this document in the early days of our republic that the American Navy named its chief warship after this document. But back then America’s leaders were less egomaniacal.

Perhaps I am simply growing old and my eye sight is diminished but it seems to me that these dark forces have begun to control the decision makers in America. Where once a man was considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt many criminal charges made today in the 21th century are greeted by the press and public as proven without necessity of trial. We have seen that the chief executive officer of the country lied about the reasons for a war that has cost thousands upon thousands of lives and billions upon billions of dollars. Yet with all that expenditure of wealth and power America cannot keep the shipping lanes around the Horn of Africa free of pirates.

The right to privacy has become so abridged that one can safely say that a citizen’s privacy no longer exists. Indeed here the Patriot Act was specifically crafted to prevent citizens from bring suit on the grounds of invasion of privacy. I watched the following U-Tube presentation Tapping Your Cell Phone. Maybe you, my readers, can see why I am alarmed. If you are part of Home Land Security you can do such eves dropping without a specific warrant to do so.

There is nothing wrong with technology. I do worry that any new technology will erode liberties of the American citizen at large in the interest of a security that is largely nonexistent. Ben Franklin’s warning rings in my ears: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”