The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that, "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." But there are forces in this country which are striving to undermine these constitutional protections.
This past Thursday the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that citizens have
no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes. Justice Steven David, writing for the court, said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason
or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry. See
here.
William Parker, in an article entitled "Your fourth amendment rights under attack by Obama, DOJ," writes:
There is no talk of 'the slippery slope' anymore, which so many people used as an argument against many policies enacted by the Bush administration. Yet,
now more than ever, it seems the slippery slope has given way to the sheer drop from the cliffs of sanity.
There are intentional actions already in progress to simply take from us the rights we have apparently taken for granted. The Dept. of Justice apparently believes that U.S. citizens do not enjoy a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with respect to cell phone use, and have been attempting to acquire the ability to simply demand user information from the cell phone companies without going through standard procedures to obtain a warrant for specific information on specific individuals for use in specific prosecutions. They are assaulting the fourth amendment
in yet another case, asserting that "email over 181 days old should not be protected from warrantless search and seizure."
Where is the outrage? These are not things that are occurring as a consequence of, or as a by-product of, some other action being taken for some otherwise lofty purpose. The government means to take these freedoms, piece by piece, with the hopes that nobody will care until it's too late." Full article
here.
In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II warned us that, "....totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another.
If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.." (No. 44).
Two years ago I argued that the United States was in
twilight. It would appear that the darkness is now falling swiftly.
And where is all of this leading?
Another chilling development noted
here.
