Yes, Virginia, there really was a Bill of Rights, a long time ago.

 Dear Uncle Sam:
 
Here you go, boxed up, tidily wrapped in festive wrapping paper, and touched off with a beautiful, shiny big red bow—I hand over my Rights as a US citizen, my Christmas gift to you.
 
I am a patriot. And a patriot, whose mind is aimed towards elevating their nation, observing the world and the state of humanity in an attempt to create a better nation,  should never walk a road blindly, but should inspect, dissect, criticize, and attempt to change—non-violently—the government decisions and actions that they deem questionable or unethical. 
 
I suppose I had a little more faith in the government—in the American people. Misplaced maybe, but the faith was there. Yet, what can we expect? After all, we've sat back for years, consumed with laziness, apathy, and some even with encouragement, allowing the government's inch by inch encroachment and seizure of our rights.  It started with profiling in the immediate days post 9/11, arrests and detentions of US citizens and foreign tourists alike, simply based on race, ethnicity, religion—actions accepted by a fear-blinded American society—actions that have steadily worsened, down to privacy-breaching searches, strip downs, illegal bugging and traces, etc.  Why shouldn't we expect the government to continue its onward momentum, moving now to violate, and even eliminate our most beloved civil rights—the right to free speech. I'm sorry, but I don't recall the Bill of Rights being neither implicit nor explicit in indicating that the First Amendment applied only to journalists. 


First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
 
Seems to me like the intelligent use of that nifty little conjunction "or" between the words speech and of the press is fairly indicative that our Founding Fathers meant the right to apply to both journalists and non-journalists alike.

The overzealous and blatant censorship, shutting down, blocking, black-listing, prohibiting, and threatening of major websites and/or organizations that were previously linked, supported, affiliated with or somehow encouraged the readership of Wikileaks is an outright, offensive and illegal rescinding of the First Amendment—where does the government get off thinking they have such a right. I was under no delusions that the United States of America was ever a true democracy, after all, we are the REPUBLIC of the United States of America, but when did we become a dictatorship?  Beware the rise of 1984's Big Brother.  Sure, they have the power to do it, but with power comes responsibility, and the government's responsibility is to us. OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, remember that? The government's responsibility is to protect our rights not to seize, freeze or eliminate them under the guise of protecting us. If you suspend liberties just to protect liberties, what is the point?
 
I understand tracking and and arresting the individuals who committed the actual crime of theft—of stealing the confidential documents that appear on Wikileaks. But trying to issue baseless arrest warrants, or create trumped up charges to bring a man into custody simply because he disclosed confidential material that was given to him—who's next?  Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters—you? me?  Most likely the latter—after all, we're not protected under the auspices of being journalists.  Apparently, according to the current Washington opinion,  the First Amendment protects them and them alone.  Our laws, our rights are not in place for the government to pick and choose to whom and when they apply. They themselves must be held accountable for them—and they are violating the Constitution.  Tell me something, why is it OK for police officers or lawyers to disclose unsolicited, confidential or privileged information that they received from undisclosed informants to a courtroom, to the public record in pursuit of a case—documents that had been stolen for them, although they themselves never asked that it be done—yet, when a simple citizen discloses unsolicited confidential or sensitive information that fell into his/her hands, they are hunted down and persecuted? Picking and choosing whom the Bill of Rights applies to, while hiding behind the Iron Curtain of National Security, cannot be tolerated.
 
It's come down to the old adage: If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.  Well, my friends, they've been marking out leagues.   You know, I'd love to go back to those September days of 1789, when the First Congress sat convened, locked in a single room in the sweltering heat and humidity of a nasty Philadelphia Indian summer, toiling away at a document that they dreamed would be the foundation of a great, just and lasting government. And I'd like to tell them, "Hey guys! Yo! Mr. Madison, put the quill down! No need to keep discussing, the document's just going to be invalid in a little over two hundred years, anyway. Let's all get out of this sauna and grab some chipped ice!"  Hey, current US government—ever stop to consider that the Constitution wouldn't have been ratified if NOT for the Bill of Rights? When stripping us our our rights and liberties, ever remember that the Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights because they thought the Constitution as it had been first drafted failed to protect the fundamentals of human liberty? That the Rights were essential to prevent tyranny from the central government?  Well, Washington and friends are rolling over in their graves right now.  And you should be ashamed of yourselves.
 
 
One final thought to close out my rant:
 
If the NRA can stand behind the literal text of the Second Amendment, allowing guns of all types into the hands of the average Joe, and falling back on the defense of the government's inability to tamper with the Constitution and rescind their rights, why can't we, as a whole society, stand behind the power of the First Amendment, that prevents censorship and protects the right to free speech- for ALL US citizens and foreign visitors on our soil, not just the lucky ones holding a press badge?


Your's most sincerely,


Very Concerned Citizen: Ami Lovelace 

For more information about The Bill of Rights:
visit http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/char...  
Or, hell, go to your local library, find a few books, an encyclopedia, and leaf through those—might be less of a chance of them being censored, you know, before they're banned or burnt.
 
For more information about the current status of Rights infringement by the US Government visit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
or just google: Wikileaks news, New York times

Content Copyright 2010. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.