October 19, 2007
by Cliff Carson

"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."
--1st Amendment to the US Constitution

Redress:  To set right, remedy or rectify; To make amends to or for.  Satisfaction for wrong or injury; reparation.  Correction or reformation.

The question to be addressed in this commentary:  "Is the right to Redress still properly allowed in our Governing system, and how does this right of Redress get applied in today's political climate?"  And to be Moral keepers of our Constitution - do we, as a people, need to extend this Redress to all peoples of the world, if we should happen to cause a wrong to human beings not of our country?

Since Redress is guaranteed by the First Amendment to our constitution, then our Constitution is designed to correct and remedy those wrong things done to the innocent, either inadvertently or on purpose.  The Redress is provided to make right, so that the innocent will not suffer the consequences of illegal actions over which they had no control.  But, can we citizens of the United States still expect that our Government will recognize that right?  Since we have already lost many rights since 9/11, is this another that has gone away?  If Bush has his way, it will be long gone forever.  And, if we the people of the United States no longer are guaranteed this right, what should we think of our Government when it merely pretends to observe the Rule of Law? 

In American Government, the First Amendment means that any American citizen or any American organization must have an avenue for recovering from an unjust injury that has been visited upon them by intentional harmful actions of their Government.  I emphasize the word intentional because I am not advocating that courts be bogged down with spurious lawsuits.  What I am concerned about is the allowing of our Government to continue to violate laws just because they have the muscle to do so.  Notice I didn't say the Government had the right to violate laws.  I'm speaking of when Laws are intentionally violated for an agenda, a cover up, for corruption, or any of a myriad of nefarious reasons that are visited on us daily, not done within the constraints of our Rule Of Law.  

Over the past fifty years, the Constitution has been slowly eroded by Congress, by the Executive, and also by the Courts.  In nearly all of the transgressions, damage has been done to the average American Citizen, as a right lost, as a cost imposed, or as an obstacle to realizing the American dream.  The benefits of the lost rights and imposed costs have accrued to the "Elite" and those obstacles have been placed to protect "Elites" from justified Redress for the innocents.  Since the advent of the Bush Administration, this decay has exponentially accelerated.

The only Redress that the average citizen currently seems able to impose is the ability to cause change by the ballot.  But since the Republican and the Democrat Parties have colluded to restrict the successful participation of Independents, even this one remaining avenue of Redress is severely compromised.  And, as of late, those two parties seem to have further colluded to pass self-serving laws and edicts to increase their elitism. 

The upshot is that the Government is becoming more Dictatorial, more demanding of a surrender of rights, and more corrupt.  It is morphing into a Government for the Haves, and the average citizen is slowly sinking into Government imposed financial, political, and diminished rights servitude.  To correct this trend we need to restore all the rights addressed by the First Amendment, and especially the right of Public Redress.  If the guilty that cause the wrong are never forced to pay for their sins, there will never be any adverse consequences to discourage the perpetrators.

(Article Continues Below)

In August, Congress passed the Protect America Act as a refinement of the existing FISA law, and set the expiration of this new act to end in February 2008.  Whether intended or by accident, the Protect America Act was written such that it supersedes the FISA in some surveillance areas.  It allowed surveillance without a warrant - bringing many millions of Americans under the threat of spying on their conversations even if there was no indication that those to be listened in on had done anything wrong - or even if they were not suspected of any wrongdoing. 

That our Congressional representatives passed this monstrosity cannot be excused either as stupidity or misunderstanding.  In either case, the American public needs to rid themselves of this monkey on their back - I'm speaking of the current congress who voted for such an intrusion denying the right of Americans to be safe from unwarranted search and seizure.  However, even though this has happened, the First Amendment still, it would seem, gives the right to any American citizen who has been subjected to this violation of the First Amendment (that would be anybody who has been illegally spied on) to bring action against the Government.  This is what Bush is trying to stop.  

Currently, there is underway in Congress an effort to change the FISA/Protect America Act back to how it was before August; that no surveillance can legally be conducted without obtaining a court warrant.  In case of an emergency, the surveillance can be done prior to getting the warrant, and in such a case a warrant has to be obtained within a period of time after the fact.  This change allows Congress to be aware of what is going on because there will be a record of what and who has been the target of surveillance and gives Congress and the Courts an opportunity to exercise oversight of the activities of NSA, CIA, or whoever is doing the spying. 

This need was clearly demonstrated just recently when the public was made aware of illegal spying going on.  Spying that had been denied as occurring, by those who were claiming to be operating within the law, George Bush and Attorney General Gonzales.  Revealed was that some of the Media Communications companies were violating Customer Protection laws by supplying data to the spy agencies without benefit of warrants.  What is the White House saying about this proposed change and the fact that they were caught in a lie? 

Seems that Bush and his gang are demanding immunity for those companies that violated laws concerning protection of customer rights.  Already this Administration has demonstrated they know how to protect their own from Redress - witness the pardon of Libby.  All they had to do was obtain a warrant, even if it was after the fact.  But they chose not to, claiming in one instance, in the words of the violators, "they would have to spend 200 man-hours to obtain a warrant".  

For me, I believe it was so that there would not be a record of their transgressions.  Whether that is true or not, by their words, for the cost of 200 hours they chose to violate the law.  In other words Bush doesn't want the public to have Redress for a wrong that was committed against them.

Which goes to the point of this article.  Bush demands forgiveness for, "violation of laws that these companies have committed, and demands this forgiveness to be retroactively applied."  When asked the totality of and the specifics of laws they violated, Bush says "that is none of your business".  So what he is demanding is forgiveness of the abuse, without the public knowing what they have forgiven.  This is absurd.

What needs to be mandated by Congress is a "Guaranteed Redress Law", a law that would guarantee the ability of any citizen to sue any member of Government for unjust and harmful actions committed against them, just as the First Amendment provides this right, and this action needs to have a guarantee that trials will be held by random Jury, not Political hacks, and in this law needs to be a clause that prohibits a Pardon, by any official of Government either elected or appointed, for those public officials who have been convicted of violating any citizens First Amendment rights.  And yes there needs to be language in the law that allows for blocking of frivolous abuse of the ability to sue.   A Government bound by ethical, moral, and rights of redress will ultimately be a Government that tends to the rights of the citizen. 

Finally, this Redress law needs to be extended to apply (with conditions of course) so that actions by the United States, such as what has happened in Iraq, will allow Iraqis who have been harmed by a war begun thru lies and deception, to have Redress for the harm brought to them unjustly.  Actually this is on the books of International Law, and even though the United States vigorously pursues action against foreign Countries and their leaders for war crimes, and had Saddam hung for murdering 154 people, we at the same time make ourselves exempt from World Judgment. 

This behavior is the height of hypocrisy.  Many have died in Iraq, Americans, Iraqis, and other Nationalities, but the fact that over one million have died does not mean that the war is moral or just or that the words spoken by Bush to get the war going are true.  And neither does the fact that they were living under a murderous dictator, justify our killing of one million innocents.  I apply an Oscar Wilde quotation as an example of an extreme consequence arising from this type behavior.      

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
--Oscar Wilde

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Cliff Carson [send him email] is a freelance writer and Populist Party contributor.