ATTACKS ON BILL OF RIGHTS IMPERIL FREEDOM

Freedom in this country will not end because of a national emergency or a
deranged political leader.

Freedom will end when the last vestiges of our Bill of Rights are shredded
in the name of a war on crime or a war on drugs or some other war waged by
government to justify the destruction of the Fourth Amendment and the
expansion of the power of the police to intrude into our lives. Our freedom
will end when we are no longer shielded or protected from the police.

The Jan. 6 letter Fourth Amendment shouldn't shield armed criminals is a
tragic reminder of the scope of the damage that has been wrought against
the fundamental freedoms and protections that form the basis of our
existence as a nation.

The gist of the letter was this: Honest and law-abiding citizens have
nothing to fear from an encounter with police. After all, Great Britain has
no "Fourth Amendment" protection from unreasonable searches and seizures --
why should we? Why do we need the Fourth Amendment? Or the Fifth? Or the
Sixth? After all, we've got freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
freedom of religion, etc. Why do we care whether or not the police stop and
search us any time they choose?

If we've done nothing wrong, if we've got nothing to hide, what's the problem?

We have nothing to fear from our own government, do we?

Yeah, we do. The founding fathers knew a little something about the need
for restraints on government. They also knew a little something about the
abuses of power routinely engaged in by an unrestrained government. They
knew that the concepts of freedom embodied in the Bill of Rights could not
survive without the enumerated restraints on the government's power to
intrude on the lives of the citizens.

One of the problems some people have with freedom is the fact that freedom
includes the right to engage in conduct we don't want the government to
know about, to intrude upon, to meddle in or to go rooting around in.
Freedom will cease to exist the moment the Fourth Amendment no longer
protects us from such unwarranted intrusions by the government. Why?
Because unbridled government intrusion into our lives would provoke a
"prior restraint" on every activity in our lives.

The erosion of the Fourth Amendment is one of the greatest dangers of the
last 50 years.

The founding fathers were right.

The greatest threat to our nation is not freedom -- it is the willingness
of the citizenry to permit government to strip away the protections of the
Bill of Rights. -- Greg Daniel, Clearwater