An Open Letter to Pre. Obama Regarding His Administration's Blatant Violations of the Constitution

Mr. President,

Your administration has taken surveillance of American citizens farther than any administration to-date. And since the NSA is monitoring everything these days, particularly the postings of conservatives, I feel relatively certain that they will stumble across this posting.

I agree with a past leader of our country who was far wiser than you regarding the lengths to which you are going to "keep us safe:" 

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

James Madison

I am well aware that your predecessor set up a system whereby he thought he could skirt the Bill of Rights with impunity, a system your administration is now taking to lengths never before imagined. I am aware that it was the republicans who pushed through the so-called "patriot act," an act which you condemned as a senator, but of which you take full advantage today. I condemned your predecessor's and the republicans' attempts to skirt the Constitution, as I condemn yours today. I will state this plainly: an unConstitutional law is an illegal law. A law that purports to protect the Constitution by violating it is an illegal law. A law that infringes upon the rights explicitly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in the name of the Commerce, Necessary and Proper, or Sovereignty Clauses is an illegal law. That this is true is declared in the Supreme Court decision, United States v. Cruikshank, 1875:

"With regard to those acknowledged rights and privileges of the citizen, which form a part of his political inheritance derived from the mother country, and which were challenged and vindicated by centuries of stubborn resistance to arbitrary power, they belong to him as his birthright, and IT IS THE DUTY OF THE PARTICULAR STATE OF WHICH HE IS A CITIZEN TO PROTECT AND ENFORCE THEM, AND TO DO NAUGHT TO DEPRIVE HIM OF THEIR FULL ENJOYMENT. When any of these rights and privileges are secured in the constitution of the United States only by a declaration that the state or the United States shall not violate or abridge them, IT IS AT ONCE UNDERSTOOD THAT THEY ARE NOT CREATED OR CONFERRED BY THE CONSTITUTION, BUT THAT THE CONSTITUTION ONLY GUARANTIES THAT THEY SHALL NOT BE IMPAIRED BY THE STATE, OR THE UNITED STATES, AS THE CASE MAY BE." 

These attempts to circumvent the Constitution, to implement unConstitutional laws, must end now, and those who have promulgated these policies must be held accountable for breaking their oath of office, which requires them to defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. They have become what they profess to hate.