Speech for TRC meeting
Waxahachie, Texas
Written and presented by: David C. Hunnicutt on Federal Matters and Concerns
Senate Bill 2248 (FISA AMENDMENT)
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. To reiterate what my friends have stated; I’d like to thank you all for your attendance at this evening, and for honoring us with an audience.
Benjamin Franklin once stated: “Those who surrender their liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security.”
My concerns this evening focus around the recent legislative enactment known as the FISA Amendments act or compromise. FISA, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was first introduced and enacted some 30 years ago, mandated and successfully restrained governmental agencies abilities to wiretap or electronically surveil persons or entities without warrant. It set up a system of summary courts through which any law enforcement or intelligence agency was required to appear before and acquire a warrant for a specific purpose, though sometimes granted after the fact. It served as an oversight; inasmuch as, if an interception of information was deemed unlawfully obtained, it would be thrown out and not admissible as evidence in a court of law.
The FOURTH Amendment clearly states: 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 and/or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Our lawmakers are now justifying their overwhelming support and votes for making major changes to that proven regime by saying that the bill was a “reasonable compromise” that updated FISA technologically and would make it somewhat harder to spy on Americans abroad. However, that does not mitigate nor even address the bill’s greatest danger. It makes it much easier to spy on Americans at home, reduces the courts’ powers and grants immunity to corporations that turn over Americans’ private communications without a warrant. It classifies “voice mail” as not private, but characterizes it as simple recorded data within the public domain. And remember, every time you make a call to an out-sourced company (like a credit card or a mortgage company) you are connected to an out of the country line … thus increasing the likelihood of NSA monitoring.
It allows non-specific governmental and law enforcement agencies to bypass the FISA court and collect large amounts of Americans’ communications without a warrant simply by declaring that it is doing so for reasons of national security and defines “National Security” so broadly that the term could mean almost anything a president declares it to mean or the Director of Homeland Security under the Continuity of Government Act. That however is another story to be covered at a later meeting.
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Since 9/11, we all are aware of the essentiality of tighter scrutiny of those who seek to do us harm, yet in the wrong hands, the unbridled wording of this compromise act (which seems to focus not as much on terrorists as on Americans) could potentially strike a very damaging blow to our liberties. Our founders warned us of many eventualities when faced with threats from within and without …Thomas Jefferson warned us to adhere strictly to the Constitution in time of war as the executive branch will be tempted to garner to much power, upsetting the checks and balances built into the Constitution. And so it is…without our knowledge, we have become less free then ever in the history of the United States. Less free then BEFORE the American Revolution.
Thomas Payne said that: “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” I believe that RADICAL Islam is at war with us, though Congress has yet to formally declare such … thus I am concerned when I read an enactment of legislative amendments which cuts the vital “foreign power” provision and fails to mention counter terrorism anywhere in it’s 116 pages of rhetoric.
The 4th Amendments requirements of specificities and probable cause have been replaced with “on the grounds of suspicion”. The purpose of warrantless eavesdropping could be as vague as listening to all calls to a particular area code in any country including our own. It’s scope covers all written, voice and data communications, emails, electronic transfer of funds, Internet purchases, US postal service parcels and communiqués, cellular and landline telephone conversations, and pretty much anything short of the pony express! I was not able to locate any language in the bill that provided for intercepting riders on horseback!
As is made crystal clear in the Constitution, neither the Executive nor the Legislative Branches of our government may legislate away the Constitution. Creating loopholes in the bill of rights is not a compromise; it is a complete failure of valid leadership. I can find but one compromise in this litany of obscurity … that compromise is our rights under the 4th Amendment. Recently, as the news medias focused on the Supreme Court’s 5/4 decision to affirm our right to keep and bear arms, little attention was paid to the fact that at the same time, our Constitution was stealthily being attacked in a manner which seems to endanger both our 4th and 1st amendment rights. How is it possible to assemble and speak freely all the while knowing that the assembly, be it in a church, a rotary club, a luncheon or wherever, is quite possibly under surveillance?
There seems to be a battle brewing; not one between conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, nor is it merely a war between Islam and the West, it is a battle for our very Liberties … This war will not be won by partisan politics or by our armed forces overseas. This war will be won by Americans standing together to hold responsible those who are culpable for the usurpations of our unalienable rights, removing them from our elected offices and replacing them not with new self serving professional politicians, but with statesmen willing to carry the voice of the people to the Halls of Congress so that we may be heard and no longer ignored.
The Declaration of Independence says "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
WE as Americans must stand up and speak out to protect ourselves from what may well be the enemy within.
We need to stop labeling ourselves or others by Partisan division, by religious preference, social standing, or national origin … we need to stop the internal bickering and endless blame game and recognize that we share a common cause … to take back those individual rights granted by God and the Constitution of these United States, and we remind those who would usurp our Constitution that the price they will pay for not paying attention to what they vote for, sign, and enact into law will not be the sacrifice of our liberties …
Thomas Paine stated; “It is the duty of a patriot to protect his country from its’ government”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, those elected offices and the persons who fill them are ours, we do not belong to them as serfs to royalty; they belong to us, and if we fail to actively and collectively reclaim and restore our Constitution (which I believe is higher on the endangered list than the polar bear), repair the damage done by a few unjust and undeserving elected officials … then I ask you, how will we explain to those who may one day ask us; “You all saw it coming, why did you not take action?”
David C. Hunnicutt
Founder, Texas Republicans’ Club
