Rand Paul’s Secret Briefing Reveal’s Terrifying Fact You Need To Hear
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By Andrew P. Napolitano (LewRockwell | Original Link)
Gazillions. That’s the number of times the federal government has spied on Americans since 9/11 through the use of drones, legal search warrants, illegal search warrants, federal agent-written search warrants and just plain government spying. This is according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who, when he asked the government to tell him what it was doing to violate our privacy, was given a classified briefing. The senator – one of just a few in the U.S. Senate who believes that the Constitution means what it says – was required by federal law to agree not to reveal what spies and bureaucrats told him during the briefing.
The rules for classified briefings of members of Congress on areas of government behavior that the government wants to keep from its employers – the American people – are a real Catch-22. Those rules allow representatives and senators to interrogate government officials about government behavior that they are afraid to reveal, and they require those officials to answer honestly and completely. But the rules keep the interrogations secret, and they expressly prohibit members of Congress from telling anyone what they have learned.
So Paul and his colleagues who joined in the secret briefing now know the terrible truth about the government watching us, but they cannot reveal what they know. Paul – who is the son of Rep. Ron Paul, the greatest congressional defender of limited government in our era – when asked what he learned at these secret briefings and aware that he could be prosecuted for telling the truth, chose a fictitious word to describe the vast number of violations of privacy at the hands of federal agents: gazillions. Paul’s personal courage in using a word like gazillions to convey an oblique message of truth in the face of an unjust law that commanded his silence reminded me of St. Thomas More’s silence in the face of an unjust law that commanded his assent to the king’s headship of the church.
The feds are no happier with the senator’s personal courage than the king was with St. Thomas More’s, but there is not much they can do about it. If you check out your dog-eared dictionary, you will find that if it is listed at all, it gets a mention as slang. Yet most of us hearing or seeing that word understand it to mean some huge – perhaps even incalculable – number.
The point here is terrifying. If the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, how can it do things to us to which we have not consented? And when it does these things – like send a drone over your back yard to learn who is coming to your Saturday barbeque or to see what fertilizer you are using in your vegetable garden or to take a peek into your living room or bedroom – and when the laws the government has written prevent our elected representatives from telling us what it is doing, we are at the doorsteps of tyranny. The government gave Paul the distinct impression that it was afraid of our exercise of our personal freedoms, and thus it needs to watch us as we do so. This is the same government whose stated principal purpose is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and thus personal freedom.
What has become of the Jeffersonian value of the primacy of the individual over the government in a free society? How have we lost the American value that the government works for us, and we don’t work for the government? What remains of the constitutionally guaranteed right to be left alone?
The answer to these questions goes to the nature of human freedom and personal courage. Freedom lies in our hearts, but to survive, it must do more than just lie there. Its essence is the exercise of unfettered choices, and the unfettered choices we make address our perpetual yearning for truth. This is a natural process that – just like the muscles in our bodies – will atrophy if unused.
So, when the government scares us into the disuse of freedom, we have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother comes calling. And when he does come, on his face there will be no smile.
Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written six books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.
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1:40 pm
"Reveal's"?????
That headline looks really stupid.
Why don't you hire me as a part-time editor? I could save you from crap like this.
7:02 pm
Spelling and grammar don't seem to matter at all in our "educated" and "enlightened" 21st century.
1:54 pm
Uhh, proudgrampa or should it be grandpa? The word "Reveal's" indicates a usage of "does reveal" as in the present tense of reveal. All the best in your quest to be a part time editor. Best Regards, CanadaNorth
2:08 pm
Funny—— when the original Patriot Act was voted on only one senator out of 100 stood up and voted against it. In the the next election the so called Tea Party Patriots from Wisconsin rallied around the the republicon and voted that senator out. Patriots my a**.
2:24 pm
If WE THE PEOPLE had more in government like Rand Paul then it might not be the most crooked corrupt government in existence, with the worst illegal alien Marxist Muslim "Manchurian Candidate" "President" ever tp falsely occupy the POTUS !!!! This congress is the most BLATENT group of illuminati, Elite SOCK PUPPETS to ever accept bribes & payments From the Tri-Lateral Commission in history !!! WE THE PEOPLE desperately need to pass the TWENTY EIGHTH AMENDMENT and then start investigations and prosecutions of both those in congress, the Presidency and the Elites controlling them !!!
2:30 pm
Why doesn't someone in congress start impeachment proceedings against our phony president? We deserve to have him thrown in jail.
2:54 pm
Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state warned George Washinton. That the president, after taking an oath of office, was violating the constitution, on us bank act, 1791. United States by the definition of the word in the constitution, is a state, See article 1, Section 10, article 2, section 3, plus, they have had a secretary of STATE from the beginning, Thus gold and silver are the lawful money for paying debts. However, George Washington also had his supreme court justice, John Jay, make the Treaty of Amity Commerce and a navigation with the British in 1794, to subvert the courts and the federal system to the British as long as there is a fiat bank. That is the reason for our wars thereafter. The American Revolution continues, and we are not allowed to call them ALIEN. At common law, 7th amendment, is scripture, defined, by John Winthrop, 1644, Mass. colony, controversy with British, Arbitrary Government defined. treaty of Paris, article 4, and 5, allow us to lawfully to appeal to the CREATOR, YAHOWAH, and his only begotten son, YAHOSHUA, written in paleo Hebrew. See phocian alphabet, on google search.
4:53 pm
The consent to monitor communications, as a response to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was overwhelminigly approved by Congress during the Bush Administration, and has continued on through the present administration. We are going to shortly have the US military monitor for any cyber attacks on our infrastructure. This is not a partisan situation, but whether the US Constitution does protect US citizens from "unreasonable searches" and "to be sure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" without a warrant describing the "persons or things" to seized. The wholesale monitoring of communications is clearly unwarranted, but given how the FISA court is so liberal in designating what is "reasonable", do we have a choice? I doubt that this will be any better whether we have a Republican or Democratic Administration in 2013.
8:26 am
We now have a Smart Meter from our electric company on the side of our house. The Smart Meter is heavily funded by borrowed (printed) money from our federal government, which is flat broke, and so deep in debt that it is pathetic. This device is a way for them to spy on us right in our homes. How? The analog meter we have had for all these years, told the power company how much electricity we used for the month, so they could bill us for the amount we used. But , the Smart Meter monitors your electric use in real time by the minute and sends that info wirelessly in real time to the power company. That means that they can know all kinds of things about your daily routine, when you get up in the morning, when you are doing laundry, when you are home, or when you are at work or away for longer periods of time, such as on vacation, all the way through the day up to knowing when you turn off your TV at night. This is Big Brother right in your home. Where is the uprising about this? The truth is, most Americans have never heard of a Smart Meter and have no idea what it is capable of. A small hand full of people are paying attention to what is going on, and fighting against this terrible intrusion on the privacy we once had inside our own home – the only real private place we had. The USA is quickly becoming a police state. It is unreal to me, that anyone would allow things like the Progressive Auto Insurance snap shot. Doesn't my great driving record count for anything? I have to let them spy on me for a certain amount of time to get a better price. Call me old fashioned, but screw that. I value my privacy. I have also refused the Smart Meter, and I am the only one in my building that does not have one. Stand up for Freedom and Privacy or you are going to lose it. Get rid of obama before we have complete Socialism.
2:40 pm
We also have Smart Meters here in UK. Most, if not all, that has been written about the intrusion of your government applies here in UK as well! Like you Rick, I told them (politely!) what they could do with their Smart Meter! But how long before they become compulsory both here and in the USA?
8:29 am
I agree grampa, not much in the way of revelation… However, goverment has become overwhelming. In no way do I approve of this much surveillance. They watch every single move we make, but can't stop illegals running our borders or overstaying VISAs. Not counting all the hostile permanently poor people that are imported in the millions every single year, LEGALLY. We don't want this, does it matter? They pretend that they are fighting a war on drugs, yet they can't see them being moved into our country even with all this monitoring of our every move. They feel free to spend 110,000,000 of our dollars on YEMEN. That's just the latest I've heard. We can't stop them from bailing out the banks and all the rest with our tax dollars. They write freedom stealing laws and force us to follow them. Seems the main purpose of government is to dream up new ways to steal our earnings from us, instead of preserve our freedom.