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Put a uniform on any American male or female and you immediately take away from them the protections afforded every non-military American under the Bill of Rights. It's no wonder that none of them—including four star Gen. Michael Hayden—knows what inherent rights American citizens possess, or what liberty they enjoy—ironically earned by the shed blood of those men in uniform who traded their own liberty for a code of ethics no one on the left would ever pay to make a nation free for someone else.

When the US Senate was preparing to confirm Gen. Hayden, Deputy Director of the National Intelligence as President George W. Bush's head the Central Intelligence Agency, the General agreed to be interviewed on MSNBC by journalist Jonathan Landay. It was a mistake on Hayden's part. In fact, the brief interview was, in itself scary. Why? Because if the heads of America's spook agencies don't know what rights the citizens of this nation constitutionally possess, how do they know when they cross the line and violate them? Or worse yet, how do we know? What is shocking is that this YouTube video, which clearly depicts Hayden's complete lack of knowledge about the 4th Amendment (which the Obama NSA and its Dept. of Justice are currently violating with total abandon), has been viewed only 54,440 times since it was posted on May 31, 2006—5 days after Hayden was confirmed as the head of the CIA.

Hayden was picked to head the NSA by President Bill Clinton in 1999. He held that job until 2005 when Bush-43 moved him over to the White House as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence, a job he held for a year before replacing Porter Goss who held the CIA Director's job.

In his MSNBC interview, anyone who heard his response to Landay's comment: "It's my understanding that the 4th Amendment to the Constitution," Landay said, "specifies you must have probable cause..." to violate the security of a citizen's home or property "...and do a search which does not violate an American's rights against unlawful search and seizure."

Hayden's problem began when he interrupted Landay, interjecting that "...the 4th Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable searches and seizures." To which Landay replied "...the measure is probable cause, I believe."

"The Amendment," Hayden replied, "says unreasonable search and seizure." Landay politely replied, "But does it not say probable cause?" To which Hayden insisted it did not, repeating that it protected the citizen from unreasonable search and seizure, leaving (one imagines) defining unreasonableness to the government who is doing all of the searching and seizing. Landay retorted that "...the legal standard is probable cause."

Hayden shrugged dismissively. This was not going to be one of the general's finer moments. "Just to be very clear," he said, "if there is any amendment to the Constitution that the employees at the National Security Agency are familiar with, its the 4th. And it is the 'reasonable' standard in the 4th Amendment..." At that point MSNBC cut the live speech and superimposed Landay's voice reading the 4th Amendment where what makes a search "reasonable" is probable cause. With probable cause—evidentiary logic which suggests the target of the search warrant likely participated in an illegal activity, warranting the search of his property for specific evidence to confirm his or her participation in a criminal or, at least, illegal activity.

The current NSA telecommunications probe to gather data on millions of land-line and cell phone telephone calls, text messages, and emails is based on Hayden's interpretation of "unreasonable search and seizure," since they are being done without probable cause. All of the NSA's datamining is unconstitutional and therefore, illegal. Gen. Keith Alexander, Obama's NSA Director's argument that until the NSA listens to the content of the phone calls they have datamined, they have not violated the 4th Amendment. In truth, they have because they did not have probable cause to capture over 300 million telephone calls, emails and text messages. Therefore, they could not legally do what they did—whether they read them or used them in any manner to attempt to incriminate the person making, or receiving the call. Without probable cause, they could not do what they did. And, any federal judge that says they could needs to be impeached and removed from the bench.

When Gen. Alexander testified for a second time before the House's Standing Committee on Intelligence on June 18, 2013, he lied when he told the Committee that PRISM, which spies on the American people, was limited in its scope and was both legal and necessary. He then insisted that PRISM had warded off 50 terrorist attacks since 2001. When he testified on the 18th, it seems that 40 of the 50 failed terrorist plots the NSA had warded off turned out to be, very likely imaginary plots in Europe. Which means that only ten of the "attempts" occurred in the United States. In reality, one of those thwarted attempts was stopped by information from the Brits. Others were uncovered by alert Americans. I've seen no evidence that any of them were thwarted by PRISM. Because, I don't think that's why PRISM exists.

PRISM, if it is being used as the government insists it's being used, is not a devise that will help the government foil plots before they happen. It appears to be a devise that will allow the intelligence community to follow the movement of suspects yesterday, or a week ago, a month ago and perhaps even a year ago, to solve crimes by using PRISM as the footprints of the suspect to backtrack what they did, whom they talked to, and where they went. Your electronic communications not only tell the government who you spoke with and what you said, but where you were when you said what you said. What PRISM won't do is let the intelligence community use the datastream to determine where the terrorist is going to be, or what a suspected terrorist is going to do tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. PRISM can't forecast the future. By its nature, PRISM is a travel log of the past.

That's what makes it important to the Obama Administration, which fears the American people. PRISM provides him with secretive, unconstitutional access to what those talking on their own telephones to close friends and family members are saying about their own fears of what Obama is up to, where this country is headed, and what the People can do to restore their Republic before it becomes Gulag America. And, if you think the most secretive occupier of the White House in the history of mankind isn't abusing the power of his office, you're wrong. The man can not only tell you what you ate for every meal you enjoyed over the last 90 days, someone in the NSA can tell you how much you paid for each of those meals. They can also likely tell you where you bought the food, and what program you watched on TV while you ate. George Orwell's "1984" has finally arrived in 2013—only 29 years late.

 

Just Say No
Copyright © 2009 Jon Christian Ryter.
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